a.k.a. A lesson in not punching things.
Let me first start out by telling you I really love my wife and I think she is so awesome! It is amazing how awesome she is. Now, on to the rest.
Ladies, there seems to be a stigma about how men look at pregnancy. Women tend to think we don't believe you when you say childbirth hurts. We know it does. You tell us constantly. However, your body produces a natural roofy called Oxytocin. This makes you forget the pain. So, in a sense, labor does not hurt. All you women have been lying to us from the dawn of time. Men cater to your every whim just because labor "hurt so bad". I for one, have had enough. Boo Hoo! You had a traumatic experience you don't even remember. Get over yourselves. Men are sick of hearing it. And, we are fed up with being punished because you have a vagina. You don't have a penis. Deal with it!
You now feel a sudden rush as your fight or flight mechanism kicks into hyper fight mode. Adrenalin is pumping like gangbusters. And now you are all ready to tear the unmentionable parts off the nearest male with the most painful thing you can think of in the most torturous way imaginable. This is how men feel when dealing with brain fog.
Disregard what I just wrote, but remember that angry feeling you had. We know it hurts and we sympathize. We do not question that. To be honest, we as men are very grateful that we have an outy rather than an inny. I don't want that pain. The point I was trying to make was how frustrating and occasionally enraging your pregnancy brain fog is. See, we all have that fight or flight reaction. It is our survival instinct. For some reason, this seems to trigger very easily for me in regard to brain fog. Do I keep it all bottled up inside so I don't get my man parts handed to me?
Ladies, there seems to be a stigma about how men look at pregnancy. Women tend to think we don't believe you when you say childbirth hurts. We know it does. You tell us constantly. However, your body produces a natural roofy called Oxytocin. This makes you forget the pain. So, in a sense, labor does not hurt. All you women have been lying to us from the dawn of time. Men cater to your every whim just because labor "hurt so bad". I for one, have had enough. Boo Hoo! You had a traumatic experience you don't even remember. Get over yourselves. Men are sick of hearing it. And, we are fed up with being punished because you have a vagina. You don't have a penis. Deal with it!
You now feel a sudden rush as your fight or flight mechanism kicks into hyper fight mode. Adrenalin is pumping like gangbusters. And now you are all ready to tear the unmentionable parts off the nearest male with the most painful thing you can think of in the most torturous way imaginable. This is how men feel when dealing with brain fog.
Disregard what I just wrote, but remember that angry feeling you had. We know it hurts and we sympathize. We do not question that. To be honest, we as men are very grateful that we have an outy rather than an inny. I don't want that pain. The point I was trying to make was how frustrating and occasionally enraging your pregnancy brain fog is. See, we all have that fight or flight reaction. It is our survival instinct. For some reason, this seems to trigger very easily for me in regard to brain fog. Do I keep it all bottled up inside so I don't get my man parts handed to me?
I guess I should do the responsible thing and address what exactly pregnancy brain fog is if you are unaware. According to some studies, pregnancy brain fog does not exist. Yep, like Couvade syndrome (sympathy pains, for those of you who did not read my previous blog), you ladies are imagining it. I have to disagree with that. I see it almost every day. I know it is something. These studies show that there really is no difference in cognitive function between pregnant women and those who are not. So, your fog is imagined? Not so much. They say it is caused by lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and the like. You are just focusing more on the symptoms because everyone is telling you that you are going to have them.
Here is where my argument comes in. When you are pregnant, your body goes through some serious changes.You have a little bundle of joy growing in your tummy that sucks the very life essence out of you for its own selfish survival. That little sociopath doesn't care about your needs. It just wants nourishment. And we love them so for it. Anywho, if the baby is using up the nutrients that are causing your brain fog, wouldn't that be caused by your pregnancy?
Maybe it isn't about nutrition. Perhaps it is because you don't get enough sleep. and the reason you don't get enough sleep is because your body is changing and you can't stand to be in bed for a full 8 hours. Maybe the baby is sending you signals at 3 AM to go eat stuff, any stuff. Just eat! And then repeats the order at 5AM. Wouldn't that be caused by pregnancy? So, maybe we should split the difference and call it "Pregnancy Related Brain Fog" or pregnancy brain fog for short.
Oops, I forgot to explain brain fog. It is a fog like feeling in your mind that causes you to forget things and feel like you cannot concentration. Basically, it is like you are living in a series of senior moments, or you brain has the worst case of gas in recorded history.
