Now that I'm pregnant, I'm going through all the classic virtuous crap that millions of Western women do every day. Like, "I don't smoke, and I'll puke on you if you do..." or "My jeans don't fit anymore so I can come to work in overalls if I wish." The worst though, is when these Greek men, that I'm fortunate to live among, drive alongside you and hiss, like you're a cat. It always made me feel sick, but now, I'm virtuously outraged. Before I used to flip a finger, now I ignore it just because I don't want to run over there and rip his head off for not respecting my pregnant state, even though the poor ignorant bugger couldn't possibly know. I suppose if the culprit were attractive and not some beat up pick-up-driving-haven't-been-to-the hairdresser's-in-4-years-or-brushed-my-teeth-in-10, I wouldn't be quite so offended. These hormones don't make me cry, they're making me mad and hungry. My poor husband... What did you or your partner go through? Did anyone get hurt?

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Answers

Hmmmm. My wife acted extremely smug, happy and inordinately complacent the whole time she was pregnant. Every time. I could say, "We're under nuclear attack!!" and her reaction would be a mild, "Well, okay, let's just get prepared." Are you sure your attitude isn't being brought on by nicotine withdrawals? She even smiled at all the stupid, inane "bun-in-the-oven" level remarks.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Well, the first fourteen weeks I was in morning sickness hell. I was barely sentient so I'm not entirely sure the rest of the world existed outside of a place for me to puke on.

After that it was business as usual. Not many people even realized I was pregnant. I worked up till the last couple of days, still taught my dog classes, etc. I think the only time it even really came up was when I fell pretty good in agility class at about 7 1/2 months. I'm not the most graceful person, so tripping over my own feet wasn't anything new, but this was a nasty fall, flat-faced onto concrete, and I was quite worried.

After week fourteen, the only hormonal effect I can think of was that food tasted completely different.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

I would have been fine if my husband hadn't been such a jackass.

I did find at work that I had a bigger window of opportunity, as it were. "Oh, Deb you know, she's pregnant. It's hormones. She doesn't mean it," and I'd be all, "No. I just felt like being bitchy." It was very freeing.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Considering the PMS Mood Swing Hell I went through just this week, I shudder to think how bad it might be if I ever got pregnant.

Sounds like, in your case, Jane, it's turning up your awareness frequencies or somesuch. Like, amplifying everything you're feeling. I hope it gets easier for you to deal with. And congrats on your bun. :-)

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

I was looking for a postdoc at 8 months. It made determining who I should and should not work for a snap. I gained way too much weight, but did OK until the last month. Things that pissed me off-at 6 months someone saying "you're only six months along?" Women who felt they had an automatic connection with me and would corner me with their birthing horror stories or try to touch my belly. Guys on my Master's swim team saying "can't you just pop that kid out?" (the women really got them for that). The most fun. My Speedo had these pink and orange triangles that went down the front of the suit and had expanded considerably. There was public swim after Masters. At 8 1/2 months I dragged myself out of the pool and these two guys standing there were so shocked that they couldn't move and their mouths dropped to the floor. The lifeguard and I laughed our tails off. Hearing the first sound of my daughter's heartbeat. Wow. Now she is 8. Where does the time fly? In this same blink of an eye, she'll be a teenager. Congrats. on your pregnancy. Try to cherish every moment from here on out. Time is fleeting and your child is precious. (um, very exhausting, but precious never-the-less).

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2001

Here's a story you may find amusing: I insisted on being in the delivery room for our first one and during the birth, I got a little green around the gills and woozy. One of the delivery nurses (who looked like Aunt Jemina and was as big as a door) noticed and reached over and slapped me on the cheek. "Look, buster," she said "If you pass out and fall on the floor and crack your head open, you're gonna lay there and bleed. There's only two patients in this room...and you ain't either one of 'em." I sat it out for the others.

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2001

heh heh, Bubba, that's hysterical. I've never had kids, so I can't really empathize, but I was my sisters Lamaze coach (her husband was in the service and away at the time). I've been to all the classes, watched the tapes, been in the delivery room, etc. I think this is why I don't have kids. I'm extremely terrified of childbirth.

One thing that I've noticed is that I can usually tell when someone I know is pregnant, even though they haven't announced it yet. I know some people consider "the glow" of pregnant women to be a myth, but I've found it to be absolutely true. Most women I've known just take on this fabulous look. Maybe that's why they were leering?

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2001

When they hoot and whistle at you when you're pregnant, it's because they know you "do" it.

That's what my boss told me as we were walking to a meeting in downtown Baltimore, me in a borrowed freakishly hideous bright pink dress, waaaaayy too many months along.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2001

I too was hooted and hollered at ever since puberty, and I felt the outrage while pregnant, like this is sacred, don't you GET that? But I will admit this...at some point as I got really big the hooting and head turning stopped.

As annoyed as I thought I was I was surprised at what I wondered when it stopped. What did it mean? Now that I am lugging children around I am a MOM, I am not hooted at and as weird as it may sound to you there was a loss there. Not that I long for the yelling, but it was a constant validation of my outward attractivness and something I was as used to as breathing. That validation gone and my own veiw of a post-childbirth body has been humbling.

That said, I know you will hear this and hear this, we all do, BUT people say it because it is TRUE, your time with your baby will go by SO FAST: hug all you can, hold with all your might, keep going with love even when you feel like you can't go another moment, trust your instincts if you want your baby with you but Grandma thinks baby should be in a crib alone somewhere, screw grandma bring the baby with YOU. Every smell of thier sweet heads, the curve of a chubby hand, sacredly delicious to a mommy and it will flee.

So yes you've heard it before and will again, but I say it now to a total stranger with the bittersweet reality that this sentence just does not communicate the truth, the beauty the finality of it, IT GOES BY SO FAST, CHERISH EVERY MOMENT.

Congrats!

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2001

Oh, I forgot!

I don't remember feeling angry while pregnant, more sentimental than anything. But I do remember the "morning" -ALL DAY sickness, and I especially remember a day as I left work and was walking through the building that I knew I was going to hurl. I hurried towards my car, finally wretching and wetting myself at the same time, that was a special moment! Interestingly, no on was hooting or hollering then either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2001

I don't remember being leered at while I was pregnant, but then again I lived in San Francisco at the time....

It was a joke, people.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2001

Just an interesting story. I got married to this extremely beautiful, slim, 100lb deliciously svelt little girl and went away for a wonderful (yeah right) deployment overseas. When I got back 7 1/2 months later and walked off the plane, there she was. All 140 lbs of pregnant woman. She was terrified I would turn around and get back on the plane and go back overseas. Well I didn't and spent ten mostly happy years with her and my absofuckinglutely wonderful daughter. We are still great friends and my daughter is still the apple of this old farts eye. Some women are really beautiful when they are pregnant and I leer at them but some women are the hags from hell. I love seeing a woman holding onto one kid with love swirling around the two of them and 8 months pregnant. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy. It's an attitude thing. James

-- Anonymous, February 11, 2001

i dont get it shellie. jim i bet if your wife got fat youd leeve her woudnt you.> thats not very nice. Guys like you make me sick!!!

-- Anonymous, February 13, 2001