Turns out being knocked up is hard on your man, too.
When I sat down to interview my husband for this blog I was miserably uncomfortable. I was experiencing horrible waves of nausea, and craving peanut butter cup ice cream, all while feeling somewhat like a bloated gorilla. Yet, I had to push through the horrible feelings and the cravings (like I attempt to do most days) and remind myself that for once, this blog wasn’t about me! This interview was an attempt to understand on a deeper level how this whole pregnancy experience feels for him.
He opened with an extremely sarcastic, “It’s a wonderful experience. I wish you could just stay pregnant all the time.” Those words further nauseated me (and him too, I think). At the risk of sounding dramatic, (nah, screw it, I’m huge and sweaty and hormonal, I’m allowed to be dramatic) pregnancy is the hardest thing (by far) that I have ever gone thought in my life. I think it’s safe to say the same goes for Scott.
I wasn’t surprised to learn the things that are hardest on him are the dramatic diet changes, my lack of fitness, my inability to do anything that requires even the smallest levels of energy and the difference in our household’s sleeping patterns.
Scott looks to me to be his “healthy eating channel.” So when the person that provides him with healthy meals and snacks suddenly can’t stomach vegetables and lean proteins, it makes eating properly very challenging. And let’s face it: We’re not spring chickens anymore so those cookies don’t just burn themselves off like they used too.
35 weeks into my pregnancy! Five more weeks to go…
As a couple we also love to be active together. Our higher intensity activities have always included skiing, running, biking, golfing and going to the gym together. But we also just love to go for walks on the beach or take our daughter for a leisurely bike ride. All of those things (intense or not) have come to a screeching halt throughout both of my pregnancies. And of course I’m going to have to ease back into these things post-partum. Especially since I’m having a scheduled C-section.
Our sleep patterns have always been a little different but now I’m walking up the stairs for bed just before eight o’clock. Since it’s summer, that’s before the sun even sets. If all the stars align, I can actually stay up for a couple more hours to watch some bad TV. But for the most part, I am dead to the world around nine o’clock. Scott said he feels constantly guilty about continuing to go to the lake, playing golf or hitting the gym. The poor guy even feels guilty about staying up late and watching good movies without me.
So what do you do when your partner in health goes rouge for nine months? You hold on for dear life and just try to endure the suffer-fest with her.
When Scott and I got married we proclaimed in our vows that we “promised to support our active, healthy lifestyles and competitive nature as a bond that kept our life strong and flourishing.” Right now, we’re in the biggest competition of our lives—us versus inactivity. We will win…together. We’ll be a stronger couple for it and when it’s said and done we’ll have the world’s most amazing prize. We’ll call him Bodie Scott.