The Joys of Having a Pregnant Wife

I've never had a pregnant wife, but I've been a pregnant wife. To put it more exactly, I'm being a pregnant wife.

I thought I was doing pretty well before. Not a lot of morning sickness. Not a lot of sleepless nights. Not a lot of tears. Not a lot of complaining. Of course there were some complaints but I tried really hard to be tough. Unless I wanted Andrew to do something for me, but that's another story.

That is not the case anymore. Sure, I don't feel sick at all... Really, I've been lucky.

But I have been so stressed out. I really need to just stop. I'm sure it's not good for the baby, even though she's the cause of my stress. I know that all pregnant ladies worry about their babies and I always worried before, but not like this.

The last few weeks have been torture.

Recently I've taken to crying for no reason whatsoever. Before it would be because I couldn't get my sweater on because one arm was inside out. Or because Andrew made the wrong thing for dinner. Or because my cake turned ugly. Now I just start crying for no apparent reason.

I was folding laundry on Saturday and I just lost it. Andrew went through every possible reason he could think of and after determining that I wasn't mad at him and that there really was no good reason for my emotional outburst he just held me until it passed. Held me while reading his assignments, that is...

Yesterday at work I had to IM Andrew to arrange for him to take me home. It was 9:30 in the morning. I had only been at work for an hour, fought back tears once, and then lost it about half an hour later. At 11:00 he took me home and put me down for a nap. I slept until he got home from school (at 5:00).

For some reason I have no problem sleeping during the day any more. It's at night that I struggle.

I think it's because I can usually keep myself busy enough during the day to keep my mind off my baby. I don't feel her kick because I am moving around so much that it would be impossible to notice her tiny movements. And it doesn't bother me because I'm thinking about other things.

But late at night when I wake up, all I can think of is my baby...and I can't fall asleep again until I feel her move. She always does, but sometimes I'm up just about all night waking up, waiting for her to move, falling asleep...only to wake up and wait for her to move again. It's a vicious cycle.

Now that I'm not sleeping though, it's harder to concentrate during the day, which means that I have more emotional slips, which means that Andrew gets to play hero more often than he probably would like to.

On a happier note, I think that we've finally decided on a name for our baby girl.

Rachel Annelise.

We both really like the name Rachel, and it has an Arabic equivalent so we won't run into the same problems we would if her first name was Annelise. We decided that we'd tell Rachel that her name means "innocence and gentility of a rose" and "ewe," emphasis on the innocence and gentility of a rose part. Plus, she'll have a great biblical role model if no one else.

Annelise is kind of a family name. It's a little bit of a stretch. I really wanted a family name for the middle name, but we couldn't think of one that went well. Andrew insisted that it would be alright if it wasn't a family name because it would become a family name in future generations. Annelise still works for a family name though because Nancy is a nickname for 'Anne,' both meaning grace. So, we'll share the same little root in our name. Isn't that just sweet? Okay, so that really isn't like a family name at all but it will have to do.

Annelise is the German spelling of the name, so it's a little counterintuitive to English speakers, but it really is pronounced Anna + Lisa, which means 'graceful light,' which is also a nice meaning. It's better as a middle name though because I like the German spelling better but if we spelled her first name like that no one would ever say it correctly.

So there you have it: one set of parents slowly losing their sanity, and one baby girl gaining a name.