[Closed] Pregnant partners

No, my wife was lovely and is an avid reader of this forum.

I think it's referred to as baby-brain.

Mine just sleeps constantly at the moment. Not too much more mad than usual!

can't wait until the baby is out. Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

Erm, good luck with that.

You have to appreciate that she has been taken over by another being and for the duration things will be very different. Also afterwards the new normal may be different....

Still anyway congratulations!

the good news is she won't ever be the same woman again. You like cycling right?

😀 toasty

Yes mines a complete moron, never happy about anything..and no reasoning.

Hold on, thinking about it being pregnant isn't a factor. 🙂

Thanks for all the quick replies. When I say normal service I was thinking about being less moody and obstructive.

Obviously the baby is going to change everything in a big way.

At the moment I wish she was asleep more!

No, my wife was lovely and is an avid reader of this forum.

What he means to say is that I was lovely during pregnancy, and continue to be lovely. ISN'T THAT RIGHT, DEAR?

In all seriousness, I got off pretty lightly - I didn't suffer with the tiredness and sickness a lot of women do, worked until two weeks before my due date. I did learn a completely new meaning to SPD though, heh. 🙁

Congratulations, btw.

Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

Hahahahhaha, it'll all just be sleep deprived as well!

It's all good fun though 🙂

Weirdly, my Wife was probably more reasoned and 'normal' while pregnant.

Unfortunately that only lasted for 9 months....

No. Mine was very good and felt with the stress too. Top tip. Use the pregnancy to have as much sex as possible.

[quote=joebristol ]
My wife is unbearable at the moment - can't wait until the baby is out. Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

Good luck with that................

For me it took about 7 years.
We're good friends now however.

I don't have a pregnant partner but I can speak on their behalf having been pregnant many times.

It's horrendous being taken over by hormones at the best of times but the monthly fun pales into insignificance compared to 9 months of hormones.

The first sign I get of being pregnant is an overwhelming urge to push my partner away from me - this results in me being quite awful and almost wanting completely out of the relationship.

I recognised this as a pattern after pregnancy no 3 - so it then became something I'd worry about if I ever got in that mindset.

After that passes I tend to get the tiredness - a horrible tiredness that you wake up and it never leaves until you andre asleep. The more kids you have the worse this gets as you are unable to take naps as easily.

Then the sickness kicks in again not what you need when you and trying to function normally, and it can be a struggle to be reasonable

The sickness passes and you get bigger and start to get the baby brain which can make work a nightmare of you have to retain a lot of information. I always get to the point I feel I need key purse and phone attached to me at all times - like small kids gloves,as I would always forget one.

Then you are at the delightful stage of huge where you can struggle to feel attractive, intelligent, desired or even just an individual.

Your belly becomes public property for anyone who fancies a quick pat/feel and you start to waddle.

Soon labour with all its pain comes along to save you from exploding

When you weigh it all up - it's a good job we are awash with hormones that make it seem perfect sense to be going through it all for the end result - or it would never happen! If they make you a bit wappy in the process I would say it's a minor adverse side effect 😉

Maybe run her a bath or make her a hot chocolate and count your blessings

Use the pregnancy to have as much sex as possible.

Emergency Edit:

Ouch, big yim - condolences for what little that's worth. That is horrible news. Best wishes to you both.

(more great timing from scaredypants.com)

My darling wife was pretty good being as we were rebuilding a house whilst she was pregnant. Did loads of work on it on maternity leave including up the scaffold which I got told off for letting her do! You fry and stop a majorly hormonal woman doing anything at that point.

The best bit of baby brain was when she managed to drive in to a parked car, in a space with nothing else around it. Just drove straight at it and hit it! Other than that it was the complete inability to say the colour of anything correctly (blue things were green for some reason and no pattern to anything else).

Ten years on back to as near normal as she was before all the sleep deprivation and complete lack of time to do anything kicked off.

Best of luck.

My wife is unbearable at the moment - can't wait until the baby is out. Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

you are joking, right?

