Nosy Nellie might as well be telling dead baby jokes.

I know I've complained about this before, Batman, but I've really hit my boiling point on this one. What is it about having a baby – specifically a baby with known health problems – that encourages even the most sensitive, sensible, and otherwise considerate people to tell you awful stories that end with someone's baby dying? Is there something about my acceptance of our situation that suggests “sure, she can handle that story some lady I talked to the other day told me about her two (or maybe three, or maybe more) babies that all died within days of their birth: maybe this will even be informative to her!” I know I've been pretty damn stoic throughout this whole process, but that doesn't mean I want to hear every tragic story you've got kicking around in your memory bank. 

Sometimes worse than those woeful stories are the expressions of complete disgust or horror at what I am about to go through. Yes, the idea of a whole human being getting thrust through a relatively narrow channel of muscle and tissue that typically serves an entirely different function does sound pretty unpleasant. I'm not expecting labor to be a fun experience, nor do I anticipate it being in any way, shape, or form easy (physically, emotionally, or in terms of recovery), but I do know that women have been doing this for millenia - almost all of them with zero interventions or medical support beyond a few other ladies telling her she can do it. This can and should be done, but somehow everyone either knows (or is) someone who had a truly disgusting experience during childbirth, or (even more exciting) they have such egregiously WRONG conceptions about what childbirth is that they ignorantly explode vitriol at me. A few people have been especially dreadful about this, and I fear that there has been some splatter; other folks than just your Dad and I have been on the receiving ends of these unintentionally malicious tales, and there is nothing I can do to change that but hope that I find this all hysterical in hindsight. 

One particularly dreadful Nosy Nellie who can't keep her damn mouth shut is one of my coworkers. She is one of my so-called teammates, and from the moment I announced I was pregnant, she more or less turned off any degree of courtesy I'd previously been offered. Rather than just being kind of bitchy and impersonal (as usual), she ceased making direct eye contact, glared awkwardly off into space with a look like a deer caught in headlights any time I started talking about anything pregnancy- or baby-related, and only ever interjected either horror stories or massively inappropriate questions when she engaged in conversation at all. At some point in the last few weeks I was at work, I was treated to a vaguely panicked series of questions that went something like this:

Nellie: "So, I don't know if you've thought about this, but what would happen if you went into labor at school? 'Cause I seriously couldn't handle that. At all."

Me: "Well, I'd send one student down to the nurse, and one student to Ms. G's room (my carpool/sanity buddy) to tell her we were leaving early, but it's not like on TV: labor usually starts pretty gradually and peacefully, so you really don't need to worry about any crazy, messy drama."

Nellie: "...but it could happen. I would completely freak out if, like, your water broke in class. Oh, that would be SO GROSS. What would you DO? I would have to, like, leave the building if I even knew that was happening. I don't know if I could EVER go into your classroom again."

Me: (after a long pause) "Uhm...let's just hope it doesn't happen? Remember, I'm leaving school something like two weeks before the end of most normal pregnancies, so I think we're safe."

Nellie: "Thank GOD. I'm not joking: I will probably throw up if anything starts...ugh...HAPPENING while I'm in the building. I don't know why pregnant women aren't just put in the hospital once they hit nine months."

Okay, Nellie, let's analyze. First, you are a horrible bitch for preemptively blaming me and my baby for your discomfort with something that is not only completely natural, but extremely unlikely to happen in your proximity. Second, you are clearly massively uninformed about childbirth in ways that are definitely going to bite you in the ass should you ever decide to have a child of your own. You should watch less TV, and possibly listen when someone reasonably informed (say, for example, me) shares clinically-proven information about how babies actually show up in the world; that might allow you to be less terrified that a pregnant woman is just going to explode a baby onto your shoes. Third, the idea of cramming pregnant women into hospitals just to keep the general public safe from their potential expulsion of bodily fluids is...I don't even have words. I'd say it was a barbaric perspective, but any barbarians I've studied were totally cool with childbirth, often even celebrating the process with massive bonfires, feasts, ceremonial ingestion of the placenta, and reverence of the birthing mother during and after labor beyond any acknowledgment than women typically received otherwise. Perhaps your ignorant perspective is proto-Victorian? Just Fucking Stupid? I'm out of ideas. This woman is part of why I was very happy to leave school a few days earlier than planned. 

