I'm a people person

I thought when I wrote this post with answers to common questions about my pregnancy that I had covered it all, but I hadn't anticipated how many more questions could come up. Since I'm not one to hold back, I decided to answer more questions here. Keep in mind that these are all questions that people have asked me to my face or via email, so I'm not even making stuff up here.

If it's a girl, are you going to keep trying until you get a boy? This question is a lovely spin on the "Do you want a boy or a girl this time?" question and I really enjoy how it suggests that my life wouldn't be complete if I had two children of the same sex. The best part is that if you say no, they react like you just told them that you are planning on completely ignoring that sale at Walmart and are choosing to pay full price at a store that is further away. So foolish, so short sighted.

Wait, WHAT? 

To answer this simply: No. We are not going to fill our house with screaming little girls until we get a male heir. The main perk of having another girl would be reusing all of Faith's cute baby clothes, but other than that, we really don't care if I'm harboring male or female spawn. If it's a boy, then I'll just box up Faith's clothing and save it for the first one of my friends to have a girl and then I'll leave it on their porch in the middle of the night, like a good friend.


Are you going to take the drugs for the birth? I know that women LOVE to talk about their birth stories, but there is nothing more pointless than sitting around and talking about your plans for an impending birth. Why? Because you don't know how it's going to go and drafting up a 7 page Word document for your already busy doctor to follow isn't going to help you shape your own destiny.

I assume people ask this question for two reasons: 1. To judge you for your choice to take the drugs and/or 2. To share a horror story with you about side effects from said drugs or how the drugs didn't work for them and they were trapped into a natural birth. The thing is when you're pregnant with your second kid, stories like that don't scare you. I'm usually like "Well, I had my tail bone snapped by giant forceps after over 3 hours of pushing and 35 hours of labor after being induced for being 10 days overdue, but yeah, let's hear YOUR story. I'm sure it will really scare me."

The reaction they want.

I absolutely plan on getting an epidural again. Frankly to refuse one doesn't even compute with me. When people say things like "Well, it's a natural pain and I want the full experience." I look at them like they just told me they use an outhouse instead of a fancy water closet inside because that's how God wanted us to shit.

I will skip the IV drugs this time because they didn't help me sleep and just made me crankier (which I didn't think was possible after so many hours of them not feeding me). I enjoyed my epidural experience so much that I often daydream about getting one after a really hard race. Having sensation in my lower extremities at all times seems overrated. Someone could tell me that getting an epidural made them grow hair all over their body like Wolf Girl and I'd still chance it.


Are you sure it's just one in there? I get this as often as I get "Oh, you're expecting?", so go figure. Also, when people say "Are you expecting?" I have a really hard time not referencing this:

But to answer the question, yes we are sure there is just one in there and no, I don't need to hear your story about your "friend" who had twins and the doctors missed it. We all know that "friend" is the same one who once knew a girl named "La-a" but pronounced "Ladasha".


Are you supposed to be eating that? Listen, if I'm eating it, let's just assume that I'm allowed to eat it. For your safety, it's probably a good idea to never question the food choices of a pregnant woman.

The only right question to ask is "Would you like some more?"

How much weight have you gained? People, do I really need to explain why this not a smart question to ask someone? The only person who has a need to know is my doctor and that's why they weigh me there. I don't even know my starting weight, so I can't even begin to do the math on how much I've gained. I think the only appropriate answer for this question is "Enough".

I really would be more careful around hormonal pregnant chicks, but that's just me.

Are you going to breastfeed? This is another hot topic for moms and when I had Faith, my every intention was to exclusively breastfeed her. We had a really super first 3 days and then she turned yellow...very yellow. Then we were forced to give her formula to get rid of her bad case of jaundice, we were stuck with bottles, so I pumped for her...for 3 long months. It sucked (haha, get it?) a lot and I never want to do that again. I also had a ridiculous oversupply issue, so weaning was one of the most painful things I've ever done and I'm including running 50 miles in one day in that equation.

So...it's not a clear cut answer, so that's the reason this question annoys me. Unless the person wants to hear all about my involuntary twitch when I just hear the "Whoosh-a, whoosh-a, whoosh-a" noise of a breast pump, then they aren't going to like my extended answer. Cliffnotes answer: I'm going to try it again, but I'm not going to exclusively pump. Also, if this baby is also allergic to milk protein like Faith, then I'd have to be a meat eating vegan and that just sounds awesome. Dairy is my favorite food group. I am a cheap bastard above all things, so I would give up dairy to avoid paying 500 bucks a month for the special formula again.

Here's an off-topic question, but it's too good to not include. Every year now when the weather warms up and I bust out the tank tops I get a few questions about the scar on my arm, but the best one ever has been when a bagger at Giant asked me a completely straight face: "Did you get that from a knife fight?"

It is a big ass scar for something that wasn't even cancer.

He actually seemed disappointed when I told him it was just from getting an abnormal mole removed. In case you were wondering, yes all of those marks on the top and the bottom of the scar are from the special "baseball stitch" the doctor had to do because he hacked such a sizable chunk out of my arm. The abnormal mole in question was only the size of a pencil point, so let that sink in.

Since I'm a people person who likes to make people happy, I've even going to include the requisite belly shot, bathroom mirror style because the self timer was irritating me today.

Getting roooooooooound

Do random people ever ask you strange and/or annoying questions?