Decreased Tolerance of Bullshit

Your sister is telling you yet another tale of “that asshole at work.” Your friends are fighting and vaguebooking instead of communicating. Your dog pees on the floor. This kind of stuff happens all the time, but since you got pregnant, it’s a lot harder to tolerate this bullshit.

Treatment

Before reacting to bullshit, take a deep breath and try to remember that not everyone is suffering the internal turmoil of creating life. Their petty grievances are all they’ve got to complain about. Try not to punch them in the face.

Prognosis

Not good. I’d like to say it gets better, but it really doesn’t. Once you’ve given birth, the bullshit around you is just as annoying. You might be a bit more patient, though. Something about changing a screaming baby’s diaper 12 times a day does great things for your patience.

Increased Sensitivity to Touching Commercials

The soldier came home for some delicious Folgers. Mom and Dad are misty as their boy chugs some coffee. I’m blubbering like a dying whale. That’s right, a stupid coffee commercial with about 20 seconds of plot is enough to get you going. WebMD will tell you about the “mood swings”, but they neglect to mention the random bawling at the merest hint of a sad story.

Treatment

There’s only one treatment that works. Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra with the caramel core. Eat half of one pint, and save the other half for later, when your mother calls.

Prognosis

Once you’ve had the kid, give your body about 3 months to flush out those crying hormones. Thankfully, they do go away. I’m not saying you’re not going to cry ever again, but you might be pretty close to where you started on the sensitivity scale. Stuff about babies might make you cry.

Inflated Jealousy of Skinny Bitches

As you navigate the maze of chairs in the restaurant, you’re forced to go sideways, lift the belly, or just plain mow them down. Then, some skinny bitch sidles up cutely in between the chairs, sucking it in ever so slightly as she giggles her way expertly to her tiny booth. You don’t get a booth. You need a bench and a sandwich while you wait for your dinner. Your jealousy inflates painfully as the skinny bitch just orders a mineral water and a caesar salad.

Treatment

Laugh quietly to yourself because she has no idea that a caesar salad has anchovies in it – murdering her self-proclaimed vegetarianism. That skinny bitch.

Prognosis

Like most other pregnancy symptoms, this one will generally resolve a few months postpartum. Your body won’t ever be the same, but it’s still yours. Take your scars and stretch marks as badges of honor, and focus on being a healthy, beautiful you.

Idiopathic Chronic Middle-finger Pain

Some jerk cuts you off. You can’t get into the turn lane. You’ve been stuck in traffic for 20 minutes and the guy behind you is riding your bumper. You’re not sure why, but your middle finger tends to hurt, especially after a long drive.

Treatment

Though the cause of middle finger pain is unknown, it seems to lessen a bit when you don’t drive as much. If this isn’t a possibility for you, try to make sure you’ve eaten recently before a drive and do some prego-yoga before and after. You can also try cursing out the window and alternating fingers when gesturing.

Prognosis

Unfortunately this pain tends to be chronic for constant drivers. With treatment it can be managed.

Weird New Smells

Is that my feet? Yes. That’s your feet. It’s not that they smell worse than before, it’s that you can smell them better than ever before. If it’s not your feet, it’s the bad breath that you can now smell from across the room. It’s the curtains. They smell…dusty? Your incredible sniffer is awesome for enjoying the orange blossoms from 3 states away, but for everything else, it’s an overwhelming rush of weird things you could never smell before.

Treatment

Chewing gum seems to help. The overwhelming mint flavor pushes many other smells out. Also, try avoiding any particularly smelly people, and shower more often. Don’t worry – most other people probably can’t smell your feet. It’s just you and your magic nose.

Prognosis

Thankfully, it does go away. With time, your super-sniffer will melt away and you’ll be back to sticking your face in that glade candle to see if it really smells like birthday cake, instead of avoiding that aisle altogether.

Engorged Self Defense Mechanism & Paranoia

You’re in the passenger seat, riding 80 miles per hour down the highway, and suddenly, you picture yourself leaning too hard on the door. In your head, it pops open, and you’re flying down the highway, landing on your belly and tumbling you and your baby in an endless deathroll down the interstate. That’s not gonna happen. First of all, there are seat belts and secondly, those doors are pretty secure. It doesn’t matter. Now that you’re a walking baby incubator, you no longer just fear for yourself, you fear for your belly dweller. That’s twice the paranoia, plus hormones. Not a good mix.

Treatment

There’s not much you can do. Those visions of untimely death are going to happen. Just do what you can to be safe, and try not to think about it. Try keeping a journal of all the wacky death scenarios you’ve created in your mind, so that later when the hormones have left the room, you can laugh about it.

Prognosis

Though your self preservation will ease over time, your paranoia will switch from your belly to the baby. After several trips to the nursery to make sure she’s breathing, it will get easier. Try not to wrap the baby in bubble wrap.

These are merely a few of the many strange and undocumented symptoms of pregnancy. I asked my doctor a few times about these things, and he always had the same answer. “Pregnancy is weird.” So, don’t freak out unless you’re experiencing any of the symptoms that require you to go to the doctor. Everything else, well, it’s usually just our weird bodies.