That same Nosy Nellie also thought it appropriate to tell me not one, not two, but three unique stories about women she'd heard of who had hideously awful labors and had their children die shortly thereafter. Not only is it just awful to tell this sort of thing to an expecting parent, but seriously? You think I REALLY need to hear some story about some family who some other person you know heard tell of through six degrees of separation? No. No I do not. After the first story, I started listening for clue as to whether anything this Nellie said was going to end well, and after a few sentences, I started just saying "If this is one of those stories where the baby dies in the end, I really don't want to hear it." Her mature and thoughtful response? "This just reminded me of your situation, so I figured you'd want to hear it." This just reminded you of what...the inevitable kiss of death visited upon every human being when their ticket comes up? Oh, wait, we're back to the TV/movie misconceptions: every laboring mother and new baby statistically is that much more likely to die for the sake of drama. Silly me for forgetting. 

Another Nellie who caught me completely off-guard is someone very close us. I won't point out who she is because I would hate for you to look at this woman and think "what the fuck was going through HER crazy head?" when really I wish for you to have nothing but affection for her, but that question has been plaguing me for a few days now. Entirely out of the blue, this Nosy Nellie started sharing every story that had been shared with her about women whose children have died. In the course of a single conversation, she referenced nine different dead babies. NINE. Seriously? 

Okay, I get it: a lot of women lose babies. This is, unfortunately, a completely normal thing, and weird medical conditions don't necessarily play into it at all. America totally sucks balls when it comes to maternal and fetal care, and that's not even taking into account the fact that creating a new human being is just a dicey endeavor. I personally know two women who have had miscarriages in the last year and a half, and have unending respect for their strength and determination to carry on. (Both are currently pregnant with healthy babies: YAY!) I would run out of fingers if I counted the number of women I know who had miscarriages on a longer timeline, but you know what? You don't get horror stories about miscarriages when you're nine and half months pregnant. You get the dead baby stories, and apparently the general public seems to think that having a baby with a known medical condition just increases the likelihood that you want or need to hear them. This particular Nellie decided to slip in her retellings of the stories told to her casually...just more helpful hints shared with her by friends...just like recommendations for ointments or brands of wipes...and I can't help but be shaken by them. 

I have great confidence in the fact that you are going to be fine in the long run, Batman. Not only do you have incredible doctors literally waiting at our beck and call to do anything and everything they can to make sure you get what you need, but your first few weeks of life will be spent under the watchful eyes of some of the most highly-trained, highly-qualified nurses in the region. There's also the flood of positive intention being directed at you by a massive network of family, friends, coworkers, and even vague social acquaintances, and the soon-to-be-glorious smothering of affection and attention from me and your Dad. So are these dead baby stories really bothering me all that much? No. What really upsets me is the fact that people are inconsiderate and, frankly, dumb enough to think that telling them to us is any sort of appropriate. These Nosy Nellies (and all the other Nellies who share such crap with them) should be ashamed of themselves. Aside from giving them a story that doesn't end in tragedy, I'm hoping I have the guts in a few months to chastise them for being such shallow ass-hats.

Nosy Nellie has a strong opinion about projectile breast milk. (WTF?)

I had a horrifying conversation with two coworkers recently. This epitomized the very worst of "oh, sweet mother of cheese, how can people possibly think this is okay...and for the love of all that is holy, will I be one of these women someday?!?!?" My carpool buddy and I were about to walk out the door...her heading to some single-gal excitement with a new date, and me heading to yet another doctor's appointment...when these Nellies decided to launch into a heartfelt rant about the horrors of attempting to breastfeed while working.

First off, Batman, I'm sure the last thing you want to hear about is your mother's boobs, to say nothing of the long-since-dried-up teats of two older women who I work with, but this was just...incredible. I'm asked if I will be breastfeeding, and reply yes. I'm asked if I have a battle plan for how I will manage to pump and stay even remotely comfortable while at work after I come back from maternity leave. In all honesty, my plan is to just muckle down in some corner of the school with no windows and do my business whenever I possibly can. There will definitely be times when I have no recourse but to sprint to a bathroom, lock myself in there, and do what I need to, but I'm sure I can find a way to make it work somehow. After confirming that yes, I am committed to breastfeeding as long as I can, these Nellies start sharing their breastfeeding-at-work horror stories.

I won't get into the ugly details, but let's just say that I may never look at a breast the same way again. One story ended with an eye injury, another with a broken bra, and possibly the worst resulted in the teller wearing a winter coat all day in almost sixty degree weather. I'm confident that I won't actually explode, but according to these women, I should have at least three extra shirts, several extra bras, and ideally half a dozen heavy felt moving blankets on hand at all times to prevent or recover from embarrassing leakage.

