I gotta face it--I am not a glowing, happy pregnant woman. I am a complainer at heart, someone who notices the negative stuff and tries not to focus on it, but there are many times where that is all I can do. I am a pessimist, no doubt, in all aspects of my life, and that may be because of the depressive nature I am prone to, or just because I like being snarky. Regardless, I have noticed through simple observations, because my preggo brain cannot handle anything other than simple, there are some universal things that cannot be laughed away unless that wonderful snarky attitude comes into play. So here's my top ten ways that being pregnant humiliates us women:

1) How you notice your cervix. A cervix is one of those organs that you can see on a diagram that you have, but normally you don't have to deal with unless there is something poking it. And in pregnancy, it gets poked more than it's fair share of times. The pap smear in the beginning of pregnancy, the way the baby seems to find it every time you have caffeine and bounce up and down like it's a trampoline and they are training for Cirque du Soleil, the huge Q-Tip used to check for Group B Strep that reminds you of ear wax and you pray that nothing resembling ear wax comes off the surface of your cervix, and of course, the ominous internal exams. I honestly thought all the doc did was peek down there and could see how open it was. I had no idea how they really do it, and boy, howdy, did I need a Long Island Iced Tea to erase that from my head but couldn't have one. I went into the hospital for dehydration in my sixth month of pregnancy with Bubba and got checked, long before they start checking in the office. I think I scared the poor nurse with my ignorance, and my poor cervix was curled up in the corner, ashamed and confused and not quite sure of it's sexuality after that experience. This is not normal girl stuff, and you have 9 months full of it. Yippee.

2) Peeing in a cup at every visit. And on the seat. And all over your hands. If they were smart, they'd just station a nurse in there with us like when you get drug tested to ensure that no one is cheating, and have a wand you put in the stream of urine to test the sugars or rabies or whatever they need your urine for. But nope, they have you wipe with a wetnap and then pee into a flimsy plastic cup you get to write your name on with a wax pencil previously used by other women that have peed onto their hands. Somehow, in all of the medical advances, someone still thinks getting an increasingly round and less flexible woman to pee into a shot glass is a sound and viable way to humiliate said preggo, so we have to do it no less than fifteen times in an uneventful pregnancy with proper prenatal care. And insurance pays for us to go pee on our hands. Not as well as some movies I've starred in, but that's another subject.

3) The waddle. It's not just the waddling like a duck when we walk. It's the waddle of the second chin that appears, or grows into a third. It's the waddle of our breasts as we try to wrangle them into a bra that no longer wants to cradle these misshapen bags, or in my case, a slightly puffy set of pancakes that looks in two different directions without a bra. Of course, the most noticeable is the walking waddle, in which people stop to stare at the woman who is obviously smuggling potatoes in her ass. They get this smile on their face, like you cannot be a real pregnant woman without it, you cannot be properly patronized as a weaker member of society without some physical imperfection directly attributed to that you will eventually have your legs in stirrups and your privates scrutinized by several strangers sometime in the near future. That smile is the same as when people smile at a kid who is a complete brat and gets hurt doing something they weren't supposed to. That smile says, "You got what's coming to you." And that's when you fart silently as you pass them and hope your water breaks on their shoes.

4) Bending over. It doesn't matter if you are alone, in a crowd, fully dressed, naked, or what--when you bend over when pregnant, air is your enemy. It's either forced out of your butt, or into your privates, which then is forced out when you stand back up. There's the issue when someone else is around--will they notice the sounds? Attribute it to your back popping? Be in the way of you trying to turn away to avoid doing it right in their face as you hand them the remote your wide hips knocked off their armchair they are sitting in? Will the kids look up from the floor as they play and beg for air freshener? It's humbling to hear your three-year-old mutter "Stinky!" after you just bent over to change his poopy diaper, and he doesn't mean him. But it's all in the name of the most womanly thing you will ever do, right?

5) Changing positions from sitting to laying, or laying to sitting. Heartburn, nausea, vomiting, and the strain of actually moving the bones somewhere below the bloated belly into a position they do not want to go into all contribute to yet another way that pregnancy reminds you that you are nothing if not a huge ball of miserable blobiness. Everything pops--your pelvic bones when you reach for the bedside light, your ankles as you navigate stairs, your fingers as you strain to reach around your back and fasten your aforementioned bra, your ears when they do the Group B Strep test. Bones, muscles and ligaments are just not compatible with pregnancy and are a source of constant reminders that it's nine months of torture rolled into one cute little baby. Deceptive packaging, but effective for populating the world.

