Vanity, Thy Name Is Pregnancy

I've been reading -- and re-reading -- the signs of the onset of labor, hoping that maybe there's some sort of sign I've missed (ie, an infant's head hanging out of my vagina). Unfortunately, there's not. And as my due date approaches tomorrow, it still doesn't look like Little Miss E is coming out anytime soon.

One of the first signs of labor is a nesting urge, I'm told. I kind of did all that already... there's not much else to clean and I've taken to micromanaging everything in the house. It's not even a matter of cleaning things, it's more an issue of, "My mother-in-law is going to be here and I don't think I'm going to meet her standards." I mean, cripes, I sprayed down the dog with doggie perfume because A kept saying he smelled like pee (the dog, not A). Don't need no in-laws thinking I don't keep my dog clean and smelling like "fresh spring."

But this is nothing compared to the overwhelming vanity that has swept me. I think my biggest fear of delivering this child is the after-birth pictures. I'm sure it won't matter to me when the time comes. I am sure mid-labor Prego isn't going to give two shits if her hair is perfectly blown out, but God knows pre-labor Prego does. I don't care if the kid is swinging like George of the Jungle out of my crotch when we leave for the hospital, I'll be damned if I'm leaving this house without my MAC eye shadow, Lancome mascara, and Aveeno moisturizer.

My biggest pregnancy peeve is hair control. For some reason the few salon spas in town that do bikini and Brazilian waxes are a little wary about ripping hair painfully out of the crotch of a woman who is 9+ months pregnant. So I pose this question: do you understand how difficult it is to shave/trim the pubic hair on a pubic area you can no longer see? I know, I'm way too open about this subject, but seriously? It's the hardest thing I've ever attempted. You try to move your basketball-sized gut out of the way and it turns into a guessing game of feeling around and wondering, "Would hair be here?" I don't know if Helen Keller ever tried to shave her naughty bits, but I'm guessing it would have been a very similar process.

I don't know why I feel the need to shave down there, right now. But I figure that this kid has enough issues coming out into the world -- it's cold, it's bright, and there's someone screaming like a banshee and screaming words that she'll later be told she can't say in public. Last thing I want to do is add to her frustrations by allowing my pubic region to turn into a horrible jungle she has to climb through. It's labor and delivery, not the final physical challenge on Double Dare.

Whenever I feel the Braxton Hicks contractions kicking in, I immediately go shave my legs and put on a fresh coat of polish on the toes. If those piggies are gonna be up in the air in stirrups, they're going to look good. Somewhere between enduring my screaming, begging for death, cursing my husband and denouncing the existence of God, damnit, those OB nurses are going to look at my toes and wonder where I got that fabulous cabernet color (it's Opi, by the way).

Is it bad when I go back and read my blog posts and even I can admit I sound crazy? I really need to pop this kid out and return to sanity. Sweet, sleep-deprived, puke- and poop-covered sanity.