Tag Archives: rants

Things That Suck About Being Pregnant

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pregnancy, things that suck about pregnancy, pregnant, baby, hatePregnancy is supposed to be an amazing time but it doesn’t always work out that way. My mother always talked about her wonderful pregnancies and, in truth, I don’t think I ever heard a negative pregnancy story from a family member or friend. Sure there were some truly awful stories in the media and, although I found them horrifying, I cast them out of my mind. Which is why I am pretty annoyed now. Pregnancy is not this magical thing people told me about. It is not a magical time at all. Okay, creating our child is wonderful and I would not have it any other way but wonderful or any other such word does not encapsulate it. In fairness, my pregnancy has been termed ‘unlucky’ by my doctor. It is a bit of an understatement due to the horrendous acute morning sickness but, never mind. Here are my pregnancy rants. Feel free to add your own because ranting is good for the soul.

Bump Molestation

Seriously, what is up with this? Today I actually had a stranger molest me from barely underneath my breasts all the way down. I may have been in a sitting position but it was not appropriate and if it had not been an elderly woman she would have at the very least been slapped. It is not okay to touch a pregnant women’s bump without asking her. And even then, keep your hands to yourself unless you are a very close friend or family member. How would you like to be felt up? Especially when you are creating a life and feeling very protective of your bump? This brings me on to my next rant….

A Women’s Body Does Not Become Public Property When She becomes Pregnant

Not only does this mean NO TOUCHING but it also means you don’t get to tell her what to eat or drink, how to exercise or how much weight to put on. You don’t get to make comments on how she looks or what she does so mind your business.

The Unsolicited Advice

Your pregnancy choices were good choices for you. Only share them with other pregnant women if they ask. If you are a man, keep quiet unless you are a doctor and a question is asked. Also annoying is pregnancy advice from women who have never been pregnant. I mean, really?

The Constant Personal Questions

When people find out you are pregnant they ask you everything from what you are going to call your baby, what the sex is and how much weight you have put on. It really is too much. People seem to forget their manners when they are in the presence of a pregnant woman. If you feel uncomfortable just smile and avoid the question or say you are not sharing that information publicly yet.

Morning Sickness

As Miranda says in Sex & The City, ‘I don’t know why they call it morning sickness when it lasts all fucking day.’ Exactly Miranda, exactly. Some woman get barely any morning sickness and some, like Kate Middleton, get acute morning sickness which is otherwise known as hyperemesis gravidarum. Morning sickness is not fun. Think of your worst hangover ever and then think about suffering through it everyday for about three months, sometimes longer. There you go: morning sickness.

Not being Able To Tell Anyone Why You Are So ill

The chances of miscarriage are high in the first 12 weeks so you are recommended to keep your pregnancy to yourself. Suffering in silence is not= fun and colleagues will probably notice something is up. Just know you will get to the end of it.

Having To Do All of the Stuff You Did Before

There is a popular quote that Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels. Well, pregnant women have to do everything everyone else does but whilst dealing with morning sickness, being kicked internally, headaches, muscle pain, nausea, random pains, tiredness…the list is endless. The pressure for pregnant women to not let anyone down and act like some kind of superwoman is tremendous. The reality is: pregnant women should be given some slack. If you don’t like that, just remember that the little baby they are creating will be paying for public services in your retirement.

The Fact That EVERYTHING Hurts

I mean everything. From your head to your legs to your vagina. A lucky day is when it doesn’t hurt all at once.

The Constant Worrying

I stopped reading the pregnancy literature before 12 weeks. I could not take it. Even now the stuff overwhelms me. Sure, things can go wrong in pregnancy but do you really need to know about every single thing that could go wrong? No, you don’t. So relax and read a magazine or a good book instead. Ignorance is not bliss, but somedays it is easier.

The Glee of Awful Things To Come

Too many people take such glee in the fact that, apparently, you will never sleep again, nor have a life. People can seem pretty happy because they think that having a child will ruin your life or career. Ignore these people. They are jerks.

What are your pregnancy rants?

