Armchair Anonymous: Funny Pregnancy

23:03It was a boy, Dad. Yeah, of course it was. They're such rascals. Oh, man. We're wreaking havoc from the second we're made. Oh, did you laugh? Did you guys just start dying laughing? I was like shitting, laughing, all things. And he just kind of was frozen. Like, I don't know what to do right now. A lot of things happened very quickly. He became a dad. He saw his wife shit herself. Oh, good. It was a lot to take in. It's a good primer for what's coming with the baby. blow out 100 oh man and how old is that little boy now actually um i actually went into pre-term labor with him um at about 24 weeks gestation and he was with us for seven hours before he passed away i'm so sorry it's okay you know what he may not be with us right now but i get to share him with the world through stories like this.

24:01So, you know, even though I wish he was here, the greatest gift is to be able to share his life, even though he's not here. And so this is like the best way that I could be sharing myself with you guys. I'm just so honored. We're honored. Yeah. I have a beautiful five-year-old now. She was in the NICU for about three months. She was born early too. And you guys lived in my ears through that whole experience. And you guys were a way for me to escape some of the hard stuff that I was going through. I started listening because I wanted to escape. But listening to you guys, really what that did to me was remind me that I want to be present.

24:38And I want to live this life. And I want to experience the wonderful things and the hard things that you both have done such a beautiful job at painting a mosaic of this life experience that we all get to be living right now. And so thank you so much. Oh, thank you. You just lifted my spirits like crazy. And congrats on your little girl. Thank you so much. I have lots of people that love you guys as well. I would love to shout out my mom, Dee. And I would love to shout out Ashley and Maria and Emily and my daughter, Ava, who also listens to Armchair Anonymous. Lots of beautiful conversations. Yeah, it's a thought starter.

25:19Sure. Her teacher says, wow, she has a lot of background knowledge.

25:27thank you for chatting with us yeah it's so nice to meet you have a great rest of your trip love you guys all right bye bye hi i love your tiny mic yes the first time we've ever had anyone with a tiny mic and immediately makes me think of all those funny instagram videos oh it's definitely because i make tiktok videos yeah i was trying to be super professional it's great emmy where are you i am in bardstown kentucky Okay. We don't get enough callers from Kentucky. I know. I actually was listening to one the other day. I got excited to hear her talking about Kentucky. And I get excited hearing you talking about Tennessee, too.

26:02And did you get excited when we had Chris Stapleton on? He was talking about Eastern Kentucky? Absolutely. I just saw him this summer. You did? Was he spectacular? Amazing. Okay. So, Emmy, are you a transplant to Kentucky or did you grow up there as well? Grew up in Kentucky, Owensboro, Kentucky. So third largest town in Kentucky. but now moved to Bardstown just by way of job and career, college. And Kentucky's on the come up, right? It's kind of growing as well, like Tennessee. Yeah, we're growing a little bit. I've been eyeing some farmland over there. Have you? That would be amazing. It's so beautiful.

26:35It's crazy. It's gorgeous. My family has a cabin on Lake Malone. So every time you talk about your lake house and boating, I grew up on a lake. So I get excited to hear you talk about it. Boat season's coming. Okay, so you have a funny pregnancy story. So my story starts back in 2008. I was 24 years old in grad school, kind of like in my indie era. I had a hoop nose ring and I was a cool girl, or trying to be anyway. And I had this one particular store that I like to shop for nose rings. I couldn't find what I wanted everywhere. So I had this one place I wanted to go. And so that just sticks in my mind because if I lost a nose ring, I had to go back to that one store.

27:14So Monica, I don't know if you ever had any face piercings or anything. But if you do, you're drying your face, you're sleeping the night, sometimes it can come out. You can lose your nose ring. So that would happen sometimes. And this one particular time I was looking for my nose ring, I was looking in my bedsheets, I was looking in my pillowcases, I couldn't find it. So inconvenience, I got to go to that one particular store and pick up my nose ring. So again, I'm in grad school, I'm starting an internship, I'm starting to become a little more professional. I was studying to be a school psychologist.

