So guess what ...

Dear readers,

If you've noticed a certain falling-off in the quality of the blog lately, including the weeklong hiatus followed by an attempt at switching to only writing every other day, well, I've noticed it too. But there's a reason. It's because for the past couple months I've been sitting on a secret that's had a bazoonga-load of good material tied to it, but I couldn't share the material because it was still a secret. So instead I struggled to come up with other stuff to talk about that wasn't really related to my day-to-day life.

What's the secret?

THIS:

This is an actual color picture of the inside of my uterus.

I drew the clown-monster face on it because ultrasound pictures are boring. You can't see anything but a blurry lump, because the portable ultrasound machine at the doc's office is basically like trying to take a screenshot of a tiny, rapidly moving object using your 2004 Motorola Razr. Then they only gave me printed-out copies of the pictures, so I used my 2010 BlackBerry to take a picture of the picture and that's what I drew the clown on. Now it looks much less like an inkblot test ... and more like THE THING NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF.

And for the record, I was not actually pregnant at the time I wrote the "Dear Men: No, I am not pregnant. Sincerely, Women" post. But at the time that post actually went live ... there may have been some cells dividing in my woman-parts. I didn't know it yet, though, so that post was not a lie.

Now let's address the Frequently Asked Questions that come with any pregnancy announcement!

WOW I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! WAS IT PLANNED??

Jesse and I were always pretty good at not getting pregnant -- we succeeded at that for years! You might even call us experts at effective birth control. So then one day we were like "hey I wonder what would happen if we stopped trying to prevent pregnancy." It turns out that when you stop trying to prevent pregnancy, you dramatically increase your chances of becoming pregnant.

Related: when someone tells you "so I'm getting off The Pill" and then a few months later tells you "I'm pregnant!", asking "wow, was it planned?!" is, ummm ... well, it's not the SMARTEST question I've ever heard a person ask. Just something to keep in mind.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING?

I feel f**king awesome. I have thrown up not once. I have felt queasy not once. I have felt exhausted, constipated, uncomfortable, or anything of the sort not once. It's like my body was, I dunno, MADE for this or something. (and yes, I know I am very very lucky. Shout out to the teflon stomach gals who barf up Gatorade. That sounds horrible)

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU FOUND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT??

Finding out you're pregnant is one of those highly romanticized moments, up there with getting engaged in terms of how memorable and sweet and magical it is supposed to be.

These romanticized images are lies. Unless you take the piss test on your own while your partner isn't home and then put together some crazy elaborate plan to share the news with him later, then your magic moment is going to happen while you straddle a toilet seat with your pants around your ankles and your partner watching from the doorway as you try not to piss all over yourself and the toilet seat (apparently, holding a flat object directly in your urine stream has a tendency to make it want to splash everywhere. Go figure). 

In our case, the line appeared as I was still trying to wipe the pee that had splashed on the plastic parts of the pregnancy test, so I couldn't even show Jesse for several seconds (I don't think either one of us was too keen on my passing a pee-soaked dripping plastic stick across the bathroom).

Pictured: a moment we'll both remember forever!

Upon seeing the stick, though, Jesse memorably quipped "Oh shit! You're hella pregnant."

Hella pregnant indeed.

I then peed on another stick that night, another one in the morning, and then several more over the course of the next few days. Because if you're not puking, it's really hard to believe that you're pregnant. So make sure to invest in the multi-packs of pregnancy tests.

ARE YOU GOING TO FIND OUT THE SEX?

Hell yes. I was at Target the other day looking at baby clothes and couldn't find one single thing that could be considered "gender neutral" that couldn't also be considered "horrifically ugly." So we can either find out the gender or have a baby with no style at all, that all the other babies will laugh at. That's a no-brainer.

Tell me you don't want to make fun of this baby. YOU CAN'T.

HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT NAMES?

Sure, but I'm not going to tell you guys! You'll just make fun of them and make me feel bad. As if there's anything wrong with wanting to name my kid Phurgis if it's a boy and Ramonicaitlyn if it's a girl. (haha, just kidding -- it's going to be Phartholomew regardless of gender)

OH MAN DOES THIS MEAN YOUR WHOLE BLOG IS GOING TO TURN INTO TALKING ABOUT BEING PREGNANT AND THEN RAISING KIDS BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS SUPER BORING.

I know, right? Don't worry. Remember how I drew a murder-clown on my ultrasound? That's kinda the path this thing is going to take. Baby Gizmo (that's what we're calling the fetus, because it doesn't like bright lights and is NOT to be fed after midnight) will become a blog character just like Jesse is a character. Except better, because babies do way more stupid shit than Jesse could ever even imagine. 

Plus you can give them awesome pacifiers like these. 

I mean, COME ON!

WHAT IF YOUR BABY HAS A GIANT HEAD?

My baby is going to have a giant head. There's nothing I can do about that now -- it's just karma.

HAAAAA!!!