Allow me to try to recap briefly the rest of my pregnancy just so there are no monster gaps in the streaming consciousness that is this blog.
I physically felt great throughout my entire pregnancy. Sure, we had some extremely hot days in the summer which made my afternoon walks a sweaty escapade. We seriously lucked out on getting the very last AC unit in Vermont during one of the first of many heat waves last summer. But all in all, I enjoyed being pregnant, and in fact I can't wait to do it again! (sshhh, don't tell my husband!) I did spend quite a bit of time in my last trimester walking to and from bathrooms/restrooms and there were a few activities I had to decline participation in simply because bathrooms were not readily available, but again, not that big of a deal.
Emotionally speaking, the pregnancy was a little turbulent, ok A LOT turbulent. To be sure this isn't misunderstood, I love my husband dearly, but for some reason, I felt quite alone during this time. I get that men and woman are wired completely differently and for this reason alone my writing about it now should make perfect sense to those who are reading and understand these differences. Yes, pregnant women as a result of the new hormones, can tend to become a bit crazy, however I feel as though I was very aware of this tendency and was probably very mild in comparison to the average pregnant woman. I, of course can't be sure without asking others, but no one has disagreed with me so far when I make this claim, not even my husband.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I had already read one book on pregnancy before I even got pregnant. How many did my husband read? None; or rather, none from cover to cover. He did receive a couple of books from his friends and family with titles along the lines of, "What it means to be a dad", or "So you're going to be a father" which he paged through randomly while in the bathroom. Again these aren't the real book titles, however the point is, even though the one of the books was written by a man for men with a minor goal of being supportive to their pregnant wife (yes, I read this one too!), my husband really wasn't getting informed about the pregnancy in the way I wanted him to be informed. I wanted him to know what I might be feeling emotionally and physically as the pregnancy progressed and do something with that information. For example, if he knew pregnant women get very emotional over little things as silly as commercials for life insurance or are very sensitive to comments that otherwise would have rolled off one's back, perhaps he would have used that information to better filter those knee jerk reactions and impulsive responses that occasionally sent me off to work crying in car.
I guess I also underestimated what changes my husband would be experiencing as well. In typical male fashion, he never wanted to talk about how he was feeling about having a baby or the pressure he might be feeling, he just chose to act on those feelings which unfortunately really clashed with my emotions. It's only now in retrospect, I can apply this logic and feel better about how the whole thing went. One of my biggest lessons in looking back is to realize my husbands emotional needs were bigger than mine. It's sort of a hard pill to swallow, especially when you want to feel special during your pregnancy, given I was cultivating life and all. I'm obviously still trying to deal with it and hopefully I'll soon be able to let it go.
Anyway, times were rough, especially when we finally got started on a complete kitchen renovation 45 days before my due date. It wasn't always graceful, but somehow, we got through it. Even when I had to stay an extra day in recovery waiting for the kitchen counters to be installed before my husband would pick us up... yes we got through it. Even when on the way home from the hospital we had to stop at Home Depot to get a hose for the kitchen sink drain... yes we got through it.