27:42So as I was kind of growing in my profession, I started wearing my nose ring less and less. I wasn't wearing it to work, so it would only be an evening thing. Then it only became weekends. Then it became never. So it kind of just aged out. Now I've just got a scar on my face. Will it close up like your ears or no? Yes, it's closed up. I can't get anything in there. Now it's just this hole that's there that I wish wasn't there, but what are you going to do? Receipt of living, I would say. Exactly. So in this first internship turned job, I met my husband. He was a special education teacher at the school where I was a school psychologist.

28:15So a little bit of a meet cute story, Monica. I like that. It's a good pair. Dating marriage. Eventually we're going to fast forward to December, 2015. So seven years later, I'm 31 weeks pregnant with my first baby. I go to the doctor and I had been having some elevated blood pressure, a little bit of protein in the urine. I had preeclampsia. So they sent me to the hospital for bed rest. So I was there for a couple of days. I monitored lots of ultrasounds. And can you explain quickly what preeclampsia is? I remember we were all watching the Downton Abbey. Oh. And one of the characters had preeclampsia and the man grabbed the bedpost and collapsed with fear.

28:56Oh, goodness. Yeah. It can be very dangerous. Yes. So what is it? Really just elevated blood pressure, which then if it gets too high, you could go into seizures, like it's dangerous for the baby. So just lots of monitoring and then lots of fluid retention, what it can go into. And then what it actually eventually did go into for me is help syndrome. And that's like really dangerous. So that's, I wrote it down, hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets. So if it gets that bad, like for me, I had extreme back pain because my liver was distended. And then if you have low platelets, like you can bleed out, it's really dangerous.

29:34So the only resolution is deliver the baby. It's the only way to help the baby or the mom. So I ended up with that two times with both of them. Oh my goodness. Before it went there, it was still just that kind of swelling. And you're hoping that you monitored enough to not develop into help syndrome. But I'm preeclampsia. I'm laid up on the couch. My goal is to keep them in for six more weeks. I wanted to keep my son safe. So lots of moving from the couch to the bed, lots of chilling all through the holidays. I make it all the way to New Year's Eve on 2015. Again, sitting on the couch, watching the fireworks and typical pregnancy swelling.

30:11But I'm really retaining a lot of fluid because of preeclampsia. So super stuffy. I sneeze. I blow my nose in the tissue. Uh-oh. Is the nose ring from 2008. What? No! Oh, my God. Seven years this fucking... Stop it. And you had no pain or any kind of inkling that it was in there? Oh, my God. No issues? God gave you preeclampsia so you could extract this nose ring. Right? Where was it? In your sinus? Yeah, I guess just living up in my head. Oh, my God. Thank God you didn't get, like, mercury poisoning or, like, metal. Well, I think they have to be sterile to use as rings. Did it look rusty? Yeah, it was like calcified, like white.

31:06Wow. Okay, now I'm going to ask a perverse question. And I'm on record as like, if I'm working to try to get something out of my sinuses, and it's taking a long, long time, and it finally comes out, and I know I share this with Erin, there is such euphoria attached to that. It's like, oh, fuck yeah, that's out of my body. Did you have a wave of like, oh my God, thank God that's out? I didn't know it was in there. I didn't feel it. So it didn't even feel any different. It was literally like, what in the world? I mean, I was in shock. Well, it's like, what else is up there? If that's up there. Car keys, old Motorola cell phone.

31:38I don't know if I would have had an MRI or something. Would there have been some sort of issue? Because there was metal in my face. Might have pulled out. I did send a picture to Emma. Okay, great. I'm going to flip it over now. Oh, sure. Oh, fuck. I can't believe it ended up in your sinuses. Yeah, it's a hoop. It's full hoop still. Yeah. But it's open. So there's that metal kind of hook. Yeah. That feels owie. Think how many times you had colds and stuff. I know. Wow. Seven years is a long time for it to live up there. I love that you brought it home because I did think at one point, what was all the nose ring chat about?

