Bippity Boppity Boo

I never intended to write about pregnancy-related stuff on my blog so often. I mean, there's plenty of other stuff to write about, right?

Right.

But this pregnancy thing? It takes up a lot of mental space. When you're prego, the entire world wants to pass their parenting and childbearing wisdom on to you. And when you're on bed rest, you're forced to sit and listen to them.

Which brings me to the Boppy.

I've had several well-intentioned souls tell me that I HAVE to get a Boppy and that it will CHANGE MY LIFE. I nodded politely, thinking what the hell is a Boppy, and what can it possibly do that's so amazing?

And yet with so many women raving about it, how could I not explore the world of the mythical and much-hyped Boppy?

So I Googled it.

A Boppy is basically an oversized version of one of those neck-pillow things that you wear on a transcontinental flight. Only this pillow comes with a cutesy, colorful slipcover. And instead of putting the pillow on your neck, you stick it on your baby's ass.

You're telling me that a neck pillow on steroids is going to change my life? Really?

Now. In a few months (exactly 3 months from yesterday, if my actual due date is to be believed), I could be writing a retraction of this post while out of my mind from the oxytocin hormones and lack of sleep, issuing an apology to lovers of all things Boppy and joining the masses of people heaping praise on the Boppy and badgering every mom-to-be I know to run out and buy one.

But at the moment, here's what I'm thinking: If you're going to give me advice about something that's so wondrous, so powerful, so amazing, that it's going to actually CHANGE MY LIFE, you'd better make it count.

Tell me that hospitals are going to stop plying laboring women with drugs so they can actually experience birth as birth and not as a medical "problem" that needs "fixing".

Tell me that the United States of America has finally woken up and decided to provide women and men with actual paid maternity and paternity leave instead of the bare-bones coverage of the FMLA that we pass off as leave.

Tell me that doctors have discovered an alternative to the archaic notion of bed rest that will allow women to have a life and a safe pregnancy at the same time.

Tell me that when the baby crowns, it's going to feel like a thousand singing angels are flying out of my butt.

But don't tell me about a fucking pillow.