Warning to the partners of pregnant women

A very good friend of mine is ten weeks pregnant with her first, so here is where I get to tell her all the things I found useful during my pregnancy and she can choose to ignore me.

First, a few words to the husband, boyfriend, significant other, partner, insignificant other because they generally have a very short attention span. You poor bastard. I don’t feel sorry for you because the woman in your life is going to eat you out of house and home, nor because she’s going to gain weight beyond recognition, nor because she’s the one that will get ALL of the attention from EVERYONE for the next nine months and then it will all shift to the pink (or brown or grey or in our case orange) squishy thing that the two of you (with the possible aid of donor(s) and or doctors) created and bestowed or more likely thrust upon the world. Nope, I feel sorry for you because your woman is going to go completely nuts and take you with her. Some women become hormonal through the entire pregnancy and might act like a completely different person (read BITCHY AS HELL). Others just have random moments of rage or insanity, highly emotional times or a fun combination of all of the above.

I think I only had handful of these lapses of sanity, but then again my point of view may have been a bit askew. The first that I remember happened after I watched a cooking show. They grilled up some baby eggplant and zucchini after marinating them and I wanted to try it. Kurt and I went grocery shopping and everything was great until I passed by the eggplant isle. It should be here. Where is the eggplant? I went around the little veggie island about three times. Kurt escorted me away saying that we could make something else for a side dish. I left with him, but did not find that a suitable solution. I went back to search for the eggplant. Round and round I went about another three times as if it would magically appear before my eyes after a number of revolutions. Still no eggplant. Kurt tried to drag me away a second time, but I wouldn’t go. I want eggplant! “It’s not here,” he told me, “we’ll have to find something else.” I whined about wanting eggplant. Seriously, I started whining and almost threw a tantrum. Kurt looked at me just then realizing that *this* was a pregnancy thing and because it was the first trimester he was SCARED! He had this look like, “OHMYGOD is it going to be like this for NINE MONTHS?!?!” Kurt took me aside and asked if this is what I wanted to teach my daughter. He was talking to me like a child but trying to reason with me as if I was still sane, the idiot. Yes, I could read his reaction and after each childish thing I did, I knew what I did, but I just could help wanting what I wanted RIGHT NOW.

Another misadventure takes us to my second trimester. The characters involve volatile Erica and her very close friend that was wishing to either be invisible or in a dark hole somewhere. We thought it would be fund to go shopping for maternity clothes for me. It wasn’t. It had nothing to do with me not being my usual size but also not able to fill maternity pants. It had to do with all maternity tops being “V” necks. Even on a hormonally stable day I don’t like “V” necks, but on this day I really despised them. And I couldn’t find any other choices. Oh my poor friend. I’m so sorry. I didn’t make a scene with any sales people but I was being very vocal in general about the lack of selection for maternity tops. If there is ever a next time that I’m pregnant, I’m just going to stick with huge baggy T-shirts.

This friend also stood by me as I wailed about getting pregnant at the end of my relationship. Yeah I know, very dramatic. Kurt was avoiding some questions that I wanted answered – I can’t remember what they were, but he was avoiding them like the plague. Pregnant hormonal Erica jumped off the deep end on this one. I seriously felt like Kurt and I were over and cried a lot thinking that Sophia would never know her parents as a happy couple. I imagined having to drop her off at her dad’s house for the week as an infant.

So guys (non-pregnant partners), when you find out your beloved is pregnant invest in some squeeze stress balls, a dart board (for the love of life don’t you dare use her picture as the target), and nine months of weekly therapy sessions.