Here is where my argument comes in. When you are pregnant, your body goes through some serious changes.You have a little bundle of joy growing in your tummy that sucks the very life essence out of you for its own selfish survival. That little sociopath doesn't care about your needs. It just wants nourishment. And we love them so for it. Anywho, if the baby is using up the nutrients that are causing your brain fog, wouldn't that be caused by your pregnancy?
Maybe it isn't about nutrition. Perhaps it is because you don't get enough sleep. and the reason you don't get enough sleep is because your body is changing and you can't stand to be in bed for a full 8 hours. Maybe the baby is sending you signals at 3 AM to go eat stuff, any stuff. Just eat! And then repeats the order at 5AM. Wouldn't that be caused by pregnancy? So, maybe we should split the difference and call it "Pregnancy Related Brain Fog" or pregnancy brain fog for short.
Oops, I forgot to explain brain fog. It is a fog like feeling in your mind that causes you to forget things and feel like you cannot concentration. Basically, it is like you are living in a series of senior moments, or you brain has the worst case of gas in recorded history.
Now we will talk about the effects of this on men. The best way to do this just might be for me to relate some personal experiences. In one case, my wife and I were going somewhere. We were all ready to go when my wife realized her keys were missing. She only has one set because it costs about $75 for a new one. Anyway, we did not have much time and the keys were nowhere to be found. We looked all over. I looked over here. She looked over there. No one came up with anything. Time was running out so we took my truck.
Now, I don't want to sound like I am throwing a pity party every time I mention our financial state. When I mention being poor it is relevant to the story and you should just take it as that.
I didn't have much gas in my truck. If we took it, we were going to have to use the little bit of money we had to put more in the tank. That money was set aside for her car. We take her car to school because it gets better gas mileage. I knew this at the time.
Now, I don't want to sound like I am throwing a pity party every time I mention our financial state. When I mention being poor it is relevant to the story and you should just take it as that.
I didn't have much gas in my truck. If we took it, we were going to have to use the little bit of money we had to put more in the tank. That money was set aside for her car. We take her car to school because it gets better gas mileage. I knew this at the time.
POW! Fight or flight kicks in with a strong yearning for fight. My wife and I do not fight. We talk about things so we don't have to (another possible blog topic). I also knew it would be childish for me to lash out at her for something she really had no control over. But, my mind started replaying the events leading up to her losing the keys and the results therein. The night before, she needed something out of her car. I offered to go get it for her because I am an awesome husband like that. She grabbed her keys and went down herself. I knew I should have gone. However, sometimes pregnant women need to do things and they don't know why. If a man gets in her way he will surely regret it. And sometime pregnant women just want to do things. As a man, you will never know the difference. So, sometimes it is better to just let things happen as they do. When she came back, she set the keys down somewhere and instantly forgot the exact location. That is what I recall. Her conflicting memory was that she might have locked them in the trunk.
Fast forward to the next evening and here we are with no keys and a deadline. We both knew we couldn't afford gas in both vehicles. This frustrated me even more. I was thinking, "Why can't you just put the (expletive deleted) keys in one (expletive deleted) spot every time you walk through the (expletive deleted) door?" due to my sudden irritation. As I said, I knew it was stupid to say this but I couldn't help but feel it.
So, what happened? Well, we went to the bank and other places we needed to go. My mind was busy with figuring out how we were going to get some more money to make it through. We came home and I was ready to attempt breaking into the car as we had already looked everywhere in the house. Then it occurred to me. She looked through the couch, not me. I pulled up one cushion and there they were. Sigh.
The moral of this story should be that a good baby-daddy-to-be would carefully recheck the places she looked while remaining perfectly calm. The reality of this is that she knows that her brain fog is pissing you off. It is pissing her off just as much if not more. If you start pointing this out, she just might become very, uh, emotional sounds like a good word to use. I really don't like to cause that for her.
Additionally, my mistake is to think of our interactions as they were before the pregnancy and expect the same thing now. I really need to work on that. At the same time, I don't want to be questioning everything she does and following behind redoing it. That irritates the crap out of me when people do it to me. There is a middle ground somewhere and I have chosen to plant the dividing line squarely between "that was scary" and "We are going to die".