My wife hasn't even had any sickness at any point so I think she's had a reasonable pregnancy. I get that it's hard work and all that, but she does seem to have milked it! Maybe I'm not as patient / sympathetic as I thought...

Looking forward to the baby arriving now and just getting on with being a dad.

My wife got way more sleep after sproglet turned up than beforehand. It may only have been in four hour slots maximum, but she could sleep in more then one position, move around easily, not have to go to the loo every half hour...

I think pregnancy effect different women very differently, some have a much harder time than others. (Or it seems like that from the outside looking in) but at the end of the day every one has different things they find tough / easy / painful / annoying. And some people are just tougher than others! Take all those variables and it's difficult to get a typical experience.

Oh boy, sounds like the OP's first.

Wife's like a moron? Welcome to your life in a few month's time.

Sleep? What's that?... 🙂

Yes it's the first....always thought we'd have two children but I'm not so sure right now! The wife hasn't spoken to me since about 8pm last night.

Despite telling me I'm getting fat (I had a shoulder op in September which made any kind of exercise hard for a while), I then get grief if I do any exercise because I'm not spending enough time with her. She also wanted a dog at the start of the year so I conceded and bought one. Apparently I spend too much time with the dog. Can't win at the moment!

I've been pretty lucky, was expecting her to find it much harder. She has the odd moment of baby brain which has provided some comedy moments, awful heart burn, can't sleep properly and snores like an pneumatic drill but no proper morning sickness etc. She does snap a fair bit but her hormones are running wild to it's hardly surprising, at the end of hte day she's taking one for hte team so I think you have to suck it up.

The one thing she's found hard is the number of twunts (see this thread for examples 😆 ) who delight in scaremongering and saying how awful it's going to be when the baby arrives. Really gets her down, and makes me pretty irritated. luckily we've had quite a few friends who have young children who have had really positive experiences and say the moaning is over the top. Everyone's different though so will wait and see.

my wife had a physically easy pregnancy. No sickness to speak of and she looked great. Her emotions on the other hand were hit very hard. In her case she worried about everything. I wasn't allowed in the loft in case something happened to me. She also behaved as if everything I did was going to harm our unborn bundle of joy. It sounds like your wife is perhaps feeling that she may be abandoned.

Adjustablewench mentioned being taken over by hormones. They really do take over and there is no negotiating with them. By you or by your wife. I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy being a dad, but have to go as a 4 month old human has been handed to me and he is very demanding.

Can't win at the moment!

In that case, you might as well get told off for doing something you enjoy. Get out on the bike, before you turn into a contributor to the 'can't ride my bike because of the baby' thread...

PS Congrats, OP. It's epic. First 12 hours are amazing, then it's boring and carp for 4 months, then it's epic again.

Never disagree with a pregnant lady, you cannot win. Just imagine that someone has a gun to your head. Eventually you will be set free, but in the meantime, do whatever they tell you to do without question.

I have thought that about biking etc. I'm getting told off anyway so may as well have some fun!

Already getting grief for the car I've ordered as a company car. I was looking at estates as I actually quite like them aside from the practicality for family stuff. Wifey said estates are ugly - don't get one. So I've ordered a Jag XE saloon - so excited about getting it. Now being told off for buying an impractical car!! I figure I'll just get a roof box- maybe I can put the wife in it to keep her quiet on long journeys lol.

But really, I'm looking forward to the baby coming now. Been so much build up to it with antenatal classes etc.

Mostly extra sleep time needed in our household. More sleep, more food, all works out. Still having quite an active time 24weeks in running and riding, slower certainly, but it keeps us both sane.

I think we've only had two moments of total mental break down - luckily my wife is quite logical and it's not been hard to point out she's being irrational - then figure out why - then move on. The joys of two scientists in the same house 🙂

MrsMomo is 35 weeks pregnant and as yet no less rational than pre-pregnancy. A little more forgetful is all.

She isn't keen on me being too far away from home just in case MiniMomo makes a break for freedom so has put a bit of a stop on me getting out on the MTB, but has encouraged me to spend more time on the roadie to make up for it.

