I was going to relay to you an embarrassing story from this pregnancy but it’s probably still a little too fresh in my memory for me to type it all out without having a breakdown. So lets scroll back to what I would consider the most embarrassing ordeal of my life when I was pregnant with our Peach. It’s been 5 years now so I think I am ready to talk about it. Please appreciate the inclusion of this image below, it was the exact same belly & bikini I was sporting in this story.
Let me set the scene. I am heavily pregnant and my husband and my good friend Sarah and I decide to go to a small island for a swim and relax. Errol and I decide we should swim out to a sandbank in the river and our friend Sarah went down the shoreline to read a book. I agree to swim out with Errol. Again, I am heavily pregnant so swimming out there is quite an effort for me, when I get there I don’t want to leave. Here’s another thing you should know about being heavily pregnant – that space that was once occupied by most of your internal organs is now filled by this chubby little human so when you need to use the bathroom, you really need to use it right away. Ain’t no room for storing anything in there. You can imagine the inconvenience of swimming all the way out there only to realise I need to go to the toilet. And I am not talking about a wee. I have no qualms about peeing in a river if need be and for an awful moment I even wondered if the same could be said for #2′s – ah screw it – poo. You’re going to hear the word poo in this story! If that daily bodily function offends you, now is the time to stop reading. Yes, I even wondered if one could poo in a river if they needed to. Sadly no, my conscience reported back – rivers are not places to do your business. I was faced with the predicament of knowing I would have to swim back to the island and walk across said small island to the toilets before I could be relieved. Somewhat like every night when I wake up and know I need to go to the bathroom but my inner self argues that I should stay in my warm bed instead – I waste a good 5 mins vacillating between “yes, you HAVE to swim back now” and “no, this feeling will pass”. Well let me tell you, pass it did not and eventually with much moaning to Errol I begin the swim back.
When I arrive back at the shore of the island I make my way quickly to the toilet block. Halfway there I see a table set up for a 11 year old birthday party. There are balloons with ’11′ written on them and lots of half eaten cake. But there are no children. Odd, I thought but I have no time to consider this because I am on a mission. Rounding the trees I realise where all the children from said 11 year old party are. At the toilet block. I need to pause this story for a moment to tell you that tween children in large groups are not exactly my favourite demographic – particularly when I am pregnant, in a bikini and look like I ate an entire watermelon. Getting closer I realise that the children are not only playing around the toilet block but IN the two toilet cubicles – using the taps to fill their water balloons. Can I pause again to mention that like most people, I do not like using public toilets and like most people, I certainly don’t enjoy using them for #2 and like most people, I don’t like people listening outside. The situation, by all accounts, is not ideal. Standing by the toilet door awkwardly I wait for the kids to make their way out of the cubicle. None of them are moving. Thankfully a girl eventually says “I think that pregnant lady wants to use the toilet” and they all looked over before filing out reluctantly. Thankful and really ready to be relieved I enter the toilet and shut the door.
The toilet is really unclean and smells badly. I would not use this toilet unless I was a pregnant woman with absolutely no other choice and sadly – I am. I carefully go about making the toilet as sanitary as possible with my limited supplies, layering layer after layer of tiny 1 ply squares around the seat so it is properly covered. When I am satisfied I sit and am just about to relax when I realise a dozen bare feet can be seen waiting outside the door to be let back in to use the taps. No, no, no! They must leave I think. No relaxing is possible with a bunch of 11 year olds standing right outside the door while you poo. So I also stand, and pull my bikini bottom back on to wait as I stare at their feet willing them to all be very, very, very far away so I can poo in peace. They do not move. I do not move. Time passes. Their feet start shuffling impatiently and a boy can be heard saying “ugh! who is in there?!” the girl answers “It’s that pregnant lady” the boy complains “ahhhh, she must be doing a poo” another chimes in “it stinks like shit here”. I am turning all shades of mortified. It DOES stink in this bathroom and I haven’t even had a chance to go. I’ve already waited too long and it’s getting suspicious. It’s been at least 5 minutes but it feels like an hour. Their moaning continues. What to do, what to do? If I could have paid to have the ground open up and swallow me, I would have. If I could have paid to teleport each of the children to a foreign country, I would have. Realising that there is absolutely no way I can relax to go to the toilet now and I cannot realistically wait till the children leave the island before exiting the bathroom I proceed with the only course of action possible. Exiting in post-haste. So I do. I quickly wash my hands and open the door. Little inpatient faces (with several screwed up noses) greet me at the door. I rush past and head in the direction of the river as quick as possible.
