Thank you for reading this

A little back story: Before I was pregnant, I was super, super anxious about being pregnant. Namely for every reason a female ladder climber in her early 30s is anxious: It would throw me off the career path I’ve worked so hard for! They are expensive! I don’t know anything about babies! What if I give birth to the anti-christ? Or at least a second-rate demon? You’ve all read a bazillion and a half articles on this exact subject so I don’t need to bore you. But once I did get pregnant, all the magical hormones took over and I was just super happy about being pregnant.  But all of these insecurities came flooding back once I started reading this book:

It is called “The Baby Nurse Bible: Secrets Only a Baby Nurse Can Tell You about Having and Caring for Your Baby” which, btw, is so not true. As once you get pregnant EVERYONE will tell you how to have and care for a baby. Even people who have never had a baby! And let me tell you, they don’t leave anything out. You wanna know about pooping yourself while giving birth? People will tell you about pooping on themselves while giving birth like they’re just giving directions. Another hot topic: Mucus plugs.(Whatever you do, don’t google image search that. Trust me). It’s aaaalllll out there. There are no secrets, “Baby Nurse Bible.” Get over yourself, already.

But back to my story: I was reading said book on the subway and they had a chapter about the gear you need to get because this is something I’ve been nervous about. And guys, babies require SO MUCH GEAR. I mean, I know they don’t because they are BABIES and they won’t even remember any of this. And it’s just a ploy for the baby marketing people to shell out cash for crap but you be pregnant in New York City and read about a $700 stroller. I promise you, you will automatically think: I need to buy that $700 stroller or else I’m a terrible, terrible person. And then you start hyperventilating on the train because you need so much expensive stuff but you live in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and it won’t all fit and although you have money now, you probably won’t after you shell out for a pad that you put under your baby so if it stops breathing because of SIDS it will sound an alarm (those things exist!) which, wow, your baby can just UP and DIE like that? That is crazy! You better buy one of those pads because if your baby dies of SIDS (again! Your baby can just up and die!) and you didn’t have that pad, it is all your fault. Oh, and you’d better get a $1,000 crib because, well, everyone knows any crib less expensive than that has a slight risk of beheading your precious child than one you get at Wal-Mart or, god-forbid, a used one. And a $400 breast milk pump because if you don’t breastfeed you’re just as good as your anti-christ baby. You monster.

And then, because you don’t have the $10,000 you need to buy the stuff you don’t need you start questioning your life choices. Like, “Why didn’t I go to law school? I bet all of my friends who went to law school won’t have a hard time coming up with the cash to not only buy this stuff but also hire a baby tutor to come over and teach the baby Mandarin. But why did I have to go to law school hypothetically in the first place? Why doesn’t my husband make $300,000 a year? HE’S not freaking out about how to afford a $700 stroller that our kid won’t even remember having. This is all his fault.”

Answer: My husband isn’t freaking out about this because he’s sane and lovely and makes a fine paycheck and is able to calm me down because he knows what I (kind of) know: The baby will come and we will love it and we will handle everything that is thrown our way just fine. Babies have lived for thousands of years without $700 strollers or a real nursery or night nurses or a pad that goes underneath of them that monitors their breathing. But then I got onto the chapter about plastics and I swear to god, I had to put my head between my knees. My husband now has the book and is not letting me read it.