What it ain't

An Open Message To the Husbands of the World, from your Pregnant Wives
 
What I am
-Tired, dear god I'm tired. Imagine doing the hardest day of work you've ever done, every single day for 40 weeks and you'll have a vague idea of where I'm at energy wise right now. Everyday, even if i didn't do a thing aside from lay in bed and convert oxygen into carbon monoxide I'd be burning the same amount of calories as if I'd spent the day doing normal activities and jogged, for an hour. But I don't lay in bed, I get up, shower, pee, go to work, come home, take care of children, do laundry, cook dinner, do dishes, pick up toys, go grocery shopping, and then try to resist the urge to start moving furniture as nesting takes over my brain like the damn calypso music does to the corpse in weekend at Bernie's

-Moody, deal with it. It is hard enough to live inside a woman's head without dealing with the wildly fluctuating and completely unstoppable flow of hormonal warfare that is being waged between my body and the child's adrenal gland. The only thing I can come up with is that this awesome side effect comes from the days when women had to kill wild animals with their teeth to keep their children safe and the hormonal nonsense was needed to turn usually awesome cool ladies into snarling bestial contestants for gladiator-ship.
       Look, don't you think I realize I'm being terrible? Is this the person you married? Probably not. How about just for the next 8-10 weeks give me a wide berth, and cookies.

-Weepy, again deal with it. In preparation for the needy tiny screaming human I am about to forcefully and painfully bring forth into the world, my body is making everything even remotely cute/romantic/kind/sad/baby related or even sort of funny into a serious emotional moment for me. This is so when I haven't slept in a week and am trying to remember to feed both the child and myself, I am able to resist the urge to either crawl under a mountainous heap of dirty diapers (seriously how can one kid pee this much) and die, or have myself committed to the psych ward. And also, realize that if you are going to speak in harsh and angry tones at me, it's going to make me cry. You are not allowed to then become upset and try to explain your harshness while telling me that it's really my fault, because guess what? THAT JUST MAKES IT WORSE!!!

-Focused, on me. Yep, for the next little while it is going to be about me and what I need. I am not concerned about ignoring you, or helping you, or feeding you...because you are an adult. At this point I am mentally incapable of being emotionally responsible for anyone who is not living inside of my body. If I wasn't here would you allow yourself to starve, probably not. Please realize that I spend 98.7 percent of my day doing things for people WHO ARE NOT ME. Does the 5 year old thank me for ensuring she has clean underwear, no! Does the 3 year old thank me for putting her in time out so she does not become a burden on society, no!  Does my boss thank me for coming in to work every day, no!  Look, The only things I do solely for myself right now are shower, pee and eat nachos. If you are under the age of 16 and legitimately cannot do the thing you are asking of me I will consider helping you, if not suck it!

What I'm Not
-Comfortable, Look, there is not a moment that goes by that I feel even remotely like myself. I understand you want your happy nice wife back. Guess what, I miss her too. She had a nice ass and wanted to be around other people. She was fun and funny and active and could walk more than 300 feet without having her legs go numb because of the child she is growing and how it's pulling her spine out of whack. I want to sleep so much because when I'm sleeping I'm not thinking about how much this stinks. I've been hijacked by our little soon to be bundle of joy and at the end of the day, it's hard living inside this body, so give me a break.

-Angry, really I'm not. When you assume that my snarky, tired, attitude is a function of a bigger problem... you are, in effect, creating a bigger problem. I'm not angry with you. I don't hate you. If I did, we wouldn't be having this baby together. I will tell you if I am angry and I will not make you guess or try to figure out what is wrong. Give me some credit you boob! You didn't marry a sneaky vindictive snotty witch and I didn't morph into one because I become pregnant. I'm grumpy and that's not indicative of what I'm feeling about our marriage, it's because I'm a hormonal mess and I'm tired and I'm heading toward the most singularly painful experience of my life. The best thing you can do right now is avoid me when I'm grumpy if it causes you such problems, because I CANNOT CONTROL IT. May be you can, good for you, I can't and making me feel badly about it doesn't help the situation get better any faster.

Sincerely, Your Wife and mother of your child(ren)