I am not sure at that moment if I have ever been more embarrassed (nor still in such urgent need to use the bathroom!). I find out in the next moment though that I still have plenty of embarrassment left to be had. Thinking the worst is over and I never have to see another of those 11 year old faces again, I am somewhat relieved until I head the girl yell “Hey! LADY you got toilet paper stuck to your arse!”. Lets rewind to that part of the story where I had just been swimming. And then layered 1 ply toilet paper all over the toilet. And then sat on it. Do you know what happens to wet bottoms when they come in contact with toilet paper? It sticks. While I had been stressing over the children outside the door and because I hadn’t actually used the toilet I had just stood up and pulled my bikini bottom over the top. Oh yes, not only do I have a bunch of 11 year olds who just thought I spent forever in the toilet doing a poo but I also have an entire toilet seats worth of toilet paper stuck to my behind. My inner survival skills kick in and I tell myself “do not turn around, ignore it and it never happened”. This is logical. So I keep walking, a little quicker. The girl is not deterred. She yells again “It’s all over your bum! You have toilet paper all over you!!!”. Inner dialogue towards girl turns somewhat vicious and my pace turns to trot. The other children are either gleefully delighted at this (or equally concerned) so they all join in yelling at me “HEY! TOILET PAPER” “it’s on you!” “Hey stop!” “You have toilet paper on your arse” “We want to ruin your life” – so maybe that last one was in my head but I knew at that moment I had never been more embarrassed and probably never would be. That was until I ran past the party table and had not only the group of 11 year olds trailing and yelling at me but a bunch of well dressed mothers and fathers looking on too.
Yes, yes, I know I should have stopped when the girl first mentioned it but at this point I was focused on one thing, swimming into the river and never ever being seen again. Diving into that water was the sweetest relief, the stinging salty water in my eyes had nothing to do with the river. Madly I swam back to Errol like a drowning whale. “What happened?” he asked quite worried by my emergence red-faced and struggling to breathe between huge, ugly gulping tears. “We have to leave” was all I could say. “Why?” he asked. “WE HAVE TO LEAVE!” I said so mortified that explaining it to him (or ever, ever, ever relaying it again) was out of the question. “Ok…” he said unsure but realising there was no point arguing with his hysterical pregnant wife. Looking back to shore I realised that leaving would require passing the 11 year olds. Maybe we wouldn’t leave, maybe we would stay in the river until night fell and swim back using reeds as snorkels so we didn’t even have to surface? I could not face those children again. Ever. At all. Looking at Errol I realised he was wearing a long sleeved swim shirt. “Give me your shirt” I said. “What? Why?” he asked looking increasingly concerned for my mental health “give it to me!” I wailed. Reluctantly he pulled it off and handed it to me. “And your sunnies!”. “What is going on Georgia?” he asked. “GIVE ME THEM!” I wailed again. Dressing in his rashie and his sunglasses seemed like the only thing to do at the time. It seemed like a rational, easy way to exit the island without drawing the attention of the children. A disguise. Because you can totally hide a huge pregnant belly with a sun shirt and the kids would totally not realise that the only people on the sandbank were the man that had been there all along and that crazy pregnant lady who had just run in there. I wish being logical under stress was one of my strong points but it’s not. It’s really, really not.
I told Errol we must leave and began swimming back to shore. He followed and I can still see that look of “Did I marry a mad woman?” flicker across his face. Once back to shore we collected Sarah from her relaxing spot on the beach (without so much as an explanation – for which I am so very thankful she did not press) and I took my last walk of shame past those 11 year old kids (I am almost 100% sure they were fooled by my excellent disguise) and then I never, ever mentioned it again. Until now. Becasue why do embarrassing things happen to you if you can’t laugh about them five years later? Which is why you should all share with me in the comments something embarrassing that’s happened to YOU (bonus points if it’s while you were pregnant) so this can become the most epic blog post of embarrassment and I can finally get over that feel of agony whenever I recall this event but realising that worse has probably happened to one of you! Feel free to utilise the name ‘anonymous’ when commenting if you need to distance yourself from your ordeal – believe me, if there was a way to blog to my own blog without people knowing it was me who wrote it – I would have. “Oh hello readers, here’s a blog post written by my… friend”. Come on now, tell me your embarrassing tale!
I threw up on the floor of a grocery store after catching sight of raw meat.
OMG @Ute & @Amy!!!
I’m so curious now what your story from -this- pregnancy is! When I was pregnant with my daughter I worked at the mall and our store was right between a Yankee Candle and Abercrombie. Both had very strong smells that wafted out their doors and into the walkway. Ever single day I went to work I had to walk past one or the other, and every single time I did I ended up throwing up in the trashcan in the middle of the mall walkway. Luckily I didn’t work there my entire pregnancy.