32:16Sure, that was great. Yeah, it was good. But somehow it didn't cue me in at all to that that was going to projectile out. Right. if it never came out maybe it would have made its way up to your eye I think it just would live where it had lived for seven years or however many years we just don't know and we won't know because you got it out did you put it in a loose sight box and put it on display on a shelf I think that's warranted it is long gone get that away was your husband like impressed oh my god probably disgusted sure sure sure sure man that's a long time it really is so long like none of your skin was still there right like your skin replaces itself entirely your organs replace themselves in seven years but this thing hung out this is gonna be like the rat water bottle story where when people lose things are gonna be like oh it's in my face in my nose yeah well the next time i'm honking around and i'm like something's in there yeah you're gonna be i'm gonna think that i have something from when you 12 years old like a shirt pin that someone gave me or something from disneyland oh wow wow that's great emmy i love that so five days later i ended up having my little one and he's 10 years old now you got a capricorn and he is his own arm cherry he loves you all and i would love if it would be okay if he came to say hi of course get a man what's his name his name is redding redding great name.

33:48Hello. Hi, Reddy. Nice to meet you. You've got great hair. Nice to meet you. Thank you. And you like Armchair Anonymous? Yes. Do you have a favorite story? I don't know. There's just so many stories. I like the rat and the Stanley one. Yes. Yes, I just talked about that one. That one really got a lot of people. I wouldn't think I was a Stanley after that story. Oh, man. We feel really lucky that you listen. Yeah, we love it. It's so nice to meet you. So nice to meet you all. All right. Be good. Have a great day. We will. All right. Take care. Made his day. The only reason that I submitted this story is he's had this event in his life and he's like, I have to write in.

34:31I have to tell my story. So he submitted for wild card and he wrote it all on his own. And I was like, I'll submit it. But then when I went to submit, I saw a pregnancy story and I was like, well, all right, I'll throw mine in there. So now he got to meet you all and I'll tell him just keep on submitting because maybe he'll have his own talk one day. Oh, I love it. Well, lovely meeting you, Emma. This was fantastic. Yeah, this was fun. Lovely meeting you all. Bye. Thank you. Oh, he's such a cute boy. I just love that little boy. Me too. I want to put him on the team. Emma, let's try to get that story.

35:02Let's try to get him as an intern. Let's try to go ahead and hire him. He did have good hair. Enviable hair. And then you are going to grow your hair out. I'm going to grow my hair out, I think. And you're going to start doing a hair band. I always do in that tough phase. What tough phase? There's a tough phase. Oh, a middle phase. Yeah, that I hate, and it's abated with a headband. You haven't had long hair in a while. It's been a long time. I don't know if my hair's thick enough for it anymore, but we're going to find out. I like it long. Are you going to do ponies? I'll do all kinds of, you know, I'll have fun.

35:34Yeah, you'll have fun.

35:51oh my god a nose ring up there oh that would have been my kink if i had to call in oh anything like if you pop a pimple in it yeah i just think about it over and over again if i get something significant out of my nose. In your butt. I think about it, yeah. But you don't get that with peeing, do you? No. And it doesn't arouse you? It doesn't arouse me, but it also is definitely, there's something else. It consumes you. Yes. There's something titillating about it, but I'm not like horny from it. Yeah, but it's abnormal. It feels like such relief. Like, oh, that's out. Oh, I'm so grateful. It's like, I'm grateful.

36:29It's gratitude. It's a lot of stuff. Do you get that or no? I don't. What about when you would have like a bad pimple that was one of your cystics and you would finally get it and you're not supposed to, but you do it. And then it's just so you're like, oh, yeah, fuck that. That's out. Yeah, I think we've talked about this. I do like that feeling. You're saying that you relive that moment. I definitely don't do that. I'm like, it feels good that it's done. Your brain doesn't record that visual and play it on a loop. Oh, my God. Mine does. Not at all. I have one. We're two months, three months out from it.