 

 

 

Londoners Life Part 3 by Phil Ryan {Opinions}

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Christmas is coming. It’s November but to London’s shop keepers the herds of shoppers are easily spooked. Like hunters, they are carefully baiting their traps, staying downwind of the easily confused consumers but they are readying their weapons all the same. The window displays are slowly turning into confusing artworks. A stick-thin model girl nailed to a reindeer with glitter pouring out of her knees. It’s where the window display merchandisers in large department stores get to show what they can really do, although it seems much of their festive season output resembles a badly planned acid trip.

For the less fanciful shops, Santas and snow scenes seem to be appearing on every aisle. The sponsored lights are going up in Bond Street,  now, in November. I’m not sure what this year’s theme is – probably celebrating the miraculous birth of our Lord Jesus Christ with a tasteful The Three Wise men at *insert-generic-store-name-here theme. Each bringing those well known biblical gifts, an Xbox, an ipod and the ‘scream and then watch me vomit’ little chav doll from Mattel. That’s not the Mattell Toy company by the by that’s from Dave Mattell from Dagenham ‘Toys r Cheap and Cut price Booze’ store.

Like the anxious shopkeepers you can smell the money in the air, or at least the expectation of money. Recession? What recession? ‘Tis the season to be exploited. Sad really. It’s really not quite as Dickensian as it could be. But the snow is forecast. And London will do its best. So look out for rosy cheeked pickpockets operated by eastern European gangmasters, feisty chestnut sellers pushing crack and Scrooge as played by the local Councils closing down old people’s homes and care centres. Tis the season to be jolly spend thrifts. Courtesy of MasterCard or Barclaycard presumably.
Barclaycard. These are the same people who are sponsoring the newest fad in town. The Boris bike. The easily accessible bicycle you can ride around town on. No more smelly and hot tube trains. Just leap onto a Boris bike and away you go! Zoom through the parks. The little back streets. They’ve settled in rather quickly I must say. Everywhere you go centrally in London at least. I note that places like say Kidbrooke or Stonebridge Park appear to have been missed out in the locations of bike docking stations. Mainly because the bikes would be in a skip fire or more likely on a container ship to Liberia within hours of deployment. In a way you could say it’s a kind of new classism by bike. But still, you’ll see them weaving and wobbling in out of traffic around Trafalgar Square, the City and Kensington High Street with those type of people you just somehow expect to see on them. I’ve not tried one myself. Death has never appealed to me. Clearly there is a hidden agenda though. It just occurred to me I must be missing something. It’s not a class thing at all. Perhaps it’s a new job creation thing. You can just see the meeting, City Hall, midnight, written on a whiteboard in red.

How can we create job places in a crowded job market? Answer; Put lots of professional people on unwieldy heavy bicycles, take some money from them and then hurl them like baby ducks into friendly London traffic. A nightmarish concoction of rumbling huge lorries, confused mini cab drivers, belligerent black-taxi drivers, Kamikaze Pizza bike delivery boys. Fiendish eh? But I shouldn’t carp. Here in London we are innovators, we pride ourselves on it. Take our restaurant scene for example, where else are you able to choose from dishes whose descriptions are so pretentious you can see the waiter smirking from thirty feet away? In my area it’s rife. Who writes this stuff? “Jus of spring mint and beagle shattered with lemon butter and fresh wild Ecuadorian bong berries lovingly smothered on apricot battered tender codlet tarragon peppered steaks fried au on nuit”. Uh? Then like an infant it either has to be explained to you by some show-off out of work actor. (Nothing wrong with being an actor – Editor) Meanwhile you sit like some Alzheimers patient nodding and smiling still clueless. Or you take a chance and hope it doesn’t taste like fried baby vomit in a glove. Don’t get me wrong, I like creativity and I like food. Just tell me what it is. I’ll order quickly, honest I will.

Having said that, the descriptions dazzle most people long enough for them to not notice the price tag. Which is the whole idea. Normal food at eye watering prices with undecipherable descriptions. But it’s not about the food, so I’m told, it’s the place, the ambience, the vibe and most importantly what it says about you. Vacuous? Empty? No. It’s a London thing.