ExpectingWords.com - Helping expecting couples find the right words at the right times

The funny thing about having a baby is that this special being goes from being imaginary to real, oh so real, in just seconds.

Can you remember when you found out you were pregnant?  I do.  My husband and I were about to go out for a Sunday afternoon happy hour on a warm Fall day.  I figured I might as well take a pregnancy test before having a few too many.  Nothing about me felt pregnant, so I just assumed the test would give me a go-ahead to drink.  It didn’t.

I laughed and smiled and announced to my husband, “Guess what?  I don’t think we should go for drinks.  I’m, um, pregnant, I think.”  It was surreal.  How could I be pregnant?  I was standing there, physically the same as I felt the day before.  But today, I was pregnant.

We could barely wrap our heads around the idea of it.  (more…)

I promised to be a little more patient and my husband promised to be a little faster. That’s the compromise we reached once it became clear that I had gotten used to barking orders: “Get the washcloth! Bring me the bottle! Go find him the tiny little stuffed dog he loves that is usually in his crib but not here right now!” Yes, I mean those exclamation points.

I’m hoping I’m not the only one who suffers from I-Had-a-Baby-and-Turned-Into-a-Barking-Dog syndrome.

According to new research that I wrote about in another post, 90 percent of couples say their relationship is worse since they had a baby. I suspect it’s because life tends to feel like an emergency all the time when there’s a baby or toddler around. The sense of urgency means many of us push niceties, tactfulness, and respect to the side for the greater good (the child).

I read a story a few months ago about a mom who was bathing her three young kids in the tub, (more…)

At first she thought her husband was the sweetest thing ever. Once they saw the pink line revealing her pregnancy he began offering to carry anything and everything in her hands (grocery bags, shopping bags and even her heavy purse!). He’d clean the dishes so she could rest at the table; repair the computer so she wouldn’t have to bend down to the floor to reach the hard drive.

What a wonderful husband, she thought. And then he started on her love of tuna fish sandwiches. “If the doctor says you shouldn’t eat tuna more than twice a week, there must be something wrong with it. I don’t want you to eat ANY tuna while pregnant.” They argued, he won. What if something happened to the baby? She couldn’t live with the guilt of the tuna.

Then he was drinking beer. She wanted a sip, just a sip. “Are you crazy????” No sip. She began to lie about her lunches to hide the fact that she ate bologna (a prepared lunch meat – also on his do-not-eat list). This pregnancy had turned her husband into a paranoid barrel of overprotective obnoxiousness.     (more…)

I had my annual physical a couple days ago with a new doctor. She said I was healthy, but that’s not all. She asked me about my plans for more children (I already have a one and a half year old). “Are going to have more kids? Are you trying now? When are you going to try again?” she wanted to know.

And I answered her questions because she is after all a doctor (though she’s an internist, not my OB-GYN). But since she already knows certain things about me that no one else does, what would be the big deal about sharing something else so personal? So I basically I told her we would try again, but not just yet.

She did not like my answer. “Why not now? You shouldn’t wait. You don’t know what could happen. And, if you space your kids too far apart it’s so much harder to get back into caring for a newborn.” “Well, we have our reasons,” I defended.

She came back more adamantly, “There’s always a reason, always an excuse. It’s never going to be the perfect time.”

Seriously? (more…)

You know those conversations that make you itchy. When you’re pregnant you receive unwanted or rude advice, when it’s publicly known that you’re trying to conceive, you get suggestions to stop trying to so hard, to relax and take a vacation (like how are you supposed to do that when you have to work?) and when you’re a parent, other parents are out there judging your choices.

But what if someone really does want to help a friend or relative who’s struggling with infertility, pregnancy or parenting? Is there any way a well-wisher can offer advice without seeming critical and offensive?

In response to my blog post Behind Closed Doors: Trying to Conceive, one woman who had decided not to have any children, commented that as a stepmom, she watches her stepdaughters struggle with infertility. She wrote, “I know most of you are going to hate to hear me say this but I honestly believe stressing out about it and ‘trying too hard’ really does make it harder… I know [people] who had been trying for years and then gave up and as soon as they ’stopped trying’ because they were going to start the adoption process or even adopted a child then suddenly became pregnant.” (more…)