Fast forward to the next evening and here we are with no keys and a deadline. We both knew we couldn't afford gas in both vehicles. This frustrated me even more. I was thinking, "Why can't you just put the (expletive deleted) keys in one (expletive deleted) spot every time you walk through the (expletive deleted) door?" due to my sudden irritation. As I said, I knew it was stupid to say this but I couldn't help but feel it.
So, what happened? Well, we went to the bank and other places we needed to go. My mind was busy with figuring out how we were going to get some more money to make it through. We came home and I was ready to attempt breaking into the car as we had already looked everywhere in the house. Then it occurred to me. She looked through the couch, not me. I pulled up one cushion and there they were. Sigh.
The moral of this story should be that a good baby-daddy-to-be would carefully recheck the places she looked while remaining perfectly calm. The reality of this is that she knows that her brain fog is pissing you off. It is pissing her off just as much if not more. If you start pointing this out, she just might become very, uh, emotional sounds like a good word to use. I really don't like to cause that for her.
Additionally, my mistake is to think of our interactions as they were before the pregnancy and expect the same thing now. I really need to work on that. At the same time, I don't want to be questioning everything she does and following behind redoing it. That irritates the crap out of me when people do it to me. There is a middle ground somewhere and I have chosen to plant the dividing line squarely between "that was scary" and "We are going to die".
Speaking of, here is example number two. We were leaving school the other day. My wife likes to drive and I like to see her happy. So, she drives a lot. As we turned from one street to the other, she pulled into the center lane that is set aside for turning only. She was telling me about something as she did so, but I can't remember what it was. I was too busy anticipating a head on collision. I thought I would be kind and wait for her to realize her mistake on her own. No one likes to be nagged. Nope, not a clue. She was really into her story.
POW! Fight or flight kicks in and this time I am fighting the urge for flight. I wanted to jump out of the car and take my chances with road rash. Instead, I calmly said, "this is not a lane". I said it again calmly and then not so calmly. I said it again in a extremely not so calm way. Eventually, or as I think of it, an eternity of near death, pants pooing fright later, she laughs and moves over as if it were no big deal. Then she uttered the worst possible thing a pregnant woman with brain fog can say, "I really shouldn't be driving".
"I really shouldn't be driving". Really? I shouldn't be driving? And yet you are. This wouldn't be so bad if it was the first time she has done this. There have been several occasions. Sometimes she can't see the road at night. Sometimes she can't see the road in the rain. Sometimes she can't see the road in the broad daylight. Sometimes she can't see at night and she forgot her glasses. And every time, "I really shouldn't be driving". Where does this leave me?
POW! Fight or flight kicks in and this time I am fighting the urge for flight. I wanted to jump out of the car and take my chances with road rash. Instead, I calmly said, "this is not a lane". I said it again calmly and then not so calmly. I said it again in a extremely not so calm way. Eventually, or as I think of it, an eternity of near death, pants pooing fright later, she laughs and moves over as if it were no big deal. Then she uttered the worst possible thing a pregnant woman with brain fog can say, "I really shouldn't be driving".
"I really shouldn't be driving". Really? I shouldn't be driving? And yet you are. This wouldn't be so bad if it was the first time she has done this. There have been several occasions. Sometimes she can't see the road at night. Sometimes she can't see the road in the rain. Sometimes she can't see the road in the broad daylight. Sometimes she can't see at night and she forgot her glasses. And every time, "I really shouldn't be driving". Where does this leave me?
I should take this opportunity to state that my wife is a good driver. She does scare me sometimes. But she is still very safe. I just have to call these moments of forgetfulness into question.
It is moments like these that a man must become two people at the same time. On the outside, I am all...
It is moments like these that a man must become two people at the same time. On the outside, I am all...
But on the inside...
And this is the brain fog conflict. Your wife/baby momma needs Han Solo. You need to scream like a little girl in fright or you just want to do this...
So, what are you supposed to do? How are you , as a man, supposed to cope? Well, I turned to Google for a list of ways to do just that. Here is what I found.
That is right. No one feels that men dealing with pregnant women driving them to the edges of sanity is sufficient enough to warrant any attention. You will just have to do the time tested method of manning the (expletive deleted) up! If you figure out a way to get through this, please let me know. Seriously, I would like to hear from the gentlemen on this one in the comment section. Don't forget to tell everyone how awesome your wife/Baby momma is. We can start our own support group.