pooping. at work.

So...being pregnant has brought on a million different things that I'm not used to, many of which keep making a debut. Every week it's something new, and I'm really trying to just live my life. It's hard, especially when these things interfere with work. I work 40+ hours per week. So basically, I'm spending a huge amount of time at work Monday through Friday, sometimes more so than I am at home.

When you are pregnant, you have issues with pooping. Sometimes you can't poop, and sometimes you poop too much. If this topic embarrasses you, grow a pair and accept the fact that you or someone you know will inevitably have to face this topic head on and find a way to cope.

I wish that I had come up with this on my own. Sadly, I cannot take credit. Then again, maybe that's a good thing. I can, however, relate to a lot of these things. Thank you Jessie for pointing me in this direction. The fact that someone actually spent time compiling these facts helps me to realize that I am not alone.

What Happens When I'm At WORK and I have to Poop?

We've all been there but don't like to admit it. We've all kicked back in our cubicles and suddenly felt something a brew down below. As much as we try to convince ourselves, the WORK POOP is inevitable.

For those of you who hate pooping at work as much as I do, I give you the.........

Survival Guide for Taking a Dump at Work.

Memorize these definitions and pooping at work will become a pure pleasure.

ESCAPEE: A fart that slips out while taking a leak at the urinal or forcing poop in a stall. This is usually accompanied by a sudden wave of panic/embarrassment. This is similar to the hot flash you receive when passing an unseen police car & speeding. If you release an escapee, do not acknowledge it. Pretend it did not happen. If you are standing next to the farter at the urinal, pretend that you did not hear it. No one likes an escapee, it is uncomfortable for all involved. Making a joke or laughing makes both parties feel uneasy.

JAILBREAK (Used in conjunction with escapee): When forcing a poop, several farts slip out at a machine gun's pace. This is usually a side effect of diarrhea or a hangover. If this should happen do not panic, remain in the stall until everyone has left the bathroom so to spare everyone the awkwardness of what just occurred.

COURTESY FLUSH: The act of flushing the toilet the instant the nose cone of the poop log hits the water and the poop is whisked away to an undisclosed location. This reduces the amount of air time the poop has to stink up the bathroom. This can help you avoid being caught doing the WALK OF SHAME.

WALK OF SHAME: Walking from the stall, to the sink, to the door after you have just stunk-up the shitter. This can be a very uncomfortable moment if someone walks in and busts you. As with all farts, it is best to pretend that the smell does not exist. Can be avoided with the use of a COURTESY FLUSH.

OUT OF THE CLOSET POOPER: A colleague who poops at work and is damn proud of it. You will often see an Out of the Closet Pooper enter the bathroom with a newspaper or magazine under their arm. Always look around the office for the Out OF THE CLOSET POOPER before entering the bathroom.

THE POOPING FRIENDS NETWORK (PFN): This is a group of coworkers who band together to ensure emergency pooping goes off without incident. This group can help you to monitor the whereabouts of OUT OF THE CLOSET POOPERS and identify SAFE HAVENS.

SAFE HAVEN: A seldom used bathroom somewhere in the building where you can least expect visitors. Try floors that are predominantly of the opposite sex. This will reduce the odds of a pooper of your sex entering the bathroom.

TURD BURGLAR: A pooper who does not realize that you're in the stall and tries to force the door open. This is one of the most shocking and vulnerable moments that occur when taking a dump at work. If this occurs, remain in the stall until the TURD BURGLAR leaves. This way you will avoid all uncomfortable eye contact. TURD BURGLARS have been know to cause premature pinchage, which inevitably causes you to pinch one off in the middle.

CAMO-COUGH: A phony cough which alerts all new entrants into the bathroom that you are in a stall. This can be used to cover-up a WATERMELON or to alert potential TURD BURGLARS. Very effective when used in conjunction with an ASTAIRE.

ASTAIRE: This is a subtle toe-tap that is used to alert all potential TURD BURGLARS that you are occupying a stall. This will remove all doubt that the stall is occupied. If you hear an ASTAIRE, leave the bathroom immediately so the pooper can poop in peace.

WATERMELON: A turd that creates a loud splash when hitting the toilet water. This is also an embarrassing incident. If you feel a WATERMELON coming on, create a diversion. See CAMO-COUGH.

HAVANA OMELET: A load of diarrhea that creates a series of loud splashes in the toilet water. Often accompanied by an escapee. Try using a CAMO-COUGH with an ASTAIRE.

