Strangers are stupid.

Dear Idiot Stranger,

If by the graces of God you stumble upon my little website & read this, I would just like to have a friendly chat about a comment you made to me this morning. In case you don't remember what you said, I will post it here. Yes, these were your exact words. They sounded as lame in person as they do in type. This is what you said:

"Wouldn't it be great if women were like elephants, and they were pregnant for years? Pregnancy is so wonderful! You must be having the time of your life."

The answer is no, sir. It would not be wonderful, and no, I am not having the time of my life. I wish I could have said that to you this morning, but while I was in line in the grocery store at 6:00 AM I did not have the mental faculties up and running to fully process what you said, and thus I could not provide you with an adequate response. Please accept my apologies for not being truly awake at that hour. Instead, I offer this posting as the thorough, thought-out response that your comment deserves.

Before I get started, I would like to point out that I had to refrain from barfing on you. I am not kidding - I mean this in a most literal sense. Part of my nausea may have been caused by drinking four glasses of milk this morning before I left the house, but certainly the majority was caused by your stupidity. No matter the cause of the nausea, you should keep that in mind. You may be walking on thin ice when speaking to pregnant women.

Allow me to outline the reasons for which multiple year long pregnancies would be a bad idea for the human race. First, I would like you to know that pregnancy is an endurance sport. It is tiring. Of my approximately 700 different muscles, I would say that probably 650 of them are tired already. I am not even in the home stretch, and I am exhausted. The largest complaints come from my back & my bladder, but rest assured there will be more, greater complaints filed by my uterus and other unmentionable muscles come September. I will spare you the details.

Secondly, I would like to tell you that aside from tiredness, pregnancy causes some very weird side affects. I spent weeks barfing. The sight and smell of Glad scented garbage bags still triggers my gag reflex. Every time I go for a walk my hands and feet swell up like nobody's business. I cannot sleep through the night because either my bladder is bursting or my hips are angry. I have acne, and even worse than that I also am starting to get backne. These breakouts are uncontrollable and I am not allowed to use typical acne medications. Every two weeks I must go to the doctor, who does not refrain from pushing on my bladder, squeezing my boobs, and asking about my bowel movements. Every visit I must pee in a cup and have my weight charted out in bright red ink. Gain too little? Surely I must be starving my baby. Gain too much? I am going to be a cow for the rest of my life. There is no winning. My stomach has gotten hairy. It is a gross but true fact that I am so ashamed of my hairy stomach that I have, indeed, shaved it. I wanted to go swimming, but when it came to shaving for that... Well, lets just say I couldn't see down there anymore, and I am not about to blindly grope with a razor. Again, I will spare you the details.

I have freaky dreams. A lot of them involve talking animals, and I am not dropping acid or anything. My sense of restraint is gone. If I see an ad for a Big Mac on TV, I will immediately have one. Even if I don't like Big Macs all that much, it is still necessary. If there is an ad for starving children in Africa, I will feel like it is my personal responsibility to feed every single one of them. I hide my wallet in my glove box during times like those, so as to avoid shelling out every cent I have to my name. It can be trying, to say the least.

Third, there are far less personal and more practical reasons that years of pregnancy would suck. Doctor bills. Who would want to pay years' worth of doctor bills? No one. I have seen so many bills already that if I were to cut them into strips, I could make a paper chain long enough to decorate the Rockafeller Christmas tree. Prenatal vitamins alone would run up a princely sum. Also, please consider how large a baby could grow if it were left alone for 2+ years. People are already ahving 13 pound babies - anything larger simply could not be tolerated by the human frame. To put it crudely, think of the episiotomies. I see how men cringe when the word vasectomy or circumcision is mentioned, and those procedures don't even involve pushing a 9 pound object through the wound or the expectation that you will be up and about the next day caring for a newborn. Also, please consider all of the stretching that is done. As scary as it is to think, it is possible to break things beyond repair, and nobody wants that.

Years long gestational periods aren't even working for the elephants. In case you ahven't noticed, they're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. All habitat and poaching issues aside, elephants (and gorillas, whales, and sharks too) are getting screwed over by their low birth numbers. They can't make babies fast enough to replace the ones that are dying. If you truly were a fan of the human race, you would hope for shorter gestation.

Lastly, you are not a woman. Therefore, any comments regarding pregnancy should be kept to yourself unless they are either A.) offers to help me out or B.) complimentary in nature. I am not responsible for your safety if you do not change your ways and you incur the wrath of another pregnant lady. You have been warned.

So, thanks a lot, Mr., for wishing that the human race has to carry around their offspring for years in utero. I'll leave your name & number at the OB/GYN clinic. I'm sure all of the swollen, barfy women there would love to talk to the brilliant man who wants their swollen barfyness to last three times as long.

Sincerely,
Andi & Babyzilla