Summary

This new second edition is filled with the latest, most accurate wombhood information, including comforting answers to hundreds of questions, such as "My mother just took a sip of white wine. Am I going to end up looking like some Chernobyl baby now?" "So far Mommy is spending most of her pregnancy in a state of stress, anxiety, and depression. Which one should she focus on?" "I'm kicking as hard as I can, but Mom says it feels like 'butterflies fluttering.' Am I doing something wrong?" "Why do my parents blast Mozart at me every night right when I'm trying to sleep?!?" "To the nearest hundred, how many people should Mommy invite to my birth?"

Author Biography

David Javerbaum has won nine Emmys and two Peabody Awards for his work as Writer, Head Writer and Executive Producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He was one of three principal authors of that show’s 2004 best-seller America: The Book. His work as a lyricist includes collaborating with composer Adam Schlesinger on the score for the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Cry-Baby and Stephen Colbert’s television special A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All. He lives in Manhattan with his wife Debra and their daughters Kate and Sara.

Mike Loew is a contributor to The Onion and the author of two previous books, Tough Call and Citizen You! He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Foreword by The Stork	p. ix
From the Author	p. xv
Conception: When Wanted Life Begins	p. 3
It, and the Doing Thereof
Tinkering with the Essence of Life in a Lab: A Recipe for Success!
They're Called "Love Children" Because You Have to "Love Children" to Have Them
DNA: The Body's Snitch
Your Parents, Total Incompetence, and You
Throughout Your Fetalcy	p. 17
Choosing a Doctor That's Right for Your Doctor
Booze, Cigs, Drugs, and the Death of Fun
Coffee Yes, Cat Shit No: Surprising Health Tips
Everything in Your House Is Out to Get You
The Pregnancy Diet: You'll Have the Soup
Month 1: An Introduction to Existentialism	p. 35
Best Weeks Ever! 1-4
Acing Your Home Pregnancy Test
From G-spot to Anus: Meet the Neighbors!
Only an Embryo, and Already Lying About Your Age
Twins: Separating the Schwarzeneggers from the DeVitos
When the F in MILF Stands for "Feel More Confident About Her Physical Appearance"
Month 2: Making Mitosis Fowrtosis	p. 51
Best Weeks Ever! 5-8
Jaws II: The Return of All of Mommy's Food
Daddy's (Sym)Pathetic Pregnancy
Noon: The New 7 a.m.
A Bountiful Harvest of Urine
Pregnancy at the Workplace: When the Watercolor Conversation Becomes "Wow, She Looks Like a Watercooler"
Month 3: Vaguely Human!	p. 69
Best Weeks Ever! 9-13
The Other Bloating Sensation in Her Abdomen
Sadness, Anxiety, Happiness, and Depression: Overcoming Happiness
Who Should Gain More Weight, You or Mom?
Celebrity Babies: When B-listers Get C-sections
Month 4: Pardon the Protrusion	p. 85
Best Weeks Ever! 14-17
It Looks Like Breast Milk, but It's Too Early and It's Coming from Her Vagina
Maternity Fashion: Today's Hottest Muumuus!
Don't Like My Pregnancy? Dial 1-800-FUCK-UTE
You're All Going to Paris, but Only Two of You Will Actually See the Eiffel Tower
Getting in Shape When You Don't Yet Have One
Month 5 Acknowledging Your Flailings	p. 101
Best Weeks Ever! 18-22
Paging Ralph Macchio
By the Way, Haydn Wrote 104 Symphonies, but Nobody Blasts Him into Mom's Abdomen
The Technicolor Dreamscape of Pregnancy Skin
Sonograms and Daughterograms
When Daddy Penetrates Mommy: Your Insider's Guide
Month 6: Threshold of Unabortability	p. 117
Best Weeks Ever! 23-27
Why the Entire Bus Is Allowed to Rub Mom's Belly
Camel: Humps Pregnant Woman: Feet
Tusks
A Topic Too Disturbing Not to Deliberately Mishear
Childbirth Classes: It's Never Too Early for Parents to Get Ripped Off Paying for School
Month 7: Third Trime's the Charm	p. 131
Best Weeks Ever! 28-31
Whew! It Was All a Dream ...or Was It? [Dramatic Sting, Tight Shot of Umbilical Cord]
Prepartum Stress About Postpartum Life: Let's Just Focus on the Partum, Shall We?
Birth Plans: Beyond "Step 1: Fuck"
Doulas and Don'tlas
Can't the Internet Make Our Babies for Us Already?
Month 8: Allow Six to Eight Weeks for Delivery	p. 149
Best Weeks Ever! 32-35
Urine: This Time, It's Personal
B-section Too Pricey? D-section Too Tacky? Consider This Compromise
Baby Showers, Followed by 50 Percent Chance of Baby Freezing Rain
It Was "MomDad"; Now It's "MomYouDad": Guess Who Got Between Them?
Tits Tits Tits Tits Tits!
Month 9: Paradise Almost Lost	p. 165
Best Weeks Ever! 36-40
The Nesting Instinct: Twigger, Please!
Round, Firm, and Fully Packed
A Live Band in the Delivery Room, or Just a DJ?
Water Breaking? We'll Show You How to Fix It
False Labor: Making the Maternity Ward Become the "Psych!" Ward
It's the Second Monday in September, and Still No Labor Day
Call You Ishmael, or Possibly Jayden
Labor and Delivery: Mom at Her Pushiest	p. 181
Live with Regis and Four Newborns!
Months 10-1, 000: A Time of Transition	p. 195
Childhood, Adulthood, Old Age, and Other Miscellany
Acknowledgments	p. 199
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Chapter One

