Pregnancy: Completely bizarre, kind of yucky

This is the absolute most important book I have flipped through in a looooooooong time. Every time we have a question, it is answered in this book. Certainly that is to be expected, because 1000 questions is a lot, obviously. However, even in some cases when we don't have a question, but there is something that's just a little bit off from normal, well we look the topic up in the index and sure enough it is covered, in exactly the form the question would have been phrased had we actually bothered to phrase it. It just does not miss. Honestly, it answers too much. I had never heard the word "episiotomy" before I cracked this open, and now I can never unhear it. Have I mentioned I have issues with medical procedures that aren't pills or shots? I cannot stress enough how eerily accurate this book is. It would give Nostradamus a boner, except he would take an entire quatrain to describe it, and it wouldn't be clear what he was talking about, maybe his boner, maybe space travel, maybe Yahtzee.


Honestly, I don't know why the History Channel doesn't devote as much programming as they do to Dr. Thurston as they do to Nostradamus. If not him, can we at least get rid of the Nostradamus garbage and replace it with some more "Universe" programming with Michio Kaku, author of such head-scratchers as Hyperspace, Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of such uplifting spirituals as Death by Black Hole, and Stephen Hawking, who (as we all know) is made of Legos?


There are obvious changes, morning sickness early on, being extremely tired for a few weeks, aches and pains and so forth. Some things have been bizarre. For example, Ariane never really snored. Once every couple of weeks I'd have to nudge her, but then it would end. Now? Every night, almost every way she can lie. This is normal for pregnant women, according to the book. I never would have guessed that. Never. The most bizarre, I think, is that her gums bleed. Every time she flosses. Severely. The first time it happened, she asked me if I had any idea what happened, which I naturally didn't, so she went and opened her book. Initially, I scoffed, said there's no way that the two are related, and it's not going to be in that book. And of course I was wrong. Pregnancy increases blood flow to soft tissue, which makes gums bleed more.

It's not like I needed more to add to the list of "Reasons I am happy to be a guy." Severely bloody gums ranks somewhere above being able to scratch my balls in public without thinking twice. But I mention this now because it nicely sets up this story from last night. I was in the shower, minding my own bidness, carefully doing my weekly shave, when Ariane walked in to floss and brush. (On a side note, she flosses after she brushes which I am opposed to 100%.) As she was flossing she mentioned that she was amazed how much blood there was. It went exactly like this (which actually happened):

Ariane: There is so much blood it's unbelievable!
Me: I know.
Ariane: You should look at this.
Me: That's OK. I've seen it before. It's a lot. I know.
Ariane: [pulls back shower curtain, spits heaping mouthful of blood and saliva onto the bottom of the tub] See what I mean?
Me: Thanks for that.

How many more months?

Edit (8:58 PM): Ariane spazzed and corrected me on her floss/brush order. That's right, spazzed. She gets one correction per post, so the claim of spazzing out will forever stand.