Hmmmn. Hang tough fella.

Frankly, you'll have to lump it.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that things 'won't go back to normal' after the kid is born. She is going to be a different person forever.

How she will be, its hard to say, but certainly for the first year after she will be really tired, irritable, short with you in all likelihood. That's the best case scenario.

You can probably stuff the mountain-biking. I was in your situation last summer and asked the crowd for advice - they said you're riding is going to take a massive knock. I didn't believe them at the time. They were right.

Best of luck with it. Having a kid itself is great it lots of ways, but is like being handcuffed to a bipolar person - one minutes hypermanic and happy, next depressed and upset.

Alex

Can't win at the moment!

So don't even try. Just smile and agree remembering that she's not gone mad, she's pregnant. My daughter was born on Monday and I'm very glad to have my wife back, all be it in new mum mode.

Oh, and ordering the jag with a baby and a dog was a daft idea so she's got that one right.

That was really good insight, thanks for posting that Adjustablewench!

In fairness on the Jag front she actually said she liked the car until just after I'd ordered it. Given the dog is a small fluffy one and the baby is going to be small then I don't see a huge issue. It's a decent size 4 door saloon with a good size boot.

The wife was often irritable and snappy with me before pregnancy - now it's just on steroids no matter what I do.

I'm not actually the kind of person who is off mountain biking all the time anyway. Maybe once a month at. Eat at this time of year and maybe once a fortnight in the summer, so I don't foresee a problem with that. I've knocked hockey on the head for the current season too, so I can e around for the wife / the baby a lot.

Equally it's not going to be healthy for either of us to be in top of each other / spend every waking hour with the baby so we do. We'd done time to do personal things. I've already said im happy to take the dog and the baby out on my own once they can be bottle fed so she can do her own thing sometimes. I don't think I'm being too unreasonable.

My wife is unbearable at the moment - can't wait until the baby is out. Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

probably already been said but

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha good luck with that

Can't stand the 'hormones' argument as an excuse for crappy female behavior...and yet us blokes seem to let it slide, funnily enough it doesn't seem to work both ways and if a man is aggressive, violent and wants to hump everything in sight due to testosterone we're being unreasonable....you can't have it both ways ladies....we were born with brains that can think and reason and will if you put your mind to it override 'hormones' so stop acting like idiots (men and women) and blaming 'hormones'....pathetic.

Deviant - like your thinking!

Ha ha ha, brilliant!

Mrs Tyred - also a keen reader of this forum, coincidentally - was entirely wonderful before during and after pregnancy.

Just relax and make use of the Pregnancy Taxi, buddy. "Oh, you can't drink anyway can you.... so you might as well drive, eh?"

My Mrs has so far had two intense rage fits at me, one regarding washing the dogs paws in a bucket as she feared salt grit would harm the dogs paws. Completely true in what she was saying other than there hasn't been any salting in our area yet, this was a full 20 min verbal battering before late night dog walk despite me agreeing with her the entire time.

The 2nd, peanut butter. She loves the stuff and now because of pregnancy super powers and enhanced sense of smell, she hates it. Cried as she threw some away and blamed me for this parasite living in her.

Fun Times, another 26 weeks to go!

Glad it's not just me getting the s***y end of the stick!

My wife is binging on marmite - can't believe the volume of it she's gone through. Guess there are worse things - unless it's known to make people angry.

My wife thinks I should have given up alcohol with her - ur no. That said I haven't actually got drunk even once whilst she's been about during the 9 months so I think I've been fairly thoughtful.

Obviously the baby is going to change everything in a big way.

You've underplayed that by a factor of about 100000

That's what everyone is saying. The dog we got in February changed a lot of things as it is. I figure it's just a further extension of that

OP good luck. It's going to be a strange mix of hanging tough whilst not forgetting yourself totally and allow "bad habits" (eg like being spoken to like a piece of sh.t) to become a feature of the relationship. I personally had a bad experience in that regard but forewarned is forearmed.

