Miss Personality

After 13 years of marriage, I certainly had given up on any possibility of a future Miss Personality making a presence in my life. Yet I'll never forget the day of that pregnancy test showing positive. Surely I screwed up the procedure and thank goodness there was another test for people who made an error (like not using it in morning as the stupid box clearly instructs when you READ the instructions.) Okay, we all make mistakes, redo in the a.m.! But after a terrible night's sleep - still positive. Shock. The husband is elated! Crap - I had a few beers at that Shania Twain concert, I'm a complete Starbucks addict, and I'm still smoking like a chimney. Oh, yeah, honey, I'm super excited! (My brain was completely full of my voluminous construction vocabulary.)

Once I figured out I was nearly 4 months pregnant, I slowly adjusted to the realization that this was going to happen. Sure was overjoyed when someone posted a sign outside my office door asking everyone to guess the sex of the baby to be. Annoyed when someone wrote in the option of PUPPIES on that sign, but I managed a polite smile and fake laugh. That's asking a lot from a hormonal female who can no longer fit into her corporate suit attire. (Oh God, PUHLEEZ give me a girl, a girl with blonde hair like me; no boys, no boys, no boys - I don't like what they do to bathrooms.) "I'll just be happy as long as the baby is healthy." (Such BS...)

Then came the birth - natural - not by MY choice but thanks to a few treehugging nurses who I desperately hope will have a tree fall on TOP of them to this day. (BTW, if in doubt - use drugs, ask for them, request them months in advance, check stock at the hospital, threaten lives if need be - that much pain for any human is so unnatural.)

Somewhere during that birth, I think my brain melted - what a change. How could you ever put your baby down? Sleep? Who needs it! Gimme my baby, I don't need a friggin' nursery! Please don't let me forget to mention that I'd never held a baby in my entire life - ever, never, not my nieces or nephews, not friends' kids. My baby was different!

Miss Personality made her appearance in quite the fashion and she immediately started making noises, lots of them, right away! Should have known then...