Let me put out a disclaimer to all my dad’s out there… Don’t tell the other half of the baby making recipe that you read this blog. Don’t mention it, don’t bring it up, don’t give any hint that we talked about this. Because if you do, she is going to ask you one question… ‘Was I like that?’ and you may be feeling all good because you found out that there is someone else out there that has been through what you went through, and your dumb ass just might be feeling saucy and actually speak your mind. Look… dads don’t let other dads speak their mind to their wife. Crazy is as crazy does. You have been warned.
Prepartum Aggression. Current dads should already know what I am talking about and future days need to be aware of it. When my wife got pregnant with our first child, I had no idea what I was in for. In my mind, I just thought of things in simple terms. Wife is pregnant, baby will grow, wife delivers baby, and then we start the parenting… simple right? Well there is that whole 9 months of cooking time, from inception to delivery, that you still need to be around your baby mamma that I neglected to consider. I mean why would I? We were young and in love and free and happy and naked a lot and sleeping a lot and naked a lot, so why would I think things would ever change. Looking back, I can only laugh and say to myself ‘You poor dumb bastard.’ After I found out we were pregnant, and after I started talking to my wife again (see previous blog), I tried to keep things business as usual. In my mind I though ‘I’m not crazy and she is not crazy so there was no reason to think anything would be different’, how wrong I was.
After we got past the initial excitement of being pregnant and began to try and operate as usual, I noticed things started to change a bit. My wife started to complain a little more, something she was not known for. ‘I don’t feel great, my boobs hurt (future blog), my feet hurt, I’m hungry, my back hurts, why are you here, I hate you, this is all your fault, give me your fucking soul… I joke I joke, I kid I kid. It was a tough time though. I was working, we were living with her parents while our house was being built, I was coaching football, and generally just living my own little boss life. I can genuinely say that I was not listening or paying attention to her needs as a prego, which may or may not have contributed to her moods (we can’t confirm for sure). Once I got my head on straight after finding out about the baby, I just went in to caveman mode and just thought I could take care of everything myself. I was buying everything and making sure she was eating, resting, walking, and so on. I don’t think I ever really asked her how she was feeling emotionally and I’m sure it didn’t help that we had a few slight scares along the way. Going at everything with my head down and not taking a look around was not the best decision. It caused me to stay stuck in my old ways and not really care much about how she was feeling or how I could help her mentally and emotionally. Little arguments turned into big arguments and dumb arguments turned into everyday arguments. It was a tough time because I am a head strong stubborn asshole and backing down on anything I feel I was right about was not an option. Holy shit that first baby was tough, partly because I was a dumbass, but by the time my little man came into this world I learned a lot. Admittedly I may have caused some of that prepartum aggression, but I’ll lie under oath if ever asked.
Pro tip: you don’t have to always say ‘yes dear’ but a ‘yep’ goes a long way during the baby incubation. ‘Babe, do you want to spend the entire day looking at baby clothes?’ Yep. ‘Babe, I know college football is on today, but do you want to go over my parents’ house and retile the ceiling?’ Yep. ‘Babe, I was wondering if we should name our baby Gunther Hamilton Farnsmith and call him Gunhamfar for short. What do you think?’ Yep. You have to understand that even though you are saying ‘yep’ you are not actually agreeing to anything. You are just giving verbal confirmation for the moment on a topic to be address later. See the secret is understanding that even though your pregnant wife/partner is out their rabbit ass mind, you are in control of the situation. You give them the support they need in the moment of ‘crazy’ and then when they are ‘normal’, you readdress the previous situation in question in a calm and methodical manor. Understand the situation, defuse the situation, keep momma happy.
With all my BS, I somehow survived pregnancy number 1… barely. I got by with a D+, stay in school kids. Pregnancy number 2 would prove to be a lot more difficult though. Like any normal man I thought since I had survived something one time, I could just follow the same technique and survive it again. But, crazy (and I use that term jokingly) follows no law. In fact, it is above the law. With the second pregnancy I couldn’t do anything right, just ask my wife. I blinked to loud, my smell was incorrect, my hair was too loud, why was the white in my eyes so damn white, and don’t even get me started on how my face was the incorrect width. There was honestly one time where I was in a concrete building that had ZERO cell phone service and my wife tried to call me. (I hear all the moms right now, ‘Oh you done fucked up now.) Again, there was ZERO cell service and she knew that there was ZERO service in that building. I was in said building for about 45 minutes and in that short time period, my wife managed to send me 10 text messages and leave 3 voicemails. My phone actually started to ring as soon as it connected to cell service. I answered the call in a calm voice politely reminding her that I was in a place with no service (I know I know, WTF was I thinking trying to reason with someone that is always right). She deflected my politeness and explanation to say ‘I don’t give a shit if you don’t have service in the building, you better find a way to make service so you can answer the phone when I call.’ So yea, that was my life for prego number 2. But I learned… adapted… and survived. With all of that, I somehow put myself right back in fire by helping to bring another baby into this world. I wonder what joys prego number 3 will bring me, but I try to find strength in my lessons learned and I always keep the ‘yep’ in constant rotation. People always say ‘happy wife, happy life.’ My thoughts are more ‘shut the fuck up Jose because she might try and kill you in your sleep’ but what I really just say is ‘Yep’.
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