Stranger Danger

Being booklovers, no pregnancy would be complete without stopping by and dropping a big chunk of change on a few pregnancy books. Having worked at B&N for many years, I’m very familiar with the selection they have. There are the books for “girly” girls, there are books for the hipster mom, “Dummies”, bellies, daddies, two mommies, two daddies, twins, names, and anything else pregnancy related that you can think of. It’s a little overwhelming, really. Then you look down and there’s the shelf devoted to the not so nice part of pregnancy – the miscarriages, the post-partum depression, etc. It’s enough to send anyone into a hysteria of worry about what’s coming up.

So, instead of forcing myself to look through the hundreds of books that I don’t really need or want, I decided to do what every other mother out there does and picked up the most updated version of the “What to Expect...” book. Now, I’ve never been particularly well-versed in parenting literature (I’m more of a fiction person), but as stereotypical as the WTE books are, they actually appear to be pretty good. They’ve got a guide on when you’re expecting, the first year, with a toddler, what to eat, a journal and organizer, and even one fo before you’re even expecting. They have it covered when it comes to all things to do with childbirth, so they have to be pretty good, right? Paul opted for one of the 2-3 titles for expectant daddies, and we were on our way.

Upon visiting the checkout, we came up with our books. Having not told many people, it’s a little embarrassing that now some stranger knows our secret. It’s like they know you’re biggest innermost secret... I sort of felt like we were buying books from the "naughty" section. I was sort of hoping he'd just put the books in the bag and we could be on our way. Well, this guy happened to be particularly chatty and brought it up right away. In fact, he decided that we needed to know all about his sister who decided to have a home water birth. He went into all the details about the kiddy pool in the living room and the fact that it’s a pretty gross thing (I won’t go into the details). Can we say OVER-SHARE???!!! This is not something I really need to know about yet, dude, and certainly not from a complete stranger!

This really is one of the things about being pregnant that I’m not particularly excited about, the strangers who suddenly think they know you. If you’ve not met me before, please don’t give me advice, please don’t tell me your horror stories about pregnancy, and whatever you do - don't you DARE touch my belly. I don’t really need to know about the 40 hours of labor that someone went through and how they almost died. I’m well aware of the risks of pregnancy and all of the things that go wrong, and I choose instead to focus on the positive! This doesn’t mean I won’t plan for these things or mentally prepare myself for the fact that ANYTHING could happen, but I really am not in the mood to hear about it from a stranger. Yes, it’s nice to have advice, but I’ll go ahead and ask my mom, my nurse aunts, my doctor, the teacher of my parenting class or the many other people in my life who I’d rather hear about it from. Maybe I’m just being cranky about it, but that’s the way I feel. Live with it.

Anyway, enough from my soapbox. I’m all set with my books – off to start reading about the next 9 months!