With my second pregnancy… this was much more embarrassing. I got some nasty stomach bug in the first trimester and had terrible #2 issues. Loud, uncomfortable issues. I actually made my husband go out to the couch in the middle of the night, because our bathroom was right off the bedroom and I desperately didn’t want him to hear. He probably did anyway. *cringe*
I was 3 months pregnant and left work early because I was feeling so terrible with morning sickness. I thought that maybe I was also a bit hungry so after jumping in the car a quickly ate a banana. I pulled out of the car park onto a main road in the middle of melbourne city and started driving home. About 2 minutes later I had that awful feeling when you get all sweaty and you get excess saliva in your mouth and the hairs on your neck stand up. I knew I was going to vomit. I made a split decision to pull over and in doing so crashed into a car that was inconvieniently in my blind spot. I destroyed the front of this poor mans car and scraped all up the side of my car. Then I still vomited anyway – all over my lap and the dash board. The poor man in the other car didn’t know what had hit him. There I was, a crazy pregnant lady standing in the middle of melbourne city with vomit all over me and crying my eyes out. I was so embarrassed as I had half of melbourne gawking at me……
oh my Georgia, you did make me laugh out loud and I felt so sorry for you, at the same time…My worst embarassement moment when I was pregnant was with my first child, almost ready to give birth and the mid-wife tells me if I want to “free myself a bit”, I look at her with a question mark in my eyes, she looks at me and smiles, I look at her again and it dawns on me that she suggests that it would be the good time to do my business. Right there, oh my, in front of people?? To give room to the baby, she adds. Well, thinking about it, I wouldn’t have said no to a trip to the toilets as I hadn’t had the occasion in a few hours, but that was not exactly her idea as I was just so close to birthing and couldn’t move. So she slips some sort of bassin under me and sais, very kinldy, ok you can now. One part of me is petrified with shame that my husband, who is there too, could see me. Well, of course, by now he knows that I pee sometimes and has seen me on the toilets but it’s not the same when you are about to give birth and are lying on your back, legs spread apart, right? So it takes me a few minutes to relax and let go, the midwife is nice and sais nothing, and I finally pee, feeling like I have just done something totally shameful. But it’s not even over, she looks at me and sais: good, nothing else? Oh my, she wants me to =2?? Oh no, nobody ever, ever has seen me doing =2, this is the worst time of my life, ever, I think. I cannot do that (not that I don’t want to because it’s getting somewhat tight in there with the baby’s head pressing so low) no no no no no. I won’t, I won’t. But she looks at me and smiles, you know, “to give more room for the baby” and so I close my eyes and try to forget that there are people there and that my husband will not see (anyway he never said anything to me, thank God) and finally I come up with.. some small result. Good good, she says, while cleaning me up (oh my, it’s just because it’s you Georgia, and you just told us something very embarassing to you!!) and my eyes are still shut and I feel so bad, I almost want to cry while I realise that’s becoming a mother, Cristina, pushing your limits way farther than you would ever have imagined. And luckily this makes me laugh, and the midwife must have understood my train of thought as she laughs out too and maybe nobody noticed after all so it’s ok, I’m not obliged to get up and leave in a hurry to hide myself. So, finally, it’s fine and I give birth to my child a few moments after and I forget about it (well, almost, as I had sworn to myself never ever to tell anybody ha ha ha).
Absolutely hilarious Georgia. I’m wracking my brain thinking of a decent story to tell but I can’t think of one right now! Good on you for posting, I think we all need to talk about our less than glamorous life moments!
One of my most embarrassing episodes though not whilst I was pregnant happened when I was 19 years old. I worked at the only newsagent in Darwin and had just served a lady that had come into the store with her friends and was carrying her young baby. Said lady was an Australian native with the beautiful dark velvety skin that they possess and was conversing with her mates in their own tongue. Anyway I finished serving her and then looked at her gorgeous little bub in her arms (have you ever notice how long aboriginal babies eyelashes are?), told the mother how beautiful bub was and reached out to stroke bubs cheek.
Ok not something I would do now but as an 19 year old I did not think it inappropriate.
My hand was quite close to the babies cheek and I realised she had a deformity , I paused for a brief second, thinking I could not make it obvious that I was taken aback, and then continued to stroke baby’s cheek. Whilst I was stroking her cheek I was talking to her mum telling her how beautiful she was and how she must be quite proud. It was only then that I realised what the “deformity” was. I was not stroking bubs cheek at all but had been standing there playing with the mothers breast whilst she just looked at me. Once I realised I calmly said goodbye and walked out into the staff room. I had no idea of what the woman had been saying to me and I remember it took ages before I could face all my workmates.
I remember once when I was pregnant, my husband and I were in a small, full waiting room after taking my grandma to an appointment. There was a gross woman there who seemed to be mentally affected (or with very awful social skills) asking me inappropriate questions, obnoxiously and LOUDLY for the whole room of strangers to hear… one that stuck out to me was, “Is he [my husband] the father?” Needless to say, it was very awkward trying to be polite, and also trying to detach myself from the conversation so she would stop interrogating me. Very embarrassing! (I probably should have asked her to stop, but she seemed pretty crazy.. who knows what could have happened next!) Anyway!!… thanks for sharing your story, Georgia, and so sorry about your ordeal (the way you told it was hilarious, though!). Hugs to you… I’ve loved following you on facebook over the years; it’s great hearing about your family adventures!
Lol if it makes you feel any better, I threw up at the bank while pregnant with my first child :P I thankfully made it to the restroom but not before dryheaving at the clerk and making gagging noises.
Pure gold!!!