Being pregnant is not for the feint of stomach

Men who have never been married to a pregnant woman could be forgiven for assuming that the “YOU DID THIS ME!!” phase only runs for about the final ten minutes of a pregnancy, because this is what we have learned from our primary source of information on the subject, which is reruns of the show Friends.

The most naïve men might even think that having a pregnant wife guarantees them a designated driver for nine months. This viewpoint is flawed for many reasons, not the least of which being that pregnant women don’t need to go to parties to find reasons to spend their evenings with their heads in the toilet. They can do that just by sitting at home and waiting for a few minutes.

In the three months that my wife Kara has been pregnant, I’ve observed that the term “morning sickness” seems to be something of a misnomer. “All day sickness” or just “sickness” would explain the phenomenon much better.

I had always thought that the beginning of a pregnancy was the time when a new mother-to-be would stand in front of the mirror, lovingly rubbing her tummy and glowing while thinking about lullabies, tiny fingers and paint swatches for the nursery. Kara has certainly been glowing lately, but not quite in the hue I would have expected. The theme song of the first trimester appears to be much less “What a Wonderful World” and much more “It Ain’t Easy Being Green.”

Now that she’s entering her second trimester, though, Kara is hoping for a reprieve from the worst of her symptoms. The stacks of literature she’s read have promised better times ahead, if only temporarily. While there’s no such thing as an average pregnancy, the general expectation seems to go something like this: About four months of extreme nausea and exhaustion, followed by four weeks where things are pretty cool, followed by four months where it looks like an oompa loompa’s hot air balloon got stuck under your T-shirt, followed by many long hours of screaming, sweating and pain as the husband tries to figure out how to put the crib together.

In any event, most guys don’t seem to understand, not that they ever entirely could, the difficulty that comes with carrying a baby, even before the most obvious stomach-stretching adversities have begun. Take, for instance, my friend Johnny, who hasn’t spent much time around pregnant women, and who inspired me to write this column as a public service to any men who might find themselves tempted to downplay the tribulations of the first trimester.

When he showed up at a mutual friend’s house and found Kara lying down on the couch, taking up two seats, he asked if she could sit up straight so that he could sit down, too.

“Dude, I’m pregnant. Can’t you pull a chair in from the dining room?” Kara asked.

Johnny rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, I see. Playing the pregnancy card already.”

I ducked behind the end table so as not to get caught in the blast that was about to knock Johnny out of his Skechers.

“The pregnancy card? Seriously? YOU try being pregnant. I’m exhausted and sick all the time. Could you just drag in another chair? I need to lie down for a few more minutes,” Kara said, hospitably allowing Johnny one more strike than her husband usually gets.

Not sensing the imminent danger, Johnny replied, “I mean, that might fly in the last three months, but you’re like baaaaarely pregnant. It’s not like I asked you to go clean the gutters, or handed you an axe and asked you to go chop wood in the backyard.”

It was to Johnny’s great benefit that, indeed, nobody handed Kara an axe at that moment.

You can hide behind the end table with Mike Todd mikectodd@gmail.com.