37:04There's one that plays in my head at least once a day. Yeah, that's a kink. Yeah. But do you have it about other people? Nope. I hate those pimple popping videos and stuff. That is interesting. It's just me getting rid of my poisons and my character defects and all the badness. It is. It's like I'm extracting the devil out of myself. You know what I do? This is really gross. Yeah. Now everyone's going to look. This is like the girl with the nipple. I don't want to say it. I play with my legs a lot. Any part of it where there's a hair follicle, I'm always playing with it and scratching it and trying to get it clean.

37:48You don't pinch, though? I sometimes pinch, but I also know how to get under and then get it out. But, you know, my legs look wild. From all that activity. Yes, it's not. You tear them up. I do. They're not camera ready. My legs are not a good look. But then in the summer, you can blast all that out with some tan. A little, but also because, you know, I used to shave dry. So I've done some real damage to these legs. Shave dry sounds terrible. I had places to be and places to go. I gave it a dry shave. I would do it because I had cheerleading practice and I was a flyer. So, like, I didn't want my legs to be here.

38:25And I did not have time. You're talking dead dry. Yes. Oh, I know. My friend Gina really hated it for me. That's psychotic a little bit. Listen, I do what I have to do. I kind of want to watch you do it, though. Haven't done it in years. I feel like it would give me such weird chills. It would be like the teeth that you would not like it. No, I wouldn't. But that makes me want to see it. Why don't we do shaving dry stories? You're the only submitter. I'm like, hey, guys, I'll be right back. You just retell this story. I run to the back. Hello. Hi. Where are you at? Alberta in Canada. How's your winter?

39:02Have you been not having a lot of snow like the Rockies haven't? It's been a warmer winter, but we just got a big dump not long ago. So it's been wintery again. So it's back. She reared her ugly head again. And do you like when it dumps and you have an excuse to stay inside? Because I like that. It's not bad and the kids like playing. So that's kind of awesome. Yeah. Did we just meet the product of your pregnancy story? The kid you saw, no, was not a product of this pregnancy story. That's my oldest boy, and I have three. Okay, so walk us through your funny pregnancy story. This story was in October of 2015, and we were expecting our third child, and we were super overdue.

39:4313 days, actually, so I was ready to get this baby out. I was trying everything, so we actually decided to try a shot of castor oil, which is one of the tricks they tell you to do. and it worked for our second child. So we said, let's give that a go. So we did that and watched a movie and hey, let's get some sleep because this could come tonight. And my husband fell asleep right away. Of course, I wasn't able to get to sleep because things started moving. So I was like, okay, things might be happening. And at about 2.30, probably, it's getting intense enough that we probably should get going to the hospital.

40:21So I woke him up, he had a shower, no rush. Things were ticking along. Hold on a second. He had a shower. No. Don't some people do that? They're like, oh, we have time. Didn't you guys? No. Yes, you guys thought. Well, we had time, but my wife didn't wake me up at 2.30 in the morning and say it's time to go to the hospital. And I said, cool, I'm going to hop in the shower. That seems kind of funny to me. Oh, I mean, I guess I get that. But also, aren't there all these stories like people's water break and then they go have lunch and then they go to the hospital? Well, he needs to have a shower to sort of wake himself up.

40:54I've had two kids before. This takes forever. So it was no big deal. Lots of time, no rush. We called our midwife because we were meeting her at the hospital. We got in the truck and I remember saying like, no rush, no need to speed, stop at those red lights, no big deal. It's about a 25 or 30 minute drive from our house to the hospital, 10 or 15 minutes into it. Things got really intense really quickly. And I was like, this is really painful. I am very uncomfortable. I was squirming in my seat. I was sticking my head out the window to try to like cool off to get some fresh air. And then I got this serious urge to take a big dump.

