Free Exploiting My Baby by Teresa Strasser Page A

like sunflower seed oil, witch hazel and willow bark extract. Great. My dermatologist reminds me that I can start using it again after the baby is born ... oh, wait, no, after I’m done breast-feeding, so in, like, a million years. Likewise, Botox is out and so is any other skin treatment that is remotely effective. Salicylic acid, which is in most of the random lotions I keep around to slap on breakouts, is also out. I’m not supposed to be concerned about anything as silly as the condition of my skin now that I’m creating new life, but I’m not creating a new personality free of self-consciousness, and I’m also not creating a world free of reflective surfaces. Now I have two chins, and both are breaking out.
    HAIR COLOR —Some say it’s okay to use, others say just get highlights and don’t let the noxious formula touch your scalp, but let’s face it, who wants to sit in the salon all pregnant while women judge you for caring more about your roots than your baby? Hairdresser to me: “What do you think these giant smocks are for? Hiding the belly. Pleeeeaaase. I work on pregnant women every day.” And hairdressers with this attitude, should, of course, be kept close to your heart. However, if I’m choosing toxins like it’s Sophie’s Choice, this one doesn’t make it.
    SELF-TANNER —Again, lots of pregnant girls use it and it’s probably fine. If you search long enough, you’ll find some Dr. Buzzkill to dissuade you from most delicious chemicals, as does ob-gyn Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, who writes, “I tell my patients to avoid chemical tanning at the very least in the first trimester, when the majority of fetal organ formation occurs.” Ha, lady! I’ll wait for the second trimester.
    Not so fast. She adds that brain development continues throughout pregnancy and that skin is the largest organ in the body, thus making it more dangerous to expose it to the active ingredient in tanners, DHA (dihydroxyacetone). Fine. Fine. If there is a better way to gloss over the aesthetic challenges of being both pregnant and just generally over thirty, I haven’t found it. DHA, IOU. And I miss you.
    EveryGoddamnThing—involves chemicals. Your moisturizer is suspect, your soap seems to have a long list of ingredients with too many consonants. Your eye cream smells too good and doesn’t go bad for too long to be trusted. Your nail polish seems like a close cousin to lead paint. The fumes at the gas station are out to get you, as is the air when you roll down your window on the freeway, and even your laundry detergent seems like venom. The entire world suddenly seems artificially colored and flavored and threatening to tamper with your fragile, defenseless fetus.
    I am going to drop a heavy name. Tori Spelling. That’s right. I interview her and her second husband for my show on deep cable. She’s recently birthed her second baby and is beautifully exploiting it with both a reality show and a book. Because I’m pregnant, we have a girl chat off-camera during which I confide my desire for just one Ambien to help me sleep.
    Mind you, Tori and I have a lot in common. Both of us have trouble with our unforgiving, chilly mothers. Of course, hers forced her to get a nose job and mine forced me to get a job job, but we’re basically the same person. Okay, her dad produced The Love Boat and my dad, California’s only Jewish auto mechanic, has produced nothing but years of rebuilt alternators and debt more toxic than an asbestos onesie, but now that I’m with child, there is a bridge between me and anyone else who has ever been here. We cover our microphones and Tori whispers that her doctor said hair color was fine, same with the occasional Ambien, and I know deep inside myself that I have made my last Tori Spelling joke. Bless her.
    Half an Ambien gets me through one sleepless night, but I go back to abstaining. Briefly, I consider the herbal sleep remedy, melatonin, but guess what? A quick Google search confirms my fear: