Scrubdown

In preparation for a Fit 4 Two photoshoot with Nunuboo over the weekend, I went to the spa to get a body scrub and self-tanner application. Vain, yes. But if I'm going to feel like I'm on vacation, first I must LOOK like I'm on vacation...

I had no idea the hurdles that awaited me in my quest for bronze goddessness! When I walked into the sterile shower room, the esthetician prompted me to undress, hop up on the table and lay facedown, covered with a towel.

Firstly, at nearly 37 weeks pregnant, I cannot hop anywhere, especially not onto a table that loomed seemingly 10ft in the air! Secondly, lay facedown???? If I attempted to lay on my belly, I would either burst like an overripe grape or just rock back and forth on said belly like a weeble-wobble! So I just arched my eyebrow in response and told the esthetician that it wasn't going to happen due to the advanced state of my pregnancy. She chuckled nervously, and said that on my back was fine. Did she not notice my belly?

When she left the room, I used a nearby chair to assist my ascent to the diving platform table and tried to cover my ever-expanding self with the towel. This achieved the equivalent of hiding my belly with one of my Grandma's lace doilies! I didn't know if the objective was to preserve my dignity or the esthetician's, so I left the teeny towel perched precariously on the apex of my midsection and attempted to relax.

She came back in and donned the little scrubbie gloves and began quickly whisking away my dead skin cells. In order to do the back of my legs, she asked me to bend my knee slightly so that it lifted off the table. At this point, she directed her gaze to a far corner of the room, so as not to look at my crotch. Again, I wondered if this were to preserve my dignity or hers, although I imagine she must have seen a crotch or two in her day, being an esthetician and all! I've had midwives, doctors and students all looking at my girlie bits for months now, so I no longer HAVE a shred of modesty! Who knows, maybe she was trying to not embarass me by witnessing my botched bikini line waxing from weeks before?

After she had finished, she asked me if I wanted my stomach done. For some reason, I had assumed that the scrub would automatically include body parts like my boobs and belly, but apparently not! As my belly seems like about 70% of my body surface these days, I quickly nodded my assent. So she turns to me with this little facecloth folded in half - to put over my breasts. Again with the modesty! Besides the fact that my big pregnancy boobs were hiding happily in my armpits at this point, I obliged her and coaxed my nipples out of their hiding places to huddle together under the terrycloth. Using tasselled pasties would have achieved the same effect!

The lightest of scrubbings across my belly nearly sent me into laughing fits from the tickling. I think she was afraid to put too much pressure on my belly - maybe she was afraid to scrub through the layers of skin and uterus? In any case, she ended this portion quickly. I was a little sad because pregnant belly skin is notoriously itchy from all the stretching. Mind you, had she scratched me vigourously, my foot probably would have thumped on the table like a dog's.

After using gobs of every product available in the shower following the scrub (have to make it worth it!) I changed rooms for the self-tanner application. Again, I lugged my naked bulbous self up onto a table and draped a teatowel over my mountainous belly. The esthetician returned, snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and lightly applied the coconutty lotion to my various body parts. After the application, I realized that I was going to look much like a tanned barber pole without any intervention since my boobs, underbelly and butt were completely without tanner! So after she had left the room, I dashed to the counter where she had left the bottle of tanner and doused myself liberally!

After it was all said and done, I awoke the next morning to find myself a darker shade of pasty white! Totally like I had been vacationing on the Mayan Riviera! Sigh.

In future spa visits, I think I'll stick to facials.