Anyway congratulations becoming a father is a wonderful experience and well worth the challenges.

Sounds like a right laugh, introducing a baby into the mix will calm it all down said nobody ever.

NZCol - Member

Sounds like a right laugh, introducing a baby into the mix will calm it all down said [s]nobody ever[/s] [i][b]all those people that tried having a child to save their already faltering marriage[/b][/i]

fixed it for you

Hoping slightly more normal service will resume then.

Ha! The youngest of my three is now 20 and at no point has normal service been resumed. Enjoy the journey. Good luck!

When I say normal service, I'm just hoping for a bit less mental. I'm also hoping our daughter decides she likes camping at a fairly early age as the wife refuses to go in a tent and I love camping...

Also hoping said daughter takes to biking and hockey. Knowing my luck it'll be something more expensive like horses.

The mrs wants to go camping for her birthday, she'll be around 32 weeks gone at that time. Cant imagine sharing a tent with a hormone fueled rage machine and a fluffy dog. Should be interesting!

Jolmes - you need a 2nd tent to escape to I reckon. I hadn't considered how we'd arrange camping with a dog (ours is small and fluffy too - the dog, not the wife).

Rage machine is s good description.

I got some very odd treatment when my wife was pregnant, particularly the first time.

I think it's a combination of hormones, stress on her body, and worries/stress about the whole situation.

Normal service resumed? Well she has been a lot less illogical since, but in all honesty I think her somewhat warped perceptions during our first pregnancy have taken their toll on our relationship in the long term. Good luck.

Now being told off for buying an impractical car!!

We have managed everything we need in a Yaris. (Little G is almost 2 now) including weekends away and luggage/pushchairs, etc etc.

Can't see how a large saloon car is "impractical"

joebristol - hopefully I'll have the new car by then and can sleep in there. She can keep the dog and airbed to herself. Last time, the dog stole my spot when I went to use the facilities, trying to move a 60lb sleeping dog was out of the question.

Jolmes - what car are you getting?

That's a fair size dog to move / share a tent with! Is it a lab or something like that? Ours only weighs about 7kgs / 15lbs. She'd probably grumble, but not too much trouble to shift! Certainly easier than the pregnabeast in my bed at home.

Hopefully getting an Hyundai i40 estate so plenty of room in the back for me to stretch out in and she's an Old English Sheepdog.

Sounds ideal. Wouldn't fancy having a disagreement on sleeping space with a large dog like that lol. If Molly comes Camping she can sleep in her crate otherwise god knows what she'd get up to. Sneaky dog would be eating something she shouldn't no doubt.

We've had 3 little monsters in just over 4 years and to be fair she's been different with each one, from normalish to completely batshit crazy and all levels of irrational, emotional, loving, touchy feely, don't come near me and lunacy in between.

There's basically nothing you can do other than carry on and believe that she'll be back to pre-pregnancy "normality" at some point.

jekkyl - Member
the good news is she won't ever be the same woman again.

Like throwing a welly up deansgate

One day overdue on baby so far...... how boring this is getting!

This is the right time to have the "are you sure it's mine conversation". It is an opportunity missed if you don't

We had a few friends and family go early (including extremely so) so we were well prepared in case ours came early.

We were not prepared for them to come late. Good lord is that a frustrating time! Never has ten days seemed to take quite so long in our case. My wife hated the feeling of her maternity leave ticking away and the barrage of people asking "haven't you had that baby yet?". You have my sincere sympathies, and I hope they arrive sooner rather than later!

deviant - Member
Can't stand the 'hormones' argument as an excuse for crappy female behavior...and yet us blokes seem to let it slide, funnily enough it doesn't seem to work both ways and if a man is aggressive, violent and wants to hump everything in sight due to testosterone we're being unreasonable....you can't have it both ways ladies....we were born with brains that can think and reason and will if you put your mind to it override 'hormones' so stop acting like idiots (men and women) and blaming 'hormones'....pathetic.

