Losing my mind? You be the judge.

I have officially become obsessed with Diet Mountain Dew. And I’m almost 7 months pregnant. Those two sentences really shouldn’t ever be so close together.

The thing is I’m certainly not the pregnant lady that makes all others look bad by giving up caffeine completely as soon as she finds out she’s pregnant. I definitely have cut back, especially when it comes to coffee, but I see no reason to go cold turkey on the stuff when most doctors and midwives, including mine, advise that in moderation, small amounts are just fine. So really, the fact that I haven’t completely given up caffeine has not really bothered me. (Though I will admit to feeling little twinges of guilt/defensiveness as I fill up my tiny little cup of half-caf every morning when someone’s waiting right behind me, only because I feel like people judge.)

Anyway, for some reason, drinking Diet Mountain Dew makes me feel like a bad mom, while the occasional Diet Coke or cup of coffee have given me no worries. With every sip, I imagine my baby growing horns or turning a shade of fluorescent yellow. I am SO IRRATIONAL! I looked up the caffeine amounts of each drink, and here’s how they compare:

12 oz can of Diet Mountain Dew: 55mg caffeine
12 oz can of Diet Coke: 46.5mg caffeine
8 oz brewed coffee: 80-135mg caffeine

So yea, there’s not too big of a difference as far as the two sodas go, and clearly I should be more worried about my morning coffee than the other two as it is.

Still there’s something about Mountain Dew that makes it seem so much more unnatural than all the other sodas. Again, they’re all horrible for you, if anything I should be worrying about the aspartame that’s in all diet drinks which could, in fact, someday be proven to cause the development of gills or severe overbites on babies or something.

Ok, writing about this has not made me feel any better. I'm not saying I thought it would, but, well, there you go. Still imagining my baby being born with a tail.

What else, what else… I’m 30 weeks pregnant! Fricken in the 30’s already! That is insanity. I can’t believe how close we are to meeting whoever is in there doing ninja kicks to my bladder on a constant basis. Oh, last night I was talking to this other pregnant chick at our birth class, and she can still sometimes go an entire night without getting up to pee. I almost punched her. I mean seriously! It’s every 1 ½ - 2 hours for me, like clockwork, and it’s been that way since, God I don’t know, 18-20 weeks? As long as I can remember anyway, I pretty much went right from morning sickness to peeing all the time.

Last night we watched another birth video, and this one was one of the full-on-crowning-crotch-shot videos, and my goodness, my hoo-hoo hurt just watching it. It’s almost hard to believe that our bodies are actually meant… to do that. Anyway, I love how the Bradley videos were all shot in the 70’s & 80’s. All the hairstyles (upstairs and down) and clothing are so dated and hilarious, and Dan and I both came to the realization last night that he should have started growing out his moustache a LONG time ago if he was really going to look the part of a Bradley coach. All kidding aside, it’s easy to get over all that stuff quickly because these women are so inspiring. Last night’s mom was ridiculously calm, even laughing at points throughout late 1st stage, matter-of-factly telling someone who has come to visit that she’s at 9 cm and has been there for a while. She was just so amazing, I’m going to have to try to channel her when my time comes.

I do think I’ve come to a realization about what my major childbirth fear is – basically, I’m mostly freaked out by the pushing part. I think of 1st stage labor as a marathon, a test of endurance, something that is as much mental as it is physical. But 2nd stage, or pushing, is like hard core sprinting at the end of that marathon. You’re physically and mentally exhausted after hours and hours (and hours) of this major endurance test, and then after all of that is behind you, you’ve still got to do this one last thing that is SUPER HARD CORE work. You have to sprint that last mile. Everything you’ve done before has lead you down this path, and there’s no turning back, you have to finish this out strong.

You see, I am not a sprinter. I’m athletic, but I don’t win things. I was never and will never be the best person on the team. I run a good, easy 9 minute mile, and I don’t even care to try to do it faster. I don’t know, I guess that’s why 2nd stage seems so scary to me. But I guess that’s ok, you bring those kinds of fears to the surface, you figure out how you’re going to combat them, or prepare for them, and you’re that much better off, right?

Sure!