There Is No WE In Pregnancy

The other night I overheard a man say “We are pregnant”.

The blood boiled through my body.

I could feel my face getting red.

I started to sweat a little.

It was like I was having a flashback to all the times the words “we” and “our” when I was pregnant.

For me, there was no WE in my pregnancy. There is no WE in pregnancy.

I mean no disrespect to women who truly feel like they shared the experience of pregnancy with their significant other – and that it was this joyous experience they went through together. Actually, I am a little bit jealous.

I really do wish the word WE didn’t send me for such a spiral, especially because I’m sure the excessive spike in my cortisol levels when I heard the word wasn’t good for me or my baby. But I just couldn’t help how I felt.

Seriously though, does a woman say to her friends “we are having a vasectomy” when her husband is going in to get the snip? Damn right she doesn’t. HE is getting the vasectomy, THEY are not having any more children.

It all started one night at the dinner table when my husband announced he told his co-workers that “WE are pregnant”

This was around the same time that my clothes stopped fitting (not in the cute pregnancy belly kind of way, but in the fat hanging over my pants kind of way), my socks began cutting off the circulation of my feet, I was making daily pit stops on the side of the road to puke, and cellulite was forming on the back of my legs at a rate I cannot even describe.

So as I sat there eating my Valveeta macaroni and cheese dinner (the one I would eat three times a week for the entire duration of my pregnancy) I politely told my husband that the only WE in our pregnancy, was when WE decided to make the baby.

He laughed.

(He thinks I am joking, I said to myself)

He did.

Because over the next several months he said the word “WE” again, and again, and again!

Depending on my hormones and the level of swelling in my feet at the time of the comment, my reactions to the word “WE” varied from a sarcastic comment, to flying objects, to full-blown tears.

Here are just 10 reasons why the phrase “we are pregnant” absolutely does NOT apply …

1. It was not “WE” who couldn’t drink alcohol. I couldn’t drink alcohol. He got a designated driver for an entire 10 months.

2. WE did not cry uncontrollably after finding out that someone had eaten the last drumstick in the freezer. That was me.

3. 6 months in, WE did not bend over and split the crotch of my favorite pajama pants. That was me.

4. WE did not toss and turn all night long and WE did not go have to go to the washroom 15 times between 10:00pm and 7:00am. That was me!

5. WE did not have invasive internal exams where the doctor falsely warned us by saying“you’re going to feel a little pressure”. That was me. (Sidebar: If there are any doctors reading this, there is a huge difference between “a little pressure” and shoving your whole hand inside someone.)

6. WE did not go from hot to cold so fast that our body would break out into a full-blown sweat.

7. WE did not have anxiety about going into social situations due to uncontrollable and unpredictable gas (well… not because of pregnancy at least…)

8. WE did not have a birth experience that resembled a scene from the Exorcist. I experienced it. He got to watch!

9. Similarly, WE did not push something the size of a watermelon out of something that USED be the size of a grape.

10. And after all was said and done, WE did not have our once decent looking breasts shrivel down into something that resembles little raisonettes. That is me.

WE now have a baby together… But I was pregnant!