Time to show a little appreciation for the place where it all goes down (or, err, comes up) during pregnancy:

The bathroom!

Courtesy imperfectparent.com

The lobby bathroom at the Field Museum in Chicago was recently rated the best public bathroom in the US. Now, you may shirk this off as a dubious honor, but when you think about it, the awesome bathrooms of the world DESERVE to be honored. Not only that, but the barely-functioning bathrooms of the world should have their day in the sun, too! I think it’s my duty as a pregnant women to point this out.

It was the bathroom that offered you a place to test your suspicion that something out of the ordinary was happening in the first place. You can’t pee on a stick in the bedroom, no matter how hardwooded your floor or how patient your cleaning lady.

Similarly, as the bathroom is the home of the handy toilet, it was where you ran during the first trimester several times a day to ralph. Hopefully, you made it in time, but even if you didn’t, I think we can all still agree that we’re lucky to live in a time when the bathroom is actually located inside the home. The idea of being pregnant 150 years ago is borderline horrifying for many reasons, but the idea of having to run to an outhouse to barf or – even worse – to have a designated indoor bucket reserved for this purpose would’ve added insult to injury to early pregnancy heaving.

Your bathroom never complains that you’re “using” it and taking it for granted. No, it loves the extra traffic it gets from your pregnant pee runs. It becomes headquarters, and because you’re spending so much extra time in it, you may feel the need to redecorate a little bit. Go ahead! You’re probably going to be able to do some serious toilet reading over the next nine months so you may as well do it in an environment that is conducive to deep thought. Show your bathroom some love and get some new bathmats that match the mood of War and Peace.

And let’s not forget about home delivery! If you want to have a water birth, the bathroom will be the setting of what could very well be the most important moment of your life! This room will become the stage on which your life changes. Dear Lord, thank you for that tub!

Thank you, modern plumbing and technology, for this blessed space. Let’s hear it for the bathroom, Pregnancy Headquarters!