Today, Aunt Shel asked me to limit the gory details regarding pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood because I am scaring her. Well….you know I cannot do that. I am here to serve the good of humanity, and that means telling it like it is. Here are just a few, I want her to build up her tolerance slowly.

Pregnancy:

1. When you are pregnant, some things come out of your body that you do not want. When you sneeze, you will pee a little. You’ll fart; you’ll burp. Your breasts do a practice run and ooze a bit. All things that you would prefer to keep inside.

2. Personal Hygiene is a problem for 2 reasons. Its harder to keep up on, if you know what I mean, and even if you do keep current, you will find that new parts of your body sweat when you are pregnant.

Childbirth:

1. If you are a “close the door pee-er” now, be prepared for the fact that the husband who has never seen you pee will now see you expel a slimey human from a similar place. Let him see you pee now, it will cushion the blow to your self-esteem. Oddly enough, he will not even care, but you will.

2. Unfortunately, there is one trick of childbirth that really works, but is gross. Your OB will want you to watch the events in a mirror, giving you a first-class shot of the action. It helps you know when to push, because you can see the baby coming out. (and sometimes going back in, and then coming back out). But its quite a view.

Parenthood:

1. At some point, you will eat poop, maybe more than once. Poop is everywhere. You will not see it on the side of your thumb, you’ll stick your thumb in your mouth to use it to rub a smudge off your cute little baby’s face, you just ate poop.

2. You will smell more pee, vomit, spit-up, and poop than you ever imagined. Most of it on purpose. You will sniff sheets to see if they are “clean.” You will pick up your baby and sniff his heiney to see if its time for a change. You will inspect a pile of vomit to see if you can determine exactly what caused your baby to throw up, does it look like milk or peas?

But here is the kicker, Shel. This stuff might gross you out now, but when the time comes, you won’t even care.