Oh, Just Guess What He Said
Being ill last week and answering your email and comments has left me with the cream of the crop of commentary. Thank you all!
Today is the first day that I feel like I am back and got my stuff together. Today is also the day I climb back on the wagon with my dieting. You must know through all of this I have only been able to eat and keep down white foods, milk, bread, yogurt, potatoes, rice. It has been nice while it lasted but I know I have gained back a pound or two. :-( Today I have to start taking it off again. Back to salads and lean meats. You have no idea how unappealing salad has been the last week.
So anyway -
One of the subjects of the comments and emails has been a comment Steve made just this past week.
When discussing how no one is ever as sick or as tired as he is when he is sick I made a comment about my body physically supporting the process of making our baby and the trials I suffered while carrying him for nine months. The whole flesh of my flesh conversation.
Now if you are a female and have experienced pregnancy and childbirth you have a perfect understanding of -
morning sickness, phantom aches and pains, headaches, killer heartburn, pressure on your bladder, kicks and punches to your ribs and organs, unbelivable pressure on the floor of your pelvis, the urgency to urinate frequently, a sneeze or cough that causes the bladder to leak, heemoroids, constipation, swollen feet, face and hands, weight gain/loss, hair falling out, dark spots on your skin (the mask of childbirth), not to mention the poking and proding by doctors, nurses, lab techs, the whole lack of descency and the degrading need to have half a dozen people looking and proding your nether regions, the actual force of labor, the pain, oh, the pain, the needles, the broken blood vessels, the passing of a seven to eight body through an opening at best 10 cm, the swollen tenderness of your body afterward, the abdmminal cramps, the 4 to 6 weeks of birthing aftermath, sore, blistered nipples from the first week of breastfeeding, -Do I need to go on with the basics? I think you all know what I am talking about and can add a dozen or more complaints to the list of the physical suffering to bring a bundle of blessed joy into this world. We women know child birth. We have looked it in the face and for the most part come out the victors. Our beautiful, wonderful babies are our trophies. All this leading to this - He said to me - "I was there and went through all of it with you. I suffered the same as you did every day." "Oh, you did? You were so sick every day you couldn't hold your head up? You went through the aches and pains and the hives and the constant pressure on your bladder -?" "I was right there, I did it all." WTF???!!?? "You did it all? You physically carried this baby and supported his life with your own? You have also spent the last year of his life supporting his body with your own by breastfeeding him every two hours for months and months?" "I have done it all, except the breastfeeding." A side note here that while Steven was sick and the only time he kept anything on his stomach was when he breastfed, Steve questioned my ability to care for the baby, to sustain his diet, he attacked my ability on so many levels by insinuating that breastfeeding was not enough to sustain the baby. WTF have I been doing his entire life? Secretly feeding him protein shakes in a bottle and not actually breastfeeding him? My boobs have supported that baby from the day he was born! "And you laughed at me while I suffered!" "No, I did not, " a shit eating grin on his face, head down trying to hide it. "You laughed at me when Steven kicked me so hard my bladder leaked and I wet my clothes. You laughed at me on many occassions!" "I never laughed at you," while he tried his best to hide and stiffle his laughter, making a quick exit to bring in firewood and end the conversation. All the while he was grinning and chuckling. Why is it a man thinks he knows every thing about birthing babies and he has NEVER had one labor pain yet he refuses to give a woman her due when it comes to earning her stripes of motherhood. Standing in a labor room watching your child come forth is NOT the same experience as the sheer physical will to get him there. Watching a baby being born is not standing at the cusp of life and death. Watching a baby being born is no way compensates for the physical act of labor. Steve's constant insistance that he knows all and has experienced all when it comes to the nine months and the birthing of a baby makes me take back a tiny bit of respect I have for him. He knows nothing, you can't even begin to explain it to him, yet he insists he knows it all and has experienced it all. He also doesn't realize (or refuses, not sure which) that he makes himself look like the biggest ass mankind has ever created when he makes those comments. He also makes me very angry at him deep down on some primal level. The one thing we women have that men don't have is the ability to bring life into this world. Men are physically incapable of bearing a child the way we women have been blessed to do so. Why must men always try to take the very last shred of what makes us a woman away from us? I am not male bashing here. Nor am I trying to make Steve look like an ass. He already did that by his comments. I am just blowing off steam. It bites my ass that he and many other men think they know so much when they don't know sh!t about certain things other than the mechanics of it all. Please tell me if your husband/significangt other has said equally as assinine remarks concerning childbirth.
