Because of the watermelon I’m carrying in place of what used to be my waist, I’ve been feeling a lot of, shall we say, pressure against my pelvic floor (a nice-girl way of saying cervix). Also, I have to pee a lot. As in every 25 minutes or so.

This is a pain, almost literally, in the patootie. You see, a few weeks ago, I got a referral from my OB for a little thingamajig called a Baby Hugger Lift. This—uh, contraption is really the only word for it—is supposed to lift the watermelon off my pelvic floor so that walking is slightly more comfortable.

The Baby Hugger Lift is girdle, like something your great-grandma Gertrude would have worn, to which you attach suspenders, like your great-grandpa Fred’s, to which you attach an elastic band that runs under your belly thereby transferring the weight of the watermelon off your cervix and onto your shoulders.

Yeah, just try taking that get-up off every 24 minutes when you have to use the ladies’ room.

Luckily, the designers thought of everything: there’s a little piece of Velcro attached to the crotch of this thing, so I don’t have to remove the whole kit-and-caboodle every 22 minutes when I have to pee; I just have to unvelcro the crotch. Even so, it’s not exactly user-friendly. The first time I used it, the Velcro fell into the toilet.

So. I guess the designers didn’t quite think of everything.

I’ve included a photo, so you can see this thing for yourself. All I can say is, however much they paid that model to pose in this get-up, it wasn’t enough. Of course, she’s, like, three weeks pregnant, so it doesn’t look quite so bad on her.

No one is going to see me in this thing. Well, except my husband. And when he saw it, he said, “Wow. Uh, wow. I’m—I have nothing to say.” Thank you. I’m going to go crawl in a hole now. I just have to find one big enough to hold my watermelon.

Seriously, may I just say that this is not exactly helping my self-image? I already felt like a pinheaded beached whale. Now I feel like a pinheaded beached whale wearing her grandmother’s girdle.

But oh, glorious day, said girdle has scalloped elastic around the waist and legs, and let me tell you, that scalloping makes me feel downright sexy.

Or not.

To add injury to insult, while the Baby Hugger Lift does actually lift my belly off my cervix and make it marginally more comfortable to walk, it also lifts my belly into my lungs, making it more difficult to breathe. And it’s going to be hot as Hades to wear this thing come warm weather. (Thank you, Jesus, that I live in Seattle, where it’s still cool.)

So each day for the next nine weeks, I am going to have to decide: do I want to breathe today? Or would I rather be able to walk?

It’s too much for my pregnant brain to handle. I think I’ll go crawl in that hole after all.