I like my enchiladas with extra bitch, please. Part deux

My cousin Lauren is pregnant for the first time. If you're new here, she's the one who met me and Junior (then 18 months old) for dinner, then went home and told her mother (my aunt) that, thanks to the experience, she wanted to have her tubes tied.

And now, well, she gets to experience the magic of dining out with a toddler for herself. Life is so delicious.

She's been on Facebook a lot, posting about her pregnancy. You know, morning sickness and mood swings, questions about whether or not she can take Mucinex. That sort of thing. (Did you know a post about Mucinex could inspire 56 comments?) Then there was the dreaded ultrasound picture (I don't know about you but I always find that a little creepy). I almost skipped right over it but then I read her comment: "I wonder who you are in there. If you look like me. What you're thinking right now. Just who you are."

It stopped me dead in my tracks. It's stopping me right now, in fact. I've been such a tornado this pregnancy, between working and watching the two boys, tending to Chuck's kidney stones and broken ankle, doing the damn housework, opening the restaurant, daydreaming about vodka....I really haven't stopped to wonder. I'm eight months pregnant and I don't really think it's hit me that I'm, well, pregnant.

And I suddenly understand that third child guilt everyone talks about. That "Oh, yah, we thought we put Billy in the car, too, at the Grand Canyon but ooops." This kid isn't even born yet and I'm already sorry. I'm sorry I keep forgetting why I have this enormous bump on my body. I'm sorry we haven't even thought about a nursery or what clothes you'll wear.

But mostly, I'm sorry I haven't wondered--with that beautiful first-time mom anticipation--about who you are and who you will be. I really am, because I can't wait to meet you...

...And chase you around restaurants so someone else, someone who's never dined with a child before, can look over at us and long for sterilization.

They don't know what they're missing.

The breastfeeding matador

One night, when I was seven months pregnant, I had a minor explosion. (I like talking about my pregnancy from the safe distance of motherhood; I can finally acknowledge that I rivaled Emily Rose from the “Exorcist” in terms of possessed behavior.)

My husband Charles was on the phone with his brother, Mike, who is a father of two. I was lying in bed, pillow under my knees, trying to make my way through the latest “Fit Pregnancy” magazine. Who was I kidding? I stopped giving a shit about being fit around month four when I surrendered—gleefully—to elastic waistbands. I overheard Charles tell Mike, “She’s going to try.”

“Try what?” I called. Nothing. “Try WHAT?” I yelled.

Charles stuck his head in the door and said, “Mike says breastfeeding is hard and that you shouldn’t feel bad if you can’t.”

At that moment I saw every imaginable shade of red known to man. “Why is Mike concerned about my breasts?” I hissed. “Do I give him tips on his testicles? Do I inquire about their activities?” Although I hadn’t lived in the bygone time of Ward and June Cleaver I suddenly longed for men who were content smoking cigars alongside their male counterparts; men who weren’t allowed in the delivery room; men who didn’t give a flying hoot about a pregnant woman’s flippin’ jugs!

Charles said goodbye to his brother and tried to calm me down. “He was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need his help! I don’t need anyone!”

It turns out I did need help. I tried breastfeeding my son at the hospital, but my wee little boobs held about as much milk as a raindrop. The lactation expert assured me that the lack of fluid was a side effect of my excess water retention (i.e., elephantitis), painkillers, C-section, and long labor. She told me my milk might take longer to come in. Then she thrust the breast pump at me and told me to go home and pump ’til I could pump no more.

Our first day home I tried offering my son my boob but he screamed.

“What about the women in the movies?” I cried. “It’s supposed to be like that.”

Charles handed me tissues and the pump. I hooked up the horrible contraption to my boob and hit start. To say it’s a robotic and sterile experience to have a plastic cup globbed on to your cleavage, sucking your nipple forward and backward, is an understatement. I pictured myself in the janitor’s closet at work, pumping on my lunch break. I cried harder. Charles was wonderfully sympathetic, given the fact that his brother had overheard my breastfeeding rant and was now scared to visit.

I pumped for 10 minutes. After it was over there was just enough to line the bottom of the bottle. It was the saddest accumulation of breast milk in the solar system. But Charles got the eye dropper and dutifully squirted out the three drops. My son, asleep, grimaced as they hit his tongue.

