For some odd reason many people have been misguided to believe that it is acceptable and appropriate to remind a pregnant woman of her bigness. For example, when my sister was pregnant a few weeks ago I would purposely annoy her by saying things like, “Looks like your t-shirts working overtime today, eh eh eh” with an elbow poke. Or like how my stepbrother would always ask me, “So, I know there’s a baby in your tummy but is your ass also pregnant?” And while these comments are also not considered acceptable, at least they’re coming from someone who you could eventually sneak attack and get even with. For instance, my sister eventually got even by forcing me to watch her kid when she finally went into labor and in the case of my stepbrother, I vowed that as soon as he had kids of his own I’d show them how to use their middle fingers. Luckily for him by the time he finally had kids he was forced to move two hours away from civilization. He says it was for some “job”, but I think we all know it was actually in fear of the war I waged upon his unborn children a few years before.
At any rate, I was nearing the 8 month mark and I was getting big. “Huge” might even be a better description. And everyone in the world wanted to point it out to me as if I wasn’t the one who had to bathe in cocoa butter so my skin wouldn’t spontaneously combust and oil up the door jamb so I could fit through it. As one of my sisters kindly pointed out, due to the fact that my thighs had grown quite fond of each other it would now be considered a fire hazard for me to wear corduroy. As if that perfect bitch knew anything about fat thighs (see also: Mother of the Year). To make matters worse, also compliments of my fat thighs, my camal toe was beginning to look more like a moose knuckle each and every day.
Things were getting ugly and to top it off I had developed a rash that no amount of Benadryl or oatmeal bath could remedy. My skin was stretched to the limit and my belly was starting to look more like a road map pointing south. I finally went to the doctor to see if there was something he could do for me.
I should have known better…
By the time I had been assigned a room and lifted up my blouse for the thousandth time, the nurse had grabbed the doctor, the doctor had grabbed his buddy in the hallway, and I was starting to feel more like a stripper than a patient. If I was going to be put on display like this, I would have to start at least requiring someone to stuff dollar bills down my sweatpants.
“Hey Bob, c’mer…you gotta get a load of this rash!” I was getting tired of being their circus freak. Not until after the entire doctor’s office plus the bum off the street had been invited in to see my insufferable and freakish rash was I told that it was called PUPPs – or more specifically pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy – and that my case was significantly worse than anything anyone had ever seen, ever before, ever in the history of rashes…ever. And to top it off they knew of no cause or cure. The only remedy would be to...wait for it...take Benadryl and an oatmeal bath. Hmm…why didn’t I think of that?
But before I could be discharged from this very aggravating, very pointless doctor’s visit, the physician’s assistant came into my room with a camera and - I swear to you the following is not a fabrication - they wanted to take pictures of my rash and put me in a medical journal.
So this is my fifteen minutes of fame, I thought.
And somewhere in the world today, in the good name of science, someone is staring at a picture of me, topless and wearing a dirty Victoria’s Secret sports bra, covered in the rash that broke the record.
Yay me.
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