10 things I love about my pregnant wife

For this last installment of the things I love about my wife, I list 10 things that I love about my wife that I didn’t even know until she got pregnant. Lest anyone feel that this post is disparaging to my wife, I’m sure she loves many of these things about herself just as much or even more than I do.

I love that my un-pregnant wife doesn’t burp constantly. Something about being host to a fetus has caused severe irritation to whatever causes burping. The poor woman burps constantly.

I commented previously how much I love that my wife loves to sleep. I just thought she loved to sleep until I saw how much she sleeps now that she is pregnant. She wakes up from a nap and is already tired.

I love (and miss) that my wife at one time loved food. We looked forward to going out to eat, or just looked forward to lunch and dinner at home, and would even spend time at dinner discussing what we should eat for the next meal. Those days are now gone. The thought of pretty much any food is enough to trigger the vomit reflex.

On that same note, I miss that my wife no longer appreciates smells. She used to swoon over my well cologned body. Now she doesn’t even want me to use scented soap. Anytime I cook, she gags. Anytime we drive by restaurants, she gags. When she walks into any room in our apt, she gags. I have resorted to eating in my car just to avoid smelling up the apt.

Robin has always been one to internalize everything she witnesses. If we watch a movie about a transvestite clown that has a hoarding problem, she will turn to me and say “please don’t ever be a transvestite clown that has a hoarding problem”. Now that she is pregnant, she frets about any disease, ailment, or condition that she hears about, reads about, or sees on tv, no matter how far-fetched or rare. I pray daily for a healthy baby.

I just thought that my wife cried a lot. I remember a previous post about dreading this very thing because I knew pregnancy exacerbated crying tendencies. I could not have been more correct. Just the thought of something that could possibly be construed as sad, happy, sappy, touching, or patriotic is enough to elicit tears.

Robin is adamant about not knowing the gender of the baby too soon. She wants to know the sex a few weeks before the birth, but not any sooner. Most people are trying to talk her out of it, but she is convinced that knowing the sex and then naming the child before it is born will make the pregnancy go by slower and that she will go crazy buying things for the baby. As far as I am concerned, she is the one suffering all the side effects of pregnancy, so if she wants to wait a few weeks, it is fine by me.

Robin has always been very vocal about not wanting to have a baby anytime in the month of June or even early July because she didn’t want any child to steal her birthday glory. The first due date we got for the baby was June 21st, Robin’s exact birthday. However, all those worries about having to share a birthday went out the window, she was just ecstatic to be pregnant(the due date has since been moved to June 28th). I think it was just a test. She passed.

Robin has always been adamant about not wanting to have really gender specific things for the baby. If it is a girl, for example, she hates the bright pink ruffled car seat, hello kitty rattles, and pink polka dot crib stuff. I guess our baby will be constantly clad in bland yellow clothes and will only be allowed gender neutral toys and accessories, but that just seems like so much work, so I hope Robin relents on this one.

Even before she got pregnant, Robin bought a name book and had been marking that thing up more than her seminary scriptures. One night she went over each of the girl names she had marked as “like”. Out of the dozens of names she read aloud, I liked a grand total of 2. Most of the names my wife likes would have been great if our baby was born at the time of the Boston Tea Party. She claims the names are timeless and classic. I claim that school bullies couldn’t care less about timeless and classic. Luckily, we do agree on some names—but I guess we’ll only be having two kids.

In a few short months all these points will be moot(or mute, as Robin says) and we will be happily celebrating parenthood, but until that point comes—it is just fun to discover all the things I love about my wife that I didn’t even know until she was with child.

It is amazing to watch day by day as a human life grows inside of my wife. I couldn’t be happier that Robin will be the mother of this child. That is one lucky baby.