UNCLE TED: A bathroom user who seems to linger around forever. Could spend extended lengths of time in front of the mirror or sitting on the pot. An UNCLE TED makes it difficult to relax while on the crapper, as you should always wait to drop your load when the bathroom is empty. This benefits you as well as the other bathroom attendees.

FLY BY: The act of scouting out a bathroom before pooping. Walk in, check for other poopers. If there are others in the bathroom, leave and come back again. Be careful not to become a FREQUENT FLYER. People may become suspicious if they catch you constantly going into the bathroom.

For more interesting facts and other information about pooping, visit this website.

saturday night randoms

• I wanted tiramisu. Husband surprised me by stopping at one of my favorite Italian restaurants and picking some up. I love him.

• I was just barefoot in the kitchen. Barefoot and pregnant. Making a casserole. I might do laundry later and vacuum. I'm a feminist's worst nightmare.
• I miss the sun.
• I drank too much milk last night and got a stomach ache. I am craving milk again and am afraid to drink too much.
• Does anyone have a good recipe for a virgin mudslide? If so, let me know. I need one.
• Fred is currently standing on one foot, with his eyes closed, grinding his beak in a happy way, listening to Sarah Mclachlan sing "The Rainbow Connection."
  
• It's going to be another cold night. The high is -18 degrees. Yes, that's a minus sign. I am looking forward to me+electric blanket.
• Brother-in-law is on his way to Chicago to watch the Packer/Bear playoff game. I hope his tickets aren't fake.
  
• I had fun at my company party last night.
• But the chicken tasted funny to me.
  
• I have discovered a new love for kiddy cocktails.
• I wish I had the motivation to get back into knitting. It has been a while. Maybe some new yarn would inspire me. Do you like yarn? If so, you must checkout Darn Good Yarn. It's fantastic. You can get yarn made from sari ribbon, banana fiber, hemp & nettle....and it's unique and beautiful and comes from amazing sources. Seriously, you won't be disappointed. Here is some that I've bought in the past. You're welcome. :)

I made a scarf. :)

oh brr!!! part deux.

I survived. Do not fear.

We had to go to school to pick up a book for Husband's anatomy and physiology class. Then, we stopped by my mom's work and visited her. She works at a health food store. I'm a big fan of organic stuff, and a big fan of my mom. Then we had to drop off something at our landlord's office. Husband had to remove the baseboard heater in our downstairs bathroom so we could fit the new washer and dryer in there. I called Landlord to make sure it was okay. He said it was fine, and just to drop off a note reminding him that he gave us permission to do it so he could put it in our tenant file. He said I could literally just hand write a note. But, being the anal person I am, I drafted this contract looking thing and signed it. Whatever. He'll appreciate my thoroughness and my professionalism.

We dropped off a loan payment at the bank.

We went to this Mennonite country store and bought snacks and hot cocoa mix. Random? I know. I also got hummus. And vegetable chips.

We also went to Michael's. I got a coloring book. Don't ask.

We ate lunch at a Erbert's & Gerbert's.

Husband got the washer and dryer all hooked up. I hate renting. There's always some issue. The valve that he had to hook up the cold water hose to was leaking. We had to have the plumber come out and fix it, and it's still not totally fixed. Husband said he'll watch it...there's still a small leak, but it might not be much to worry about. If it starts leaking into the basement though, they are going to get another phone call.

Oh, speaking of washer and dryer....I'm a loser and had to take pictures of our new appliances, because I am so excited about them!!!!

So many buttons! Here is our washer:

Here is our dryer. And my face!!

Husband has to level the feet on the washer before I use it again so it doesn't bounce around and destroy itself during the spin cycle.

So I'm happy. We won't have to bother our friends and family anymore by coming over and using their facilities to do our laundry.

What else...I took a short nap. Under my new electric blanket that my mom got for us. I'm so lucky. This thing rules. It's soft chenille material and doesn't even feel like an electric blanket...and it has dual controls on both sides of the bed. So if Husband doesn't want his side as warm as mine, he doesn't have to worry. He never turns his on. I on the other hand, keep mine at a level 6. It's perfect. But now someone asked me if I should even be using it while I'm pregnant. I find conflicting things when I google it, so I really don't know. My thinking is, I'm not overheating, they're made better nowadays and aren't emitting high enough EMFs to hurt me or my baby....I should be fine. I'll ask the doctor on Monday when I go in.

