This afternoon I got a good laugh. I mean a really good laugh. It was from one of my former college friends. A few days ago, she gave birth to her first child...joyous,joyous occassion. This afternoon she calls me in complete panic...I answer the phone and she is screaming. Of course, my first thought is "Oh my God, something has happened". I scream back over her screaming to scream "Is the baby OK?!" She goes on to tell me the baby is fine and then goes into screaming some more. She is still in the maternity ward by the way, in her room FREAKING out......

about what she is going to

wear home!!! LOL She tells me her husband is on her way to pick her and the baby up - he had to go sign some papers in the morning at his office and the doc signed her release papers a few hours early. Anyway - not the point. The point is Mother Nature had played a very sick trick on this unknowing mother and I, as one of her best friends in the entire world had let her down considerably. I had not done my job in warning her of the most disturbing , yet most mysterious realization that only motherhood can bring a person to. Here it is........

The clothes you wear into the maternity ward...you know the ones...they are called maternity clothes will not serve you any, and I mean ANY purpose once you have experienced the joy of laboring your child onto this planet. You can't wear them out of the hospital.

That is a mystery of all things that I do not understand. How in the HELL can you not go home in what you arrived in? I don't get it - it's against the freaking law of physics. When I had my first child, I walked into that hospital for my induction wearing overalls...maternity overalls. Ok? Three days later I figure what the hell - I'll put em' back on. WRONG! I couldn't squeeze my big toe through the pants leg. WTH?!?! They were MATERNITY OVERALLS! I even let out all the slack and didn't even attempt to button the side closures. HOW IN THE HELL COULD THEY NOT GO BACK ON?!?! HELLO SIR ISAAC NEWTON - you failed to this mention this little wrinkle in all your years of physics?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! I honest to God don't get this one and I consider myself a halfway intelligent person. I know stuff gets moved around and things I won't even mention happen to you during the joyous hours of labor and childbirth but are you REALLY FREAKING SERIOUS that maternity overalls can't go back on your fat ***????? The same overalls that got you through the hellish months of watching your belly expand to the point where you lost sanity for a few minutes at one point during your 2nd trimester and thought you could really attempt a home experiment of being a "Weeble Wobble People"? So, in my hospital room I sat there in complete anger at this new found revelation. I also sat there in complete contempt of my wonderful husband who laughed - who honestly had the courage and cojones to sit there and even crack a smile while I in vain tried ONE MORE time to wriggle my "apparently larger and fatter *** NON pregnant vs. PREGNANT" into these godforsaken overalls once more before finally giving in to the atrocious sweatpants and shirt I had brought in with me for my stay. It's a sick curse of nature and twisted attempt at humor by Mother Nature to do this to us at that point in our lives. You are sitting there helpless at this point with noone to turn to. The thoughts have already crossed your mindduring pregnancy that you will somehow create a miracle and get your preprego body back in record time. You are standing there ready to take your baby home and you are thinking wow - I won't have to wear maternity clothes anymore ( because ALL 1st timers believe this ) and then you CANNOT EVEN GET THEM BACK ON ONCE YOU HAVE MADE YOUR 8LB WITHDRAWAL FROM YOUR WOMB?!?!?! You are standing there thinking "what went wrong - I should be smaller now...DEAR GOD why are you punishing me like this?" You cannot even get into your fattest of fattest of clothes. It's a sad moment. I only wished I could have remembered this painful moment before my friend had to call with that desperate voice wondering WHY - WHAT? Just like the pains of labor and childbirth though, you seem to forget those painful moments and bury them in the back of your mind. You only remember the happiness of the occassion. I calmed and reassured her that all would be fine - just told her to put her big,ugl gray sweats on instead and hold her head up high. Also, I did tell her to kick her husband in the knees if he so dared laughed at her situation. Better yet, if he did laugh, I was going to come to florida to kick him personally.

 As we hung up, she had regained her composure and dignity. I knew she would leave that hospital looking like a supermodel in her ugly fat sweatpants. However, before I hung up I had to break the next big let down to her. I could not send her into the battlefields unarmed. Like me, she sleeps on her stomach...any woman reading this who loves sleeping on their stomach and has had children can feel the pain. You too can remember being naive enough to think you could overcome the impossible and return immediately to this position of sleeping. I take a moment of silence for my friend now...knowing that she is possibly awake at this hour with her new beautiful daughter nursing or cuddling her back to sleep or lying flat on her back longing for the day when she can turn onto her belly without the fear and pain of busting a boob full of milk. That my friends is the price we must pay though for the miracle of birth. The beauty is in a few years her child will be walking, talking and of course running rampant through her house and all the joyous moments of toddler hood will be bestowed upon her. On that day, I hope I can be the one to present her with her "Motherhood travel agent of guilt badge" She then will be able to utter the words...."Do you know how many hours of labor I went through to get you here?!?!" or the ever so popular " I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it!!"  and my personal favorite," I couldn't even get into my maternity overalls that could have served as a tarp for a metro bus after I had you and this is how you repay me?!?!?" Of course, mine are still too young to understand that one fully, but I use it anyway.

I came home from my first experience of having a child and three days later still could not get in those cursed, evil overalls so I sent them out to the trash.




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