If Pregnancy Were a Shoebox Greeting Card
Are you familiar with Hallmark’s hilarious Shoebox card line? They are my favorite, especially for birthdays. I stopped in Hallmark last night and couldn’t believe all the fun Shoebox cards they had.
However, one topic was missing. Pregnancy.
Seriously, I think Hallmark needs to come out with some REALLY honest Shoebox greeting cards about pregnancy.
Because, y’all, people are not honest enough about pregnancy, and a humorous perspective is definitely needed.
Here are a few topics I think they could cover:
Card #1: You will pee when you laugh, sneeze, cough, even puke
I knew I wanted a natural birth for Elias, but I didn’t realize what that would physically do my muscles. Laughing, sneezing or coughing hard all result in incontinence now, if I am not careful.
And with the morning sicknesses of babies #2 and #3, adding puking to the list. Yep, if I don’t go to the bathroom before throwing up, I would likely pee myself. And sometimes I still do even with that precaution.
And I know I am not the only one because when I mentioned this to a friend who is also pregnant, she said, girl, I just put a towel between my legs when I puke.
Card #2: Your breasts will hurt so much you will not be able to hug anyone for months
Pregnancy websites talk about “breast tenderness” but that doesn’t go far enough. I am amazed by how much they hurt. Adeline wants to lay on my chest all the time and I yelp in pain!
Card #3: You are going to need new underwear
Again, this should be a duh, but I didn’t expect it the first time around. I knew I would gain weight, but didn’t think about my butt. With this pregnancy, I just went ahead and bought a pack of underwear a size up from where I was, knowing that I was going to be packing some more junk in my trunk.
Card #4: Strangers will want to touch your belly – a lot.
This is such a strange phenomenon. Why do strangers come up to you and think it is okay to touch your belly when you are pregnant?
Card #5: People will ask inappropriate questions.
Get ready for inappropriate questions like, are you having twins? How much weight have you gained? Did you plan this? People have no boundaries when talking to pregnancy people!
Pregnancy is a such a crazy experience (although moments like Adeline hugging my belly (“the baby”) make it more bearable) and I think Shoebox needs to take it on!
Did any of these experiences resonate with you? If you were going to suggest a topic for a Shoebox pregnancy card, what would it say?
Girl. You’re onto something. I’m surprised they haven’t taken this one on yet!
P.S. Shoebox cards are also my faves.
This is too funny! Love it! Absolutely hated it when people would touch my belly.
Boy, I totally understand this! Love card #5. I recently had twins. After so many inappropriate comments, I had a t-shirt made to address all of them. HAHAH! I took a picture and blogged about it here: http://trinketsofthought.com/2014/04/12/life/3664 I call it my passive aggressive t-shirt. ha
Love these! I’m pregnant for the first time and love this idea!
Oh the peeing! I just had baby number 2 last week and I had a terrible time with “tinkle” this time. Never had that problem with my first. Before we go a third round I think I may buy stock in depends! Ha!
For what it’s worth, if you just had the baby last week, it will get better! 🙂 But, at least in my case, no amount of kegels cured the issue completely – ha!
Maybe things to enjoy before you get pregnant that you’ll never enjoy again–like trampolines, apparently. For the aforementioned tinkle reasons. Even a couple years after the most recent birth. Bummer.
Strangers (and friends and family) who feel freedom to say, “you have 2kids/3kids/each gender/etc, now are you done??” My response is, “let me push this one out first and I’ll get back to you.”
so true, all of these. Thankfully I didn’t have a TON of people trying to touch my belly – maybe I just looked mean, I don’t know! I would also add that after the first child you will never pee alone again. Or… possibly other situations as well. And after three vaginal deliveries I basically wear a panty liner all of the time b/c you just never know when I might pee myself. A new one to me last year was when I got out of our pool and went in the house – the temperature change?!?! bizarre!
I think a good card might say,”Congratulations! You’ll never pee alone again!”
Also, if you want to borrow my “You can touch my belly if I can punch your face” shirt, you’re more than welcome to it.
I love this post!!! After having two kids myself, the incontinence was not something I was prepared for…and it’s been five years since my last one, so I’m pretty desperate for a miracle in that area. I still have to wear pads every day on the chance that the pee may flow too happily during the day–or more than once that day!! And my babies were both born via C-Section since my first born was seated DEEP in my pelvis and couldn’t successfully be turned around. Any way, I appreciate your honesty and hope beyond hope that one day soon God will heal us or that He will show someone how to cure it with exercise! 🙂
To the real reason for the post….why don’t you hook up with Hallmark to create some pregnancy cards???? I think you would be perfect for it! 🙂
You are so kind! Writing Hallmark cards would be a dream. 🙂
YES!!! Oh my yes.
#4 is good