I have to go to my holiday party for work tonight. It's just dinner. I already paid for Husband to go with me. Now I don't want to go. I'm lethargic and tired and just don't feel like socializing. But I'll feel bad if I don't go. Especially since it's dinner and Husband is excited to eat.

oh brr!!!

Today is the coldest day of the year. No, that's not an exaggeration. It really is. That being said, I took a personal day. The idea was to stay hibernated in my electric blanket. But Husband thinks it's a fabulous idea to go run errands. I don't want to sit home alone. So, off I go. If I you don't hear from me again, that means I'm frozen somewhere on the side of the road. Yay for -24 degrees and -40 windchill.

rut

First off....sorry if the previous blog post offended you.

1.) It was not all coming from my head. I referenced where some of that came from.
2.) It wasn't meant to be negative. It was meant to be sarcastic and funny.

Okay. :)

Moving on...on a more serious note.....I think I'm getting depressed. Really. I don't know if it's hormonal (it probably is) or if it's the weather (it probably also is)....but I'm really feeling unhappy and gloomy lately, and nothing cheers me up. I'm pretty sure it's due to the above two things, but I'm seriously in a huge rut. I feel like a mini vacation would make it better, but I don't want to go to some stupid place like some indoor waterpark. I want to go AWAY somewhere warm. About this time of year is when Jason and I start planning something and now we can't, for obvious reasons. And I'm really depressed about it. I tried suggesting something to my mom, that maybe we can get away for a girl's weekend and go to San Fran and visit family. It really wouldn't be that expensive. Her response? "Eh, no...I have plans in March to go to Portland with my friends." And it's not like I can be mad or anything. It's not like she owes it to me to plan a vacation with me. I just figured she'd want to. It came as a shock to me. I've now come to the realization that my mom does her own thing now, and I pretty much am not included anymore. And that's okay. She deserves that, I mean, it's her time now to do that stuff. I'm just sad. I'm upset that Husband gets to go to Florida in April and Puerto Rico in May while I get to sit here and rot in the cold while my belly gets bigger. All I want is a weekend. Three days somewhere warm. Not 3 hours north of here either. An actual place with salt water and sunlight.

I'm depressed and I feel like nobody around me cares, and everyone else gets to be happy about everything they have going on. People make suggestions and I like to believe that they are honestly trying to be helpful but I feel as though they are just undermining how I feel. I don't want to stay in a hotel an hour from here. I don't see how that would help. Look, I'm the one who has to be stuck at home while growing a baby and then I get to pop it out of my vagina and be tied down for the next who knows how many years. I'm sick of it already and it hasn't even happened yet, and sometimes I question why I even wanted to get pregnant. I'm sure I'll feel differently, but right now I'm just upset at everyone. And I feel like nobody understands how I'm feeling or why I'm feeling this way.

I don't even know. And that makes it even worse. :(

don't do that.

Hey, lab assistant. Do me a favor. Don't dig around in my arm with a needle. If you "aren't sure" the vein is there, don't poke me hoping something will happen, and then literally dig around with the needle. Do you KNOW how much that hurts?

I had to have some blood drawn today. The midwife wants to have my thyroid checked. I guess the Urgent Care doctor may not have been so wrong. Remember the obsession with my thyroid?

Well, it's SLIGHTLY high. As in, normal would be 12 and mine was at 12.75. Don't ask me what any of that means. In dumb translation, they can give me some medication to balance it out, and as a result my metabolism will speed up, I'll feel better and have more energy, and probably lose weight. Heck yes. Would have been nice if they had done this years ago. I may never have had to graduate to double digit sizes. So, we will see. I'm hoping for something. Anything to improve me and my quest for hotness. Pregnant or not.

Also, stop commenting on my sleep or lack of. Sometimes I complain about how I'm not sleeping well. People respond with, "Better get used to it!" or, "Enjoy the sleep you do get, because that won't last long!" Or sometimes, "You better sleep now because once that baby gets here...." Why? Do babies not sleep?! Next you'll be telling me that they poop too! OMG!! Whatever, sleep is for ugly people. That's what I'd like to say, but I don't.

