TRIMESTERS
You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Forty weeks is a long time to be pregnant.
1st Trimester
The first trimester is filled with joy and amazement and thoughts of what will be. For expecting parents these weeks are filled with dreams and visions of the future.
During the first trimester, the fetus is growing, but momma’s abdomen is not yet so pronounced that a construction crew of hard hats won’t still whistle from the highest scaffolding.
The first trimester is filled with peregrine musings, like should we name the child after Grandpa Horatio? Can a little boy have mauve colored wall borders? And which mother will over do the birth the most?
These are but a few of the wondrous first trimester visions that dance through a pregnant woman’s mind.
As for fathers, we spend much of the first trimester thanking God for the unexpected bounty that has descended from the heavens and landed in our wife’s shirt. It is during this time that even the daintiest of female chests engross like a frosted mini wheat dunked in a bowl of milk.
2nd Trimester:
The second trimester, arrives with all the beauty of autumn’s eternal kaleidoscope. Red, yellow and orange dots fill the tree line, and there’s a discernible nip in the air. The days are shorter and the nights cool enough to put a second blanket on the bed. This is the second trimester, which seems to be less about star gazing and wonderment as it is with dealing the inevitable life brewing within the womb.
Second trimester moms begin to feel pregnant. They wonder if their husbands still find them attractive and if other people perceive them to be pregnant or just fat. During these days, obvious discoveries like, my bra is constricting me to death, and what do I do with size forty-two stretch pants after the delivery?, cross a woman’s mind.
During the second trimester, sex is a little more challenging. Like mountain biking up a steep slope of greased Teflon, the climb is arduous but once you get there, worth the effort.
But the second trimester is also a mental con man who tries to convince a woman that something is wrong. Inappropriate thoughts like “I’m fat!”, and “does my husband find me repulsive?”, begin to ooze into the pregnant brain.
Like a menacing phantom, the probing tentacles of the second trimester infiltrate the male psyche as well. During the second trimester, intimacy can become a fumbling high wire act of indecision and mental unbalance. Regardless of size, creed, race, or political affiliation, every man in the 2nd trimester begins to worry about violating junior’s personal incubation space. Will I harm the baby? Can I possibly break mom’s water? Will the baby hate me later? These and many other strange thoughts often cross the mind of a 2nd trimester dad seeking a little romance.
3rd Trimester
The third trimester is the final act in a year long play that consumes the expecting couple. The final trimester is a winter solstice of waiting and hibernating anguish, wishing for the tiny bear cub to emerge from its sleepy lair.
Like two Eskimos trapped in an igloo, listening to each other breathe, watching each other move, every mundane action grows tiresome. Cramped quarters, and not a comfortable position to be found, the third trimester is a waiting game, waiting for the sun to finally emerge, waiting for the storm to pass, waiting for the birth to rear its alien faced little head.
During these last few months, couple’s often begin to stew in their own juices. The third trimester is an interminable game of monopoly where all the properties are owned and all the hotels set up. All you’ve got is your little shoe that mindlessly dances across the squares, forcing you to pay neon colored money to someone you no longer like based on the indiscriminate roll of a greasy pair of dice.
It’s a gestational waiting game where the TV remote is in plain site, but no one has the energy to reach for it to put on the television.
During the third trimester women pass the time purchasing physical necessities like car seats and baby swings and crib monitors and carriages. These pregnant mothers shift incessantly from side to side trying to find a patch of skin that isn’t swollen and a body part which doesn’t ache.
Third trimester women urinate as frequently as a gerbil quaffing ale in an Irish pub. They belch unexpectedly, and blame it on the baby. They rock back and forth on the edge of the sofa trying to create enough momentum to launch themselves to their aching feet. If a third trimester woman drops something, she won’t touch it again unless someone picks it up for her, or until she comes home from the hospital.
Third trimester men worry about their wives constantly. They call home often and ask “how ya doing?” They know they call too much and they begin fabricating reasons to call home to finally say “how ya doing?” Did you pick up the paper? Did the dog poop yet? What did the neighbor wear to get the mail today? there is no question too absurd for the Third Trimester dad to conjure up to call home and ask “How ya doing?”
Third trimester men worry about money, a lot! They try and dissuade their wives from making another trip to Baby’s R Us. Third trimester dads grumble under their breath if their children aren’t born before December 31st to capitalize on another tax deduction. Third trimester dads know, just as Kevin Costner did in that ball field among the corn, that if you birth it, they will come.
Mother in laws, mothers, aunts, neighbors, even co-workers you don’t like, all have a natural predisposition to come visit. It’s as if the Christ Child were glowing in a manger in your home, and everyone feels a divine kick in the ass to come and ogle at your offspring.
You know what having the Christ Child in your home means?, it means wall to wall relatives, sucking up the available oxygen, and eating snack foods and diet soda like some sort of free for all down at the rescue mission.
And who pays for that? Your third trimester dad, that’s who!
The final days of labor, now that’s crazy!