41:33Oh no. Well, cause am I wrong? Castor oil also is a laxative. Is it not? It is. Yeah. So that all was happening previously. It kind of empties you out. Okay. So that already happened. You had done some evacuations. The evacuating kind of happened. So I was kind of like, why do we have to go to the bathroom again? I thought that was over. This is so embarrassing. I can't show up at the hospital with pants full of poo. I'm like looking around for like a diaper or a bag or a towel or something. I don't know what I was going to do, but I'm panicked. As soon as I stopped panicking, it subsided. The urge went away and I was like, oh, perfect.

42:12but a couple minutes later another contraction comes and i'm like oh man i gotta poo again what is going on and then i'm like geez whiz something's coming out and it's not from my butt oh my god yep yep yep yep i'm wearing a pair of like three-quarter length sweatpants and i just take my hand and do a little exploring and check and i feel a head-shaped bulge yes yeah hair. How far away from that hospital are you? 10 minutes, probably. That's too far. That's a long 10 minutes of your life. It's so long. And I started to panic and I said, oh my God, I feel the head. And my husband's like, oh no, no, no, no.

43:00All he could say was no. It's like, yes. Okay, hold on. I'm going to revisit the shower that I was pretty critical of that no one was supportive of. And I'm going to say now we wouldn't be in this situation. Right. But then And maybe he wouldn't have been able to drive. He would have done just fine without that fucking shower, Mike. It's actually Brian. Well, he's like, I'm so grateful I'm clean for this. Oh, yeah. He starts kind of panicking a little bit. I realized that he's going to be super useless in this situation. So I kind of really panicked. And I'm like, you need to run this red light.

43:36Everything I said earlier is out the window. oh, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible because we need some medical attention. So he starts blasting to get there as fast as he can. I'm really panicked. I'm like, I think we need an ambulance. So I call the ambulance. And then when I get on the phone with them and start chatting, as soon as we explain what's happening, we look up and the hospital's right there. So we're like, ah, no, sorry, false alarm. We're good. We get to the emergency room door and it's kind of a backside door. and he stops, I jump out and I'm on a mission to find some sort of medical professional.

44:09My husband is like, oh, can I get you a wheelchair? And he's trying to be helpful, but I didn't even actually acknowledge him. And I just kept walking. I kind of ditched him. I walk into the emergency room and I'm just power waking as fast as I can. And it's this huge long hallway because we're on the backside and it's quite a distance to get to the main admittance area did brian pull into the wrong entrance was there a better entrance probably

44:38oh gosh so i'm laser focused to get myself there and i remember i got to the end of the one hallway i look there's another long hallway and i see lights and people ahead so i'm like i'm almost there and i start walking and i just remember really vividly feeling like i was out of my body. I was floating above myself, watching myself walk in. And I almost was like, oh, wow, this is like an episode of Grey's Anatomy. It looks like it would be a really good episode. And then I'm like, oh, my God, this is my real life. I remember also looking to my right and there was like a waiting room there and it was like 330 in the morning.

45:15So it was empty. There was no people except there was one cleaning lady sitting there like mopping up the floors. And in my head I remember thinking like oh my god I hope that I don't make a mess that this poor person's gonna have to clean up don't worry she was a ghost a couple steps after thinking these things and then all of a sudden like pop the head popped up I'm walking as all of this happens and then a couple steps later her whole body slipped out I am wearing like a pair of three-quarter length sweatpants and her head was kind of like at my knee and then her body was up my thigh oh my god no did you start screaming it is so hard for me not to bring up the shower over and over again i mean we're just not in a situation i can't believe you weren't already just screaming and screaming for somebody to come help you're so nice you're just like walking and looking Fantasizing about being in a Grey's Anatomy episode.

46:21It is a good episode. You pull down your pants and there's a baby there. I was holding her head and body as I was kind of shuffling along. And that's when I started calling for help. I was like screaming to try and get someone's attention. And finally, they noticed that I was there. And a couple of people came running up and they're like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I just had a baby in my pants.

