Steps to Prepare for Your New Baby- The Final Weeks

Step 1: And this is the most important step of all:  Get REALLY excited when you reach 37 weeks pregnant, because it's "FULL TERM!!!!"

Step 2: Realize during a soul-crushing meltdown that the baby still isn't coming for another 4 weeks.  Cry for 13 hours straight.

Step 3: Pack a bag to take to the hospital.  Include: earplugs, oxycodone (or whatever the strongest illegal prescription drug you can get that you don't have a prescription for), granny panties (see previous post), and cigarettes to bribe the nurses.  At least a carton, and don't go cheap.

Step 4: Crush up your illegally obtained oxycodone and start adding it to your husband's Gatorade- start at 38 weeks so he's fully addicted by the time you give birth.

Step 5: Locate your video camera and place it behind the rear wheel of your car.  Back over it several times until it is inoperable.  NO VIDEO.

Step 6:  Go to the waxing place in your town where none of the employees speak English (so you can't understand it when they call you a Yeti.)  Slam down a picture of Michael Phelps in a Speedo and say "THIS please."  Keep your eyebrows though- otherwise you'll scare the crap out of your newborn. Don't forget your head- all of your hair is about to fall out anyway so you might as well get a jump on it.

Step 7: When you think you're in labor, rush to the hospital like you're on fire.  Hit pedestrians with your car and don't stop.  Jump out at the ER door while the car is still rolling.  Run in screaming.  Be sent home.  Repeat five times.

Step 8: Show up for your scheduled induction two days later.  By this point, your child is so big that they won't fit out anyway.  Only discover this after two more days of labor and 6 hours of pushing.  Just be happy you already have an epidural, because now you need an emergency c section.

Step 9: Meet your girdle.  Name him Myrtle.  Wear him 20 hours a day, seven days a week for at least eight months.

Step 10: Meet your baby and all of that.

Step 11:  Change ZERO diapers for the first three months.  How could you possibly accomplish this you ask?  While you are still in the hospital, your husband will begin pacing the room, muttering "I just need some Gatorade.  Just a little Gatorade."  Make a deal with him: one diaper change = one sip of special Gatorade.  He won't even know he's addicted to oxy until he fails a drug test at work, gets fired, and you lose your house in a foreclosure.  But at least you didn't have to change any diapers for three whole months.

Step 12: Your parents' basement is much easier to keep clean anyway- you should be able to rebuild your credit in time to get out for your next baby.  Don't worry.

Step 13: Crush up one birth control pill per day and add it to your own Gatorade.