Pregnancy and a complete lack of modesty
“Hi babe. Will you grab enough toilet paper for me to pee three times?”
I paused — standing in our hotel room, phone to my ear, just pondering my place in this wonderful, bizarre universe — and considered all of the mystical dominoes that had to successively fall for me to hear the words that I had just heard from an intelligent, private, once-reserved woman.
“I think we just reached a new level of married,” I said.
“I love you,” replied my 22-weeks pregnant wife.
This exchange occurred on Monday in Montana. Marie was in front of our hotel in our rented Ford F-150. We were leaving to hike up Storm Mountain which would take at least three hours. Marie, at five months pregnant, had just realized that she would be at least three hours without a bathroom. Her novel request was delivered with a pass-the-salt ease.
Moments like these are becoming more commonplace. Pregnancy is weird. It’s a little like war. Things can be totally normal for awhile, then you suddenly find yourself in the midst of a new reality with different stakes. There are no grievous wounds, no dead bodies. The casualties of pregnancy are previously-held norms: Privacy, Modesty, understood bounds of Propriety. But the element that I didn’t appreciate until it was gone is Mystery. I’ll admit it: When I learned what a mucus plug was, I lost a bit of my remaining innocence.
With that said, the losses are replaced by gains.
Early in our relationship, I approached Marie from behind in our kitchen. I wrapped my arms around her in a loving embrace and promptly received an elbow to my gut followed by a displeased “Don’t touch my belly!!!” And that has been a standing rule for over four years. Despite being slim, athletic and toned, Marie is very sensitive about me touching her midriff, especially after eating.
That phase is over.
For the past few days, Marie has been grasping for my hand and yanking it to her belly with increasing frequency. She wants to share our son’s natal gymnastics with me. This is a profound reversal. Just two weeks ago, when Marie began feeling the first flutters of activity, she found it nauseating. She would suddenly jerk, twist, then mutter, “Gross.” This past week, Marie has been smiling and laughing through the same event, even as the kicks and punches become more powerful. I did not marry a giggler, but Marie may be becoming one.
A few days ago, we were laughing in bed after a particularly kinetic burst of activity from her abdomen. When it subsided, Marie smiled, rubbed her belly and held my hand. We wordlessly understood that we were in a special place in our lives. After briefly enjoying the bliss of approaching motherhood, Marie looked at me seriously and said, “This is not for sharing.”
“You mean the blog?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. She smiled, then explained, “Weakness.”
As much as Marie would like to pretend otherwise, she is positively enjoying some aspects of pregnancy. One of our new rituals is a nightly feeding. If Marie doesn’t eat before bed, the Baby gets angry in the middle of the night and fires a uterine thunderbolt at his mother’s stomach. Marie wakes up at 2 AM with crippling heartburn. So each evening, Marie makes a bowl of cereal for herself that she eats in bed. Normally, she is rewarded for the feeding by a frenzy of fetal karate. But if our son is too still for too long, my wife gets irritated.
“I give you cereal, and you move for me, you little fucker.”
Marie was reiterating the substance of a contract that she thought she had finalized with our unborn son. Either our son doesn’t understand the contract or he is negotiating for more cereal.