In the days that followed we awaited my milk coming in like it was the tooth fairy. But no matter how much I pumped or tried to breastfeed the same sparse drops dribbled out. I called the lactation experts. They told me to keep trying. I asked everyone I knew who had breasts what to do. They didn’t know. They sympathized but always managed to tell me that when they were breastfeeding, they had had enough milk to feed 10 children. How it shot across the room. How their child had to wear a bib it was so messy. So flowing. So bountiful.

I felt like an arid McDonald’s, empty hamburger wrappers littering the parking lot like tumbleweed. I felt like a failure. I had had such high hopes. I was going to be one of those women who whipped out my engorged breasts in public—with as much disregard as men who pee on the side of the highway—and if anyone even looked at me crooked I would burn my bra and shout women’s liberation war cries. I felt so cheated; I had wanted to be a breastfeeding matador.

Still, I gave it my all for three months. Every two hours for three long months. It might not have been a monsoon but at least it was a passing shower. Ok fine, it was a garden hose with a big crick in it. But you work with what you’ve got.

Hey, it wasn't me

I want to preface this post with the following: Before I had my son, I was barraged by “helpful” tips from parents. I swore I would never, ever inundate any expecting woman with parenting tips.

There, I’ve said it.

Last Saturday morning my husband Charles and I made the spontaneous decision to visit some friends and watch their town’s St Patty’s Day parade. We planned on being out of the house by 8 a.m. to make the 11 a.m. parade. Actual time of departure: 10:35 a.m. Number of bags for baby: 15. Number of bags for parents: two. Junior napped leisurely on the ride while Charles and I stopped for burnt bagels (can the Dunkin' Donuts chain please buy some decent toasters already?!) and coffee.

When we finally arrived, our single, childless friends were already lit. The parade was in full swing a few streets away but they were quite content fishing off their porch with a fishing reel and empty beer cans. When the beer cans fell off they used packs of cigarettes. Then they saw us.

They were nice about meeting the baby and all but come on, no drunk adult who is not tied down to a spouse or child wants to play with a baby in the midst of St. Patty’s Day debauchery. About the same time we finished arranging Junior’s 15 bags in the living room the porch grew very quiet. We went outside and were told by an inebriated straggler that the party had moved to a bar.

We packed up Junior and walked down to the parade, trying to locate a non-rowdy section (i.e., an adults-with-kids section). A radio station once played sound clips of a St. Patty’s Day parade in the adults section and the adults-with-kids section. In the plain old adults section people yelled, screamed, and laughed. They cheered on the parade marchers. Blasted horns. Fell over. In the adults-with-kids section, one sober soul clapped—not out of actual enjoyment but because they were trying to instill in their child some enthusiasm for the Shriners in their mini carts.

That was the section we found ourselves in thanks to our child. It was boring. So back to the house we headed to wait for our other friends, Jan and Eva, to arrive. Why weren’t they at the bar or parade? Because they were pregnant. Very, very pregnant.

We relocated Junior and his 15 bags to Eva’s quieter, more child-friendly home. Remembering my vow, I kept my mouth shut while they waxed idealistic about breastfeeding and pumping for the first five years. I didn’t even laugh out loud when they mentioned the natural, drug-free water birth and birthing plan (not even when Eva’s husband, Rick, commented on my son’s “big fat head” and the fact that he is more attractive than me and Charles combined).

Nope. Not a word. In fact for the rest of the day I didn’t have to worry about saying anything…because Charles would not shut up.

“You guys have to get a swaddler. Do you have a swaddler? Not just a regular swaddler but one with Velcro. What about the Amby bed—have you read about that? And rice cereal. Don’t be afraid to try some rice cereal. Have you interviewed pediatricians? Did you get a breast pump? And what about one of those backpacks—what are they called, honey?”

My darling husband fired more tips at those pregnant woman than the whole series of “What to Expect.” Until that point I hadn’t realized just how much of the parenting experience he had ingested. Ingested and digested and sent merrily through every cavern of his sweet fatherly body. I kept wanting to reign him in—their lids were growing heavy—but I was so impressed by the knowledge he had amassed. It was if the man had given birth himself.

On the ride home I told him about my promise to myself. And do you know what he said?

“I bet they really appreciated that. They seem a little overwhelmed with the whole parenting thing.”

I told him it must have been Junior’s 15 bags.