Here's another thing you shouldn't do. Don't comment on a pregnant woman's size (large or small) unless you know for a FACT that she won't take it the wrong way. This pretty much eliminates your permission to do this unless it's your BFF or yourself. Get it? That being said, I want to share some wonderfully funny things that I found on another blog, pregnantchicken.com. Also the place that I lifted some funny pregnancy photos from not too long ago.

Don't say these things unless you will enjoy the following responses.

"You're huge!"

• I know!! It's like I'm growing a whole baby or something!
• Holy crap, you too!
• I don't know why either, all I consume these days is cocaine and Diet Sprite. Weird, huh?

"Don't you know what causes that?"

• Public pools, right?
• Yes, having sex.
• Why are you asking? Can't you remember?

"How many more babies are you going to have?"

• It depends on how many we sell.
• We plan to keep going until we have an ugly one.
  

"You're not going to find out the sex? But don't you want to know? It would... drive me crazy!"

• It wouldn't matter anyway because we're naming it Thermos the Third whether it's a boy OR a girl.
• I'm kind of hoping it's neither and it's just gas.
  

‎"Should you be eating that?"

• No, I should be eating lots of it.
  

"Feeling fat yet?"

• Whoa, I was just going to ask you the same thing. How weird is that?!

“You still haven’t had that baby yet?”

• I'm trying to hold it in so I can finish a novel I'm working on.
• Oh, I had it, I just left it in the car today.
• Don’t worry; you will know when your husband starts paying child support.

"Was this an accident?"

• Were you?
• Yes! I tripped and fell on a weiner.
  

"You're so small!"

• A really heavy person said that to me yesterday too. I guess it's all relative.

And on another note, this girl had some good things to say regarding miscarriage. As someone who has lost a baby (not too long ago either), I can totally relate. Don't say these things to someone if they miscarried. I mean seriously, what is the matter with people? You think you're helping and you're not.

It wasn't meant to be. It doesn't cut it when they are out of your shoe size and it sure doesn't cut it when you've lost a baby.

It was God's plan. Some people find comfort in this statement. I, despite being a church going lady, do not. Why? Because it's not fricken in God's plan for people to lose people they love, least of all babies who never got a chance to live. It's not God's plan. It was never God's plan.

You can have more. Thanks, that helps a lot. Like when you go to Culver's and they only give you half of an order of cheese curds even though you ordered a whole order. You can get more. Because that's the same kind of thing, you know.

It was probably from all your _______ (stress, jumping, eating, breathing, etc). More than one person actually said this to me, in different ways. One person said something along the lines of, "You should have been resting more!!" Yes, because that's why I lost my baby. I wasn't sleeping/resting enough, despite the fact that I was sleeping all the time. You see, you are right. I was actually playing ice hockey and rugby and participating in competitive rock wall climbing. Anyone who blames you for losing your baby deserves a swift kick in the tooth.

At least you have your other children. Okay. Don't worry about the fact that your ear just fell off. You have another one.

This isn't bad, so-and-so had three miscarriages. Yes, correct. The fact that so-and-so had this happen to her more than once reminds me that I shouldn't feel bad that it happened to me. I'm not allowed to be sad, I feel much better now! Thank you!

At least you weren't that far along. If I won the lottery, I would have it mentally spent in about 20 minutes. These couples have had weeks, if not months, to think about a baby that isn't going to happen now. Saying something like that is just undermining their loss.

And finally, one more thing (on a much lighter note). Don't tell me that I'm not going to win the lottery. No, in fact - DO tell me that. Because the more you tell me that, the more regret and embarrassment you will feel when I finally do win the Powerball and don't buy you anything.

HA!

I promise...

I promise not to become a mom who wears mom jeans.

I promise not to get a mom haircut.

I promise not to drive a minivan (sorry, I know a lot of you like those, but I don't).

I promise not to show every person in the world pictures of my kid unless they express interest in wanting to see them.

I promise not to update my Facebook status with every single little thing my kid does. I realize that no matter how excited I am, nobody is going to care that my baby rolled over, made a weird noise, or peed in the toilet. Nobody will care except for my close friends and family. I promise to remember that.

I promise to not allow my kid to make a huge mess in a restaurant and think it's cute and not try to clean it up.

I promise to leave the grocery store if my child won't stop screaming.

I promise not to leave dried food or snot on my kid's face.

I promise to change my clothes before I go shopping if it so happens that my kid spit up or drooled all over me.

I realize that these are things that people forget about...but they're all things that gross me out. I don't want to do these things. So, that being said, I promise not to.