The last time I shared the joy that is my wife’s march through pregnancy, it got passed around to many people and supposedly created some laughs. This taught me that there is an opposite of the “you had to be there” joke. The lesser known “Funny if you’re not there” joke. An experience that you know, while in the midst of it, is a mother lode of comic absurdity and yet you are so involved that the laughs will have to come later.
That’s why I write it down.
You see, I can only describe my wonderful wife’s pregnancy as a roller-coaster crankhill of rising discomfort. Everything we’ve been told or read about which trimester is the worst, or which experience is the turning point, have all been proven as better fertilizer than advice.
So here we are. Eight Months. Actually we are having a C-section so it’s on my wife’s calendar like a lunch date: December 9 @ Noon, “Give Birth”. Technically, as I write this we are 22 days & 18 hours away. Not that we’re counting.
Currently we are enjoying moments which should probably get recorded by science instead of me. Psychologists could have a field day with the mind-warping effects of seeing body parts suddenly change.
For instance, I had no idea that after more than a decade together I have subconsciously imprinted the size and look of my wife’s feet and legs. Yet, random swelling occurs, suddenly turning her calves into cankles and toes into little sausages ready to explode. And I know for a fact those are not my wife’s feet. Imagine how she feels, since she’s known them longer than I have. Foreign appendages are attached to her body like something out of a low budget horror film.
And simple tasks often taken for granted, like sitting up, now get discussed like things from a by-gone era. And breathing. My wife talks about a full breathe of air like the rest of us dream of winning the lottery.
All this discomfort brings noises. Moans and groans at every movement which makes our bedroom sound like either an old-folks home or the world’s worst porn film. And the latest additive to this cornucopia of sound is snoring. Because poor breathing brings about crazy snores heretofore never recorded.
Last night my wife snored on the inhale AND the exhale. Considering she never snored before she was pregnant, I found that quite impressive. “So wake her up.” You might be saying. But she so rarely sleeps that doing so just felt mean.
I did get her to roll over, but the snoring only changed pitch. Oh, and added a little whistle, like a windtunnel crescendo.
So I slept in the other room. The Baby’s room. Ironically it’s the quietest place in the house at the moment. And there’s a bed in there.
And I learned something else very useful. The bedside clock in our new nursery has a screen only slightly less bright than the surface of the sun. I covered it with a pillow. Which proceeded to glow.
So it’s a party at the Deeken house. And I’m considering installing one of those huge LED countdown timers. Think of it like a play-clock counting down until my wife can get her body back and we can start not sleeping for some normal reason. –
Like our son screaming because his retinas are getting scorched by the bedside clock.
I’d like to add something here in my defense but as I was soundly sleeping when the incident occurred I cannot. So I have to take my husband’s word for it that I do in fact now have a slightly audible sleep-breathing pattern. However, I would like it noted that this did not seem to bother the dog in any way.
LOL!!