Conception

When Wanted Life Begins

So you're a zygote. Congratulations! Existence is one of the most exciting things that will ever happen to you.

You are the end result of both four billion years of evolution and three minutes of rubbing. In the cosmic sense, the question of where we come from, along with that of where we

go when-spoiler alert!-we die, are the unfathomable co-nundrums bookending our brief time on earth. But such metaphysical niceties are, perhaps, too abstract for a lay zygote like yourself. So let's focus on the more immediate causes.

"The Talk"

"Where do babies come from? And when will I get to be one?"

We'll begin with your mother. Word is she's so dumb, she hears it's chilly outside and gets a bowl. More to the point, she's also fertile, and last month, she released an ovum, or egg, from its dank cell inside the women's prison known as her ovary. No doubt this ovum expected to end up like most or all its older siblings-as part of a small red spot on the white pants Mom foolishly wore to the company picnic. But a different fate was in store for it, a rendezvous with a milky sausagefest known as semen. This liquid comes from your father, and given his track record, the hundreds of millions of sperm comprising it no doubt also expected a grisly end (see chart, p. 5). But last night, inspired by pornography and/or the faded memory of a high-school girlfriend, your father inserted his erect penis, or "pee- pee," into your mother's vagina, or "cooch." They then engaged in a once filthy act now rendered dispiritingly functional. When the semen wrangling was over, five hundred million microscopic demi-Q-tips were discharged intra-coochally. What followed was a brutal ordeal, with contestants forced to swim the equivalent of hundreds of miles upstream with no map and no compass . . . all while literally flagellating themselves. It was exactly like Fear Factor, only it wasn't hosted by Joe Rogan. So at least it was better than Fear Factor.

The carnage left your mother's birth canal looking like a Civil War battlefield, and as with those battlefields, the scene had probably been reenacted many, many times. But this time was different. This time, one sperm managed to overcome the odds and arrive at his destiny-fair Lady Ovum. Their conversation was the stuff of legend.

SPERM: 'Tsup.

EGG: 'Tsup.

[Awkward pause]

SPERM: So, I guess we should, ummm . . .

EGG: Yeah.

[SPERM begins penetration.]

SPERM: Does this feel good?

EGG: Does what feel good?

SPERM: Yikes.

The sperm passed through the ovum's outer protective layers-the corona radiata, the zona pellucida, and the moat-until finally reaching its creamy nougat center, where, after one last bumping of uglies, you were created (see Fig. 2).

Disappointed? Perhaps you'd hoped your entrée into life would be more "cherubs playing trumpet fanfares" and less "heaping dollops of human ejaculate." This is a common preconception, pre-conception. But in truth, yours was a noble genesis. It turns out nature has a goo fetish. Life itself started with primeval soup.* Ever since, the rule has been: The more complex the species, the ickier its creation. Well, you are earth's highest life-form, and by the time you're born, you'll be covered in so much gunk you'll look like Gollum in chowder!

A final note: There is a very tiny chance your origin involved neither sperm nor egg, but rather the Word of God breathing flesh into the womb of a Blessed Virgin. If this is the case, man, have we been waiting for You!

Womb With a View

"I'm in a petri dish, and a lot of what you've said so far doesn't make sense."

That's because you're a test-tube baby, and an abomination against the will of God. Unlike regular, or "normal,

Excerpted from What to Expect When You're Expected: A Fetus's Guide to the First Three Trimesters by David Javerbaum
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.