6) Your bladder. The baby presses on it randomly, which may only have three drops in it, but those three drops will become the most pressing pee you have ever needed to get out, even more than right before your wedding as you are all dressed up and about to walk down the aisle. Those tears at the ceremony were tears of not being able to get to the bathroom and feeling the cramping, not from joy. Pregnancy has those moments about 60 times a day, every time you move in a different direction. Preggos are in the kitchen and barefoot because if you constantly felt like you were going to pee, you'd stay where it was not going to ruin the carpet and your shoes too.

7) The hormone changes. It's one thing when you cry your eyes out during a movie like "I Am Sam." It's another to cry because Kevin Federline has full custody now of the kids and Britney can't appreciate how wonderful her kids are enough to get it together. That's crossing a line, and only during pregnancy or that period in your life where you do stupid things like date a guy with blue hair who calls himself "Worm" (I plead the fifth, or rather, drank a fifth in college and that's my excuse) is it so noticeable and so impossible to do anything about other than just ride it out and let people remind you of it for the rest of your life as if it's an endearing time you want constantly brought up at every family function.

8) The irritation you feel towards complete strangers. Of course, many have it coming by suggesting things like, "You should let your husband do that" or "Are you sure you're not having twins?" but regardless of what they actually say, it's the fact that they chose to speak to you solely because you are pregnant that creates a hostility and rage like nothing else. In the first trimester, that they don't know you are pregnant and they have the nerve to treat you like anyone else and not hold the door open or cut you off in traffic makes you fume. In the second trimester, that they have that look on their face like they are wondering if they should ask when you are due or if you should lay off the beer makes you fume. In the third trimester, that they walk an extra step away from you in the hallway in case you should suddenly explode and say something along the lines of, "Good morning" makes you fume. What the hell is good about cankles and knowing the exact location of your cervix in the morning? Assholes.

9) Sleep. If it's not filled with dreams that you need to pee, you are getting up to pee and interrupting it. One of the most important jobs in the world--being pregnant and then a parent to a newborn--and it's designed to occur with the most limited amount of sleep you have ever experienced. Think of how you act when you are really drunk, and that's the last three months of pregnancy and the first two months of having a new baby makes you feel. There's no grace in leaving the minivan doors open all night because you forgot to close them after bringing in only half the groceries (the non-refrigerated ones, of course), and nothing remotely ego-boosting about forgetting your child's name and calling them by the dog's name all day. Especially when it's a dog you no longer have and they never met. It's more personal humiliation that you are a zombie, but humiliating nonetheless.

10) The things that propel themselves out of your body. Even a ten-year-old boy who shoots snot rockets out of his nose would be disgusted with the stuff that preggos deal with on a day-to-day basis. The peeing when you sneeze, the increased snot and sinus problems, the regular vomit, the mini-vomit after you brush your tongue, the bloody vomit from a particuarly forceful vomiting session, the heartburn vomit, the I-just-changed-the-nastiest-diaper-and-can't-help-but-vomit vomit, the extra moisture that makes you constantly check to see if you peed your pants again, the sweating, the tears over celebrity gossip, etc. The fun really starts in the eighth month, when you know you are close and are so sure your water is going to break at any moment, plus there's a great invention called the bloody show, which is just as gross as it sounds. Let's not forget the changes in your digestive system as your intestines are pushed into your chest as the baby gets bigger. That pregnancy glow? It's the glow of the exercise you just got sitting on the toilet for an hour and ten minutes for a pebble. After nine months of dealing with all that, giving birth to a human being out of a small delicate area seems like a day at the spa. And yet, the fact that I have to care for a newborn and myself after surgery scares the bejeezus out of me, and makes me wish for another nine months of all of the above if it means I can be more physically and emotionally prepared to handle the demands of a sleeping, eating, pooping, crying, farting, burping little person that will overwhelm my every sense and exhaust me in ways I never knew possible. Or ways that I have experienced before but blocked out of my mind with lots of reality tv and good ol' fashioned crack cocaine.