Pregnancy Peeves

Since I'm not exactly in a bad mood, perhaps now is a good time to rant for a moment (where I can at least formulate semi-coherent thoughts and not have to worry about saying anything I know I'll regret). The following are not necessarily rants about the pregnancy itself (at my OB appt. today George got noticeably bigger from 2 weeks ago but I only gained 4 lbs!), but at situations surrounding the pregnancy.

Now, I'm quite happy with the love and generosity our friends have shown, but I do wish that people would realize the point of a registry is for parents-to-be to list the items they want (and the fabric patterns of those items as well!). We have received gifts from a couple of people who decided they didn't like the color/pattern/model of the item we registered for and purchased an item NOT on the registry because they obviously knew what we wanted/needed better than us. This is how we ended up with 3 monitors. I can appreciate that other people have different taste than we do, but I registered for certain patterns/models because that's what I wanted. If they didn't like what we chose they could have opted to buy something ELSE on the list. I have had to delete several items off of the registry because someone got the item elsewhere in a different pattern (and I'm too lazy to return said item and get the pattern I wanted).

The next peeve I have is with the Pregnancy Police. These are the people who are not my husband/Dr./mother who insist that their way of "doing" pregnancy is so much better, or that I'm being a horrible mother by doing "this" wrong or some such nonsense. My mother told me once that opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one, but we don't need to hear/see/smell it. There was the one person who insisted that the aspartame in my Diet Dr. Pepper was going to cause birth defects in my baby (she is a nurse, apparently) and I should stop drinking it immediately. She stopped nagging when I told her my Dr. said it was perfectly fine, I just needed to cut out the caffeine (which I'm proud to say I finally kicked the habit). There's the friend who insisted I try out some hypnotherapy thing during labor (if you are that friend, I appreciate the offer but it just ain't for me) instead of getting an epidural.

There's the numerous anonymous online people who (yes, it's my fault for posting my labor plan in the first place) insist that I should try to give birth "naturally" meaning without medication. Yes, I know the possible dangers and side effects of an epidural, but my husband's family history of 10+ lb babies and my low pain tolerance outweigh those risks.

I realize that people give advice like that with good intentions and that they probably don't mean to antagonize me, but I'm about fed up with it. I know my best option is to just smile, nod, then ignore these people, but they're just so insistent! I don't want advice like this from people. I want a sympathetic "Oh, you poor thing, he's going to be such a big baby, I'm praying for you" response, and leave it at that. But then I know people will never stop trying to give me advice. And it's never going to end. It will just go from being pregnancy advice to child-rearing advice.

But holding my baby in my arms will be worth it, right? I see him move every day and am looking forward to seeing him after he's born. Can't wait to see you, Georgie! Your Mama loves you :D By the way, can you ease up on the bladder boxing?