I tend to point out to my wife that her hormonal outbursts only ever seem directed at me, and not any of her friends. Funny how they're controllable with some targets and not others.

It's usually 50/50 as to whether that fuels the fire or dampens it 😉

Top tip? Always keep the car at least half full. Telling my in labour wife while en route to the hospital that I needed to stop for fuel because otherwise the fuel needle was so far in the red we might not get there was not my finest moment.

Good replies!

Bags are packed, the car is fuelled, baby seat is fitted in the car and the pram is in the boot (although we probably won't need that at the start).

We've tried massage, going on long walks, eating curry / pineapple / spicy food / raspberry leaf tea etc. The wife is rubbing different oils on the bump etc and the midwife did a sweep yesterday and said it's 'favourable'.

Grrrrr, just cone out baby! Don't want to be in hospital on xmas day ideally....

Grrrrr, just cone out baby!

Will a future family portrait look like this?

[img] [/img]

Mine is just about to hit the 37 weeks. No mood swings, no hormonal randomness, just still caring and lovely. Even encouraging me to go out and ride my bikes (once I'm over my lurgi). In fact she encouraged me to stay home and watch Star Wars whilst she went out to do the big Christmas shop. This is why I'm going to marry that girl!:)

^^^ what are you waiting for, she's a keeper 🙂

Our first was 2 weeks late. UK system for delivery date gives earlier "due date" than that used in Europe.

Baby will be along soon enough don't worry about !

We are standing by. Christmas Baby 😉 my ex-SIL was born on 25th - Noelene

Not long for us either, bag packed, baby seat in car. All good though, apart from I get a b011ocking if I forget my phone at home 😳

Had our baby - had to go in 12 days overdue for induction. Actually just needed the waters breaking and nothing else - from start to finish five and dusted in about 5 hours.

Wifey has mellowed out immeasurably and life with her is much better again. I'm not a fan of babies (and in fact had never held one by choice). However having your own baby is just about the best thing ever. Blown away by feelings for the baby - even when having to stay up to 4am trying to get her to sleep a few days back.

Already beginning to get into a bit of a routine so no getting about 5 hours sleep a night - which is much better than 40 mins one of the first nights.

Wonderful news ! My first was 12 days over too, he/she must have been very dry skinned ? I am not a baby person either much prefer them when they become little people.

Enjoy, it feels like a battle sometimes but its definitely worth it.

Give the bike a good lube you'll not be riding it much for a while,

She's not too bad because the waters hadn't broken until the hospital did it, then she came out so quick. Has got a bit of dry skin round her neck, but the midwife isn't worried.

Waiting to see if I can get a locker at work - going to start commuting again a bit in the bike on non-customer appointment days. Keep the legs ticking over that way - plus if I cycle I can leave the house later than if I drive.

Going to be booking in a BPW uplift day in April and try to do a few night rides in the time up tibtgen and maybe a CwmCarn day too. Just when it fits in round the baby care.

Baby and wife will cone first over everything else though.

Thought I'd update this topic 7 months on.

Life with baby is generally good - I've insisted I have one evening a week to do something sport related to chill out, but I'm home every other night and don't go out much on weekends on my own during the day very often (occasionally bike trip negotiated every few months though).

Baby and wife going pretty well - we've lucked out with an incredibly easy to look after baby so far. Work limits my sleep more than Eva does - she often sleeps from 7pm until 6.30am ish.

Still getting some biking in - Wednesday night is Ride night, although when the dark nights kick in that will swap to hockey training most of the time.

Getting my cycling fitness back a bit from commuting just to get some miles on a bike. Otherwise useless car time satnin traffic becomes productive - taking an 8.5 mile route to and from work when I have time - 4.5 miles diretly when in a rush.

Only issue is the wife is now talking about trying for a 2nd baby.....

Only issue is the wife is now talking about trying for a 2nd baby.....

My maths says that b+1 = n+1

Already got 3 bikes (one new this year) and I get enough grief for that....think I'm happy with number of bikes as have a racer, a hardtail and a FS enduro.....