I know that parenting - most specifically being the parent of a newborn - will lead to the genesis of some hideous and charmingly gross stories. There will be bodily fluid. There will be stains. There may even be permanent property damage: I know this. Then again, is it part and parcel of the whole parenting experience to want - nay, need - to share these experiences with any other prospective parent who wanders our way? I would like to think that I'll only share the really dreadful stuff with close friends (or alternately people who have legitimately earned a moment of sphincter-clenching terror), or that I'll wait until I'm asked to gush about...gushing...things...but I worry, Batman. Here's hoping that I can maintain at least a little bit of my restraint and common courtesy, despite the inevitably looming onslaught of gross stories that you will lovingly help me create.

Nosy Nellie has a strong opinion about EVERYTHING!!!

Oh, Batman. I love - and I mean LOVE - the fact that we just moved into a real neighborhood. Not only are your Dad's parents (your paternal grandparents, whatever their monikers might turn out to be) directly across the street, but our landlords - who live directly below us in the giant three-family house that we now inhabit - have known his family for decades, and most of the surrounding neighbors are either friendly and familiar faces, or the kinds of people who move to a quiet, residential suburban neighborhood because that is what they want, not just where finances and logistics dictate they settle. The upside: we're surrounded by people who, even if they aren't always like-minded, have the same standards for quiet, friendliness, and community that we do. The downside: we know everyone, everyone knows us (initially by proxy, because your Dad's mom is a voracious social butterfly, but now with the same background knowledge as people we've known for years), and everyone is in everyone's business. This is what we signed up for, and we both actually love having these kinds of relationships to delve into, but there are definite downsides.

One such neighbor has always been something of a Nosy Nellie. She is a rare and unique variant on the theme, in that she frequently enjoys stuffing her life in your face rather than just trying to stick her nose into yours, but the latter clearly offers her great pleasure as well. I worry that this Nosy Nellie may have tricked your Dad and I into a thorough run-down of all the baby- and parenting-related things we need to be careful of, scared of, aware of, and otherwise prepared for. She called (thanks a lot, Dad-in-Law for sharing my phone number!) and invited us over to look at a crib she had gotten for free from an online bulletin board. Thinking "aww, neighborly kindness!" we trotted over to her house...and were cornered for close to an hour while she thrust utterly inappropriate and personal advice upon us.

Word to the wise, Batman: when someone whose eccentricity rating surpasses "pretty darn weird" invites you into their house to look at something they got for free that they want to give you for free, think twice. It may - just possibly - be a ruse.


We entered Nellie's house, and immediately the red flags went flying. First, she wants to give us a tour of all her recent renovations. Okay...cool...she's a friend of the family, and we haven't seen her house in years (your Dad) or ever (me). Still, a little odd. Second, she escorts us upstairs - through a door at the base of the stairs that she closes and latches behind us - and into a bedroom where we see the most potentially death-inducing crib mankind has ever engineered. This thing looked like it had all the structural integrity of a pile of chopsticks held together with paper clips. The sides consisted of round poles that are roughly a baby head's width apart, and one of the sides (the one that is meant to drop down, a feature determined to be massively dangerous and now not allowed on any new cribs) was so wiggly that it looked more or less like it was going to slam down if bumped against by a sleeping baby. Basically, it looked like a device that a serial killer might use to kill only the babies he really didn't like.

Your father and I made immediate and definitive eye contact that said "this is absolutely not an option, and we need to get out before this crib jumps out and tries to kill us." By then, it was too late. I politely mumbled something about the crib being too big (to which she responded that it was the same size as every other crib), then about not even being sure that we want a crib (which she thought was just ridiculous), then about how we probably just want to put a mattress on the floor so that you can chill out in your room if you wake up on your own some time, and so you never fall out of a high bed (which she, mysteriously, thought was a great idea). She let us off the hook: we didn't NEED to take the crib, but by that point, we were a captive audience. We did need to listen to her lecture us on the following:

• Breastfeeding, and how I would have major challenges with it having a baby who receives surgery so early on (duh).
• Breastfeeding, and how it is a miserable and oftentimes impossible process (thanks for that encouragement).
• Breasts, and how they suffer from breastfeeding (yeah, I get it).
• Sleep, and how we will never do it ever again. Ever.
• Free time, and how we will never have it ever again. Ever.
• A sense of personal freedom from the crippling obligation of parenthood, and how this destroys every other aspect of your life, making even the simplest pleasures (like pooping uninterrupted) practically worthy of a parade.
• Her children's struggles with a baby who wouldn't latch, wouldn't sleep, and couldn't be left alone, and how they basically had to practice deliberate abandonment in order to wean her off of their anal-retentive attention.
• The fact that her children's experiences with their offspring, and her experience with hers decades earlier, are all COMPLETELY RELEVANT AND WORTHY OF OUR EVERY MOTE OF ATTENTION AND CONSIDERATION.

