A free Lush ad: Lemslip!

Lemslip! It saved my life!  Kind of!

You know how when you're pregnant and sometimes you get Super Scent, when you can smell anything, like a cucumber three blocks away? Which sounds cool but it's not because everything also smells totally, completely HORRIBLE!

I was sick for months. Until one day ... (knock knock) ... A gift!

Just one sniff - cured!!

Two years later the baby is crazy for the tiniest dab of shimmy shimmy.

(I won a bath bomb with this illustration at the Lincoln Square Mall Lush in Bellevue, Wash. So worth the million hours it took to draw it!)

Quiz: Should you get pregnant? (Part II)

7) I am willing to switch bodies with a total stranger who is clumsy and overweight
- yes   - no   -I hope my boobs get really freaking huge

8) I have a nice ass
- yes   - no    - rack also

9) I would like to set my alarm to go off every three hours for at least six months. Each time the alarm goes off, I will apply battery clamps to my nipples for 1/2 hour. I promise this will make me free profoundly peaceful and happy. I will love the battery clamps with all my heart.
- yes   - no   - I found God

10) In the last year, I have adopted two dogs, one cat, one bird, a turtle, a rabbit and a gerbil.
- yes   - no   - And saltwater aquarium

11) I have no friends or hobbies and I dislike quiet time alone with music, books, or TV. I don't have a computer.
- yes   - no   - not even cable

SCORING: Add up all the "yes" answers, subtract the "no" ones then multiply by the others. Then go ahead and get knocked up because the baby will be SO CUTE.

Quiz: Should you get pregnant?

1) I am willing to go to a hospital, do a truckload of drugs, then wake up the next day feeling like I'd been in an S&M experiment gone seriously awry. OR I am willing to skip the drugs first.
- yes   - no   - like last Friday?

2) My husband doesn't mind if I go insane
- yes   - no   -He's already in Mexico

3) I enjoy it when entire plane loads of people hate me
- yes   - no   - Also restaurant patrons

4) Breasts are sexy
-  yes   - no   - Seriously, no

5) I enjoy sleeping
- yes   - no   - I am an internist

6) Being enormous and barfing is acceptable:
- never   - Two months, max   - I've never felt so beautiful

Part II tomorrow: Your ass, and the final tally

Signs

Tiffany is eight months pregnant. She is a glowing a beautiful hippopotamus of magic. We've never seen a bigger baby belly.

Her and Dave are going to name the baby Max. We tried to get her to name him Bertuzzi after our favorite hockey player but she just sat at her desk knitting tiny sweaters and said "no no no I'm not naming my baby Bertuzzi. Now get out of my office."

Mr. Hand Sanitizer human resources guy made the mistake of telling Tiffany her midwife isn't qualified to sign her maternity leave paperwork, which resulted in his instant death. Did God smite him down or did Tiffany? We'll never know.

Liars

Montana Diana told me she knew she was pregnant because she was soooo happy and she also said she never felt more womanly beautiful than those nine months, but she's a Holy Joe so maybe she was religiously obligated to fake liking it. God rewarded her in the form of no weight gain so all that lying was probably worth it.

Idaho Lee said being pregnant is like having mono and a really bad hangover at the same time, which is more accurate. More women should just admit that being pregnant just sucks. Only a crazy person would enjoy barfing every day for nine months straight.

41 weeks

Nine months pregnant and we're moving to a new city. I'm vacuuming behind the movers as they lug out furniture, vacuuming dust and strings and surprising number of spiders big as August blueberries. The spiders scramble to throw themselves over their silk-fleshy egg sacs before the vacuum hose finds them. This does no good. I can feel their bodies break against the inside of the hose as they pass under my palm. And I wonder two things: what forces could conspire against me which I would be so helpless to defend my own daughter? And why haven't I vacuumed more often?

Shallow

Being pregnant on your wedding day sucks because you're pretty much fat and when you get the pictures back only then do you notice fat dimples on your elbows - your elbows, for God's sake. This, of course, is completely shallow, because people have way worse problems that your ridiculous body image issues and you're pregnant so of course you've gained weight, shut up already. And the pictures are gorgeous, brilliantly done; everyone else looks fabulous. Double shut up, then. Still, people will come over and see no wedding photo on your mantle and wonder if you hate your husband when the truth is marrying him was the best decision in your whole life but maybe, just maybe you should have laid off the kobe beef burgers in the first trimester or not chosen that sleeveless wedding gown.

Consequences!! (Pregnancy edition)

If you don't rush to the hospital to induce labor today!! your amniotic fluid will dry up and your Sahara-like womb will kill the baby!

If you don't get a Cesarean RIGHT NOW your baby will die and you'll need a hysterectomy!

If you don't tell you crappy doctor to F(%@*k OFF! you'll get a totally unnecessary Cesarean after two hours of labor!

If you don't start breastfeeding right away and continue until she is two, your baby will be a mentally handicapped, disease-ridden pariah until she dies miserable at an early age.

and so on.

38 weeks

Hi Paul - I'm looking forward to meeting your staff today. Is the following schedule still in effect? I should also let you know I'm over eight months pregnant, so don't be alarmed when we meet (this explains my inquiry over the start date). I debated not mentioning this beforehand because it is normally neither appropriate nor necessary to point out a physical trait prior to an interview. However, I decided that sharing this information could avoid an awkward moment upon meeting. And I'm all for avoiding awkward moments.

36 weeks

The baby is galloping kickity and I might die of heartburn and Jeff is trying not to laugh because the walls are so thin we can hear everything the nurses say and they are saying ridiculous things. I mean, what is this - diet camp? I'd like to see one of those fat-ass donut whores swim half a mile eight months pregnant.