When I was pregnant with my first child, one of my best friends was getting married. I threw her a bachelorette party exactly one month before my due date. Several of us went to a jazz club. Thanks to my large belly and lack of coordination, I knocked over a couple of drinks. Of course I offered to replace them. The bartender certainly gave me an odd look when I ordered a few beers. I got more odd looks when I tried to join my friends on the dance floor.

I didn’t make it to the wedding. My daughter was born almost to the minute at the same time my friend got married.

My most embarrassing pregnant moment was when I was in labor with my first child. The doctor was telling me to push and while doing so I urinated on him and it was all caught on tape!

I was 5-6 mos pregnant with my 3rd child and was loading dishwasher. Somehow a steak knife was put in blade up and I turned around lost my balance fell into the dishwasher allowing the knife to stab my rear end. When I stood up I had the knife sticking out of my rear. I pulled it out and had to go to the ER to see if I needed stitches. Thank goodness I didn’t! The ER staff, my OB and my hubby got a big chuckle.

Pregnancy helped me feel less inhibited about my body. But I’m still a tad embarrassed about a couple things–the silliest things, and not what you would expect. At the time of my labor, I had been editing a textbook on medical coding. While in labor, I felt that my relaxation techniques were failing, but I guess in a strange way they did work. In between screaming–why, oh, why did I ever opt for “natural” childbirth!? I would never scream in the “real world,” but I hope the walls of my hospital room had great sound-proofing–I recited the nurses’ and doctors’ names, I read aloud words on the various monitors, I recited chapter titles and medical coding and billing terminology, and, most embarrassing of all, I sang Peter Gabriel-era Genesis tunes. I’m pretty sure I was singing “Winston Churchill/dressed in drag, he used to be a British flag” a few times to cope with the pain. What a sight and sound that must’ve been (thank goodness it’s not captured on video). I can laugh now, but I feel sorry for my husband and everybody else who had to listen to my out-of-tune warbles, shrieks, and recitations!

My most embarrassing moment was when I was waiting to be taken down for my scheduled c-section to deliver my twins and my OB decided to trek in a rather large group of medical students for a “teaching moment” while she was giving me my final internal exam before going to the ER.

There I was in all my glory with a room full of aspiring young OB/GYN’s staring intently at my crotch while the doctor did the exam all the while calmly explaining everything she was doing and what to look for.

Afterward she asked if there were any questions. To my surprise, one young female student didn’t ask my doctor any questions but she did have one for me. She asked me if the exam was embarrassing for me! Needless to say, my doctor then realized she had not stopped to ask me if she could use me as her teaching prop before jumping right on in there. Her face turned three shades of red and she apologized profusely. I just laughed and told her that I was so ready for these babies to be out of me that she could have brought the Pope in my room for the exam and I wouldn’t have cared!

It’s now ten years later but I remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I delivered wonderful, identical twin girls in 1974, before ultrasounds, so the surprise in the delivery room was hectic and exciting for everyone, including the rushed doctor! I remember after the first delivery, resting my hands on my stomach and saying ”it still feels hard” and then the excitement began when they announced ”there’s another one”. I will always remember saying(since I had just delivered my first daughter naturally) ”I don’t think I can do that AGAIN!” Like I had a choice 8 )

I had multiple embarrassing moments during pregnancy. One that sticks out in my mind happened at work. I worked drive through at a bank at the time, and went happily to work one morning. I had a bad habit of snacking all morning on whatever the local produce store had. An hour or two later, I realized my pants were pinching me so tight I couldn’t sit down. I have no idea how my stomach seemed to grow in so little of a time, but it was horribly uncomfortable. I had to call my hubby to run to the store and buy a bigger pair of pants, then bring them to work for me. Needless to say, by that point everyone knew what was going on. Growing out of a pair of pants at work was definitely embarrassing for me!

I had all day sickness during my first pregnancy and it was so bad that my poor husband had to eat all his meals out of the house. So one night he wanted Culvers and I went along with him. Well after 2 bites of my dinner I ran to the bathroom and projectile vomited and I didn’t even realize it but I hadn’t closed the stall door and I can only image how horrified the other women in the bathroom were because my husband said when I vomited it was the most awful sound he had ever heard.

Of the many, I remember watching the scale as my weight surpassed my over 6 feet tall husband’s. To top it off, he had just announced his weight for all to hear and then announced “You did it, honey!” No further explanation was needed. It was not a fun moment- still working on getting that weight off.

When I was delivering my first child, I kept telling the nurse I had to go to the bathroom. She said no, that is just your “urge to push”. A few minutes later, I said I mean I really have to go bad. She said just hold it for a few more minutes. Needless to say, when it was time to push, I pushed and needless to say pooped all over the bed! She said “oh, you were right, you did have to go”. Told ya! With the same child, after I delivered, every time my daugther would cry, I would say “sshh I’m here” and my daughter would stop crying. This went on for a few minutes and the doctor finally said, “Ms. _____, could you please be quiet, we are trying to get your baby’s lungs expanded.” oops! My daughter knew my voice well!

When I was pregnant with my little girl I was two weeks away from my due date and I was already outgrowing my clothes. With such little time left in my pregnancy, I vowed that I wouldn’t buy anything else even though my pants were slipping down because my belly was too big and my shirts wouldn’t cover my stomach so it was popping out for everyone to see. I was going to Target to get a few things and maternity clothes were definitely not on my list. As I was walking on the crosswalk from the parking lot to the entrance, there was a car full of late-high school or early college-aged guys waiting at the stop sign. When I walked across they yelled “GET A BELT!!!” as they drove away. Did they not know that I was PREGNANT? Or did they think that I was trying to show off my “midriff”? I was so embarrassed that I went straight to the maternity section, bought a new shirt and changed in the dressing room before I started the rest of my shopping. I also called my husband to cheer me up because I felt even more huge than I already had 5 minutes earlier.

When I was pregnant with my son, I complained nonstop to my (then) cubicle-mates about my discomfort and how ready I was to NOT be pregnant. While I was quietly working away on a project one afternoon (at week 34) I felt a warm trickle down my leg and discovered that my water broke! I thought I could ignore it, but noticed the growing dark spot on the carpet underneath my chair and the told my office mate. She grabbed one of the other ladies to escort me outside into the lobby and as we waited for the elevator, the VP, a director and our president came running outside to check on me. Apparently my co-worker told everyone else in the office what was going on! Here I was thinking I was so stealth in my exit and everyone knew why I fled!

When I was expecting my first child, my mother came up 2 weeks before I was due to help me out when the baby came. I was feeling really good and so she and I went shopping. On our drive home, I rounded a bend in the road only to find a toppled traffic cone in the middle of the lane. I couldn’t change lanes due to traffic nor stop in time, so I ran over it figuring it would pop out a little scraped up behind me. Well, it got stuck under the car and we could hear it dragging along with us. I managed to exit on a side street, but the cone would not come out on its own and I was not about to crawl under a car while 9 months pregnant. We finally got it out by backing up and it came free. Between laughing my head off and mortification, I didn’t know what to do with the cone so I threw it in the car and it stayed in our garage for years as a reminder of waiting for baby.