Right. After making the entirely legitimate excuse of "er...we really need to go grocery shopping..." and waiting out about half an hour of additional advice-pushing, we managed to flee. Lesson learned, Batman: there's no such thing as a free crib.

Batman, it is SO on.

It has begun.

I knew it was just a matter of time (and a matter of being in a work environment filled with women who have gone through the whole baby-having process at some point in their pasts), but the baby-related, sometimes judgmental, and typically advice-laden comments have started spewing, geyser-like, from the face-holes of some of my beloved coworkers. This is a morosely beautiful and incredibly specific occurrence that I know plagues anyone going through some kind of specific life event (buying a house, getting married, buying a new vehicle, planning a major trip, dealing with illness, etc... ad nauseum), but the baby flavor of this phenomenon is exactly as annoying and amusing as I thought it would be.

Of course, a few women are being just lovely: some listen good-naturedly to my hormone-induced woes, offering sympathetic and encouraging words that are genuine and well-intentioned. Others share their personal stories with absolutely no implication of "this is how ANYONE with half a brain must do this thing;" they are simply sharing their experience with another woman going through a shared life experience. It's some serious red tent business, but I dig it, even if it is informing me of details I never needed to know about coworkers' bodily fluids and/or orifices.

On the other hand, there is one woman. Let's call her "Nellie," as in "don't be such a Nosy Nellie," or "that Nosy Nellie is making me want to sock her in her stupid nosy face if she doesn't stop nosing her nose into my damn business." Nellie has no children, but she seems convinced that her knowledge of pre-natal care far exceeds that of anyone who has had children, even less anyone who is preparing to do so. When I walked into school one day last week holding the last two inches of a Dunkin' Donuts pumpkin flavored iced coffee (so help me, I wait like a child for Christmas for the release of pumpkin flavored anything come this time of year), I didn't get a "good morning," or even a "hi," but instead she gave me a concerned look and eyed my cup suspiciously. "Not giving up coffee, I see?" she muttered, using a tone much like one would use when accepting the fact that a teenager is, in fact, going to get their whatever pierced. I smiled, and told her I was cutting back a bit. Her sigh of resignation was almost staggering.

As the day wore on, more tiny comments emerged. Thankfully, this is not someone I have terribly frequent interaction with, so outside of a day of training, I am unlikely to give her so much opportunity to share her advice. If I were, I would likely explode from restraining the snarky comments I would want to spew back at her. After eating three roughly two inch square chunks of brownie, she asked me if my doctors had talked to me at all about eating chocolate. I informed her that my MIDWIVES (not doctors) saw great benefit in eating any food that both made me happy and that I could keep down without getting nauseous. Besides, while some medical experts believe chocolate to be worth limiting, other extol chocolate's many benefits. Take that, Nelly. She wasn't convinced.

The next comment was a real laugh riot. I was in my classroom, clambering about on chairs while hanging posters, and she told me that it can be extremely dangerous for pregnant woman to climb anything because (wait for it...) BABIES SOMETIMES JUMP UNEXPECTEDLY TO THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR BELLY, throwing a woman off-balance and probably leading to both their deaths. It was everything I could do not to pretend to fall down onto her, just to see if she would try to catch me, but - misinformed about the cause though she may be - this was the first legit warning she has given me, so I smiled politely and told her I was being very careful.

I could go on...so rather than continue ranting about this one tedious woman's attempts to be helpful, I introduce a new mini-post feature that I will call "Nellie has a strong opinion about..." There, I will share stupid, uninvited, inappropriate, tedious, and otherwise meddlesome comments hurled in my direction by typically well-wishing individuals.

In the meantime, I made a sling for you! It was a suprisingly quick and fun project, and one that I very well might try again to give to one of your future friends (as soon as I meet her or his parents). You're bopping around more and more, especially when I eat a lot of fruit or drink a ton of cold liquid in one go. Guess what I've been eating and drinking lately?