46:45I just babied my pants. I just had a baby in my pants is really a sentence. Yeah, not a lot of people get to utter that. I didn't know what to do and they were kind of panicked too. They're like, oh, oh my gosh. They look down and I pull your pants down. And I was like, oh, well, I'm kind of holding the baby. So they kind of helped pull my pants down awkwardly. They grabbed the baby out of my pants and the abilical cord was wrapped around the neck. Oh, scary. God. And it got scary pretty quickly because she wasn't responding to anything. And she was kind of odd color. And I was like, oh, my gosh.

47:23I kept saying, like, is the baby okay? Is the baby okay? And so it took a couple of minutes for them to get everything organized. And they're all kind of shouting things. And they were like, we need the baby to go. And they kind of are pulling at the baby. And I was like, I'm still attached. because of course the umbilical cord is still there at this time i'm now sitting on the floor like in a puddle in the middle of the hallway basically with no clothes on here i was worried about just having a little bit of poop in my pants they clamp up the umbilical cord and i remember one of the doctors or nurses i'm not sure what he went to like snip the umbilical cord and right when he cut it this splash of blood squirted into his face from the umbilical cord and i could tell He was like super disgusted, but he was trying to act really cool and professional.

48:09And I was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. He's like, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. He was like trying to make me feel better. I'm just like, oh, my gosh, this is just a disaster of a birth. Anyways, they quickly whisked her off in a way she had to go straight to the NICU because she had aspirated on malconium poop in the womb and then they get it in their lungs. So she was in the NICU for a couple of weeks. but the funniest part was after the craziness was over just as she was taken away my husband shows up with this little backpack brian his hair done come on brian you didn't need that fucking shower oh it started with the shower it got worse and worse he looks at me and he goes like what happened why are you naked put your fucking clothes on i look great oh my god you're embarrassing us.

49:01I said, like, you missed it. It's over. And I'm like, what were you doing? He's like, I had to park the truck. I had to get the truck washed. How hard was parking at 3.30 a.m., Brian? Our friends actually tease him because if you know him, he's a big rule follower. He's also very by the book. So they tease him like, oh, so Brian, you had to get the perfect spot and what were you like counting your change 25 like making sure you filled the meter up and everyone's like what were you doing buddy he's like i thought i had time oh now i feel bad for brian well he shouldn't have thought he had time when the head was already popping out i called it immediately this is the shower was insane but we love him and he's a good dad and a good husband he is not the best at childbirth situations oh man oh heidi this is a humdinger that was good i'm glad everyone's safe and healthy because yikes she just stood up and gave birth vertical birth into her pants babied your pants the baby in the pants is now a 10 year old fiery little angel and actually it's my other daughter my older daughter who we listen to armchair anonymous all the time together and it's a special time that we love and she's always excited and hopes that it's appropriate for her because some of them i'm like i don't know most maybe that's fair like maybe she didn't listen to kinks my daughters love you guys especially my second she also watched parenthood with me recently i've re-watched her and it's so good of course we love crosby oh thank you yeah i'm very lucky to have gotten to do that i just appreciate everything about you guys have been an arm cherry since day one and i just listen to them all and i love you both thank you we love you back my kids would like yes of course get them in here hi kids oh my gosh they're all here the baby in the pants is here too yes tonka what's everyone's name Evie, Charlotte and I'm Riker Oh, wonderful We're grateful you guys listen Do you have a favorite armchair episode?

51:17Is there one story that you always want to tell people? Well, the mouse in the water Yes, yes This is quickly becoming evident Now this story will be their favorite one Yeah, it's a good story Well, lovely meeting everyone Tell Brian we love him and my apologies for being hard on him Yeah, he's gonna love it All right, take care. Oh my God, we're meeting families today. Mothers are incredible. They'll do what needs doing. That story is similar to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Andy, their second kid she had in the car. She had as they were pulling right up to the hospital and the doctors and nurses like rushed out to meet them at the car and he was born in the car.

52:01Didn't also Seth Meyers, his wife, delivered in the foyer of the apartment building. I prefer to have it in the hospital. I think most people prefer. That's if you can. If you can. All right. Love you. Love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song. Oh. Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're going to ask some random questions And with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the flyer, I'm Dish. On the flyer, I'm Dish. Enjoy.