People ask me a lot lately how the Wolf is doing with her pregnancy. It’s kind of like the new “How’s the weather?” or “What’s up?” because I have similarly unexciting information to share in response. The truth is that she just hasn’t had many challenges with the pregnancy so far. Aside from a quick bout of nausea while making dinner one night during the first trimester she’s been pretty peachy– cheerful disposition (enhanced by the confidence of knowing she is caring for a new life growing inside of her), eating healthily and with a normal appetite, maintaining relationships with friends by continuing to exercise and getting together for meals outside the home. She definitely is more tired than usual, she is slower on our evening dog walks around the neighborhood and takes frequent naps throughout the day and often likes to go to bed early.
But no wild changes in personality or emotions or other kinds of physical, mental or emotional instability.
I think that’s what I am having a hard time wrapping my head around. If pregnancy ever comes up in the plotline of a TV show or movie, there is usually a “Pregzilla” moment where the newly sassy, demanding and impossible-to-please woman shovels ice cream and other junk food into her mouth, emasculates the man by ordering him around town and the house on silly errands (which he hops to to prove his love and loyalty to mother and child) and generally just storms around the world raising hell and acting like your typical idea of a bitch. It falls nicely into that other man-woman stereotype where the two people enjoy nothing more than relating to sympathetic listeners of the same sex how knowingly horrible marriage and their spouses are, but, ah, the things we do for love!
I guess shame on me for thinking corrupt Hollywood ethics and bizarre leftist social agendas would make for accurate depictions of real human biology and sociology in media. We just aren’t experiencing that. For me, her pregnancy has been essentially “painless” so far, and I think I can say without being a jackass here that, all things considered, it’s been relatively painless for her, too. We’ve heard so many horror stories from others and none of it has happened.
Although we did have a chuckle the other day when we were watching something together and there was a “Pregzilla” moment on screen and I said, “How come you aren’t all hormonal and crazy like that woman?” and she looked at me and said, “Oh, I did some random crying right before you got home!”
I’m not sure if it’s diet, exercise, self-control, lifestyle or just luck but so far her pregnancy has been a civilized experience for both of us.
(For the Wolf’s perspective, check out Experiencing Pregnancy as a Woman)
A House Rises 