Wow. Just... wow.
My husband saw me puke from the pain of passing a (pregnancy-caused) kidney stone with no pain relief (because I was pregnant) and agonize every time I pooed postpartum for 5 months because of those awful 'rhoids. He knew better I think. Or at least he feared for his future sex life if he ever said anything.
Steve should apologize and admit that he wasn't thinking when he said that.
Wow. Just... wow.
My husband saw me puke from the pain of passing a (pregnancy-caused) kidney stone with no pain relief (because I was pregnant) and agonize every time I pooed postpartum for 5 months because of those awful 'rhoids. He knew better I think. Or at least he feared for his future sex life if he ever said anything.
Steve should apologize and admit that he wasn't thinking when he said that.
Angie, there is a famous line in the Boble...."Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He should, however, apologize. He might have been there supporting you mentally, but he cannot know!
Steve is like most men - none of whom can fathom what it takes to carry and birth and care for a baby.
Angie, Steve is not the only one! My DH has made comments like this, too. He did it more after our first child was born, but I had so many problems with our second (problems requiring hospitalization) that he FINALLY got it, I think.
Tell Steve that when he has carried a watermelon around on top of his bladder for nine months and then has to pass it out through his d*ck, he can talk! And even then he will have experienced only a FRACTION of what we go through!
This made me think of a Family Guy episode. Peter talks about how hard it was on him when Lois was pregnant, and it shows him laying in bed watching tv. You can hear her vomitting in the background. And he has to turn up the TV.
That is a guy's "hard time," isn't it?!?!?
I've got the two-by-four ready to smack him with. When do you want me to arrive? *grin*
I think my husband knew better than to say anything even REMOTELY like that. He's always been afraid that I'll pull a Lorena Bobbitt on him, I think, LOL! Hey, gotta keep 'em in line somehow, right?
Steve might just be trying to get your goat, Angie. (And doing a fine job of it, at that!) But why he'd think that THIS was a subject that could be joked about, I don't know. Not a smart guy, that one, LOL!
My husband wasn't my husband when I was pregnant but he made a similar remark about finances recently and he almost lost a lung.
I won't get into it, it wasn't pretty. But I know EXACTLY where you are coming from.
Oh, mine complains how hard it was on him when I was preg - that he had to clean out the cat box all by himself. Oh please, I would have GLADLY traded places!
Oh, mine complains how hard it was on him when I was preg - that he had to clean out the cat box all by himself. Oh please, I would have GLADLY traded places!
Oh, mine complains how hard it was on him when I was preg - that he had to clean out the cat box all by himself. Oh please, I would have GLADLY traded places!
Oh, mine complains how hard it was on him when I was preg - that he had to clean out the cat box all by himself. Oh please, I would have GLADLY traded places!
Oh, mine complains how hard it was on him when I was preg - that he had to clean out the cat box all by himself. Oh please, I would have GLADLY traded places!
Gah, Angie! Any man who claims he "suffered" through pregnancy and childbirth deserves to have menstrual cramps and later menopausal symptoms for the rest of his life. My ex-husband for once showed some restraint in never making any comparisons, considering the difficult of my son's birth.
Did you just leave me a comment about my e-mail address? Sorry, I add "REMOVE" in my address when commenting in an attempt to foil spammers. If you take that word out, the address should work just fine. You could also try my Gmail address--it's listed in the left margin on my journal. Hope it works for you--I'd love to hear from you!
Uh, that should have been "difficulty" above. I was remembering labor pains and couldn't type! ;-)
Next time he has some stomach flu leave him to suffer and tell him how you know how he feels. Then grin, lol. Tell him to repeat all his comments to women with children. Well, maybe not since you would have to see them skin him. Mine has never made those comments, but that doesn't mean he hasn't thought them.
HA! Well, now that you and your readers have 'splained things to Steve, does he see the error of his ways? Or is he just messing with you on purpose? Josh has told me that he "could have done that" ("that" being birthing a 9 lb 4 oz baby without benefit of DRUGS) but I just roll my eyes at him.
When I was in labor with Nooze, Chachi stood next to me, PALE.
Two days after she was born, he scheduled a vasectomy.
When I asked why, all he would whisper was "I NEVER want to see you hurt like that again".
He's not a perfect man, but sometimes, he hits it pretty close.
oh man he should just dig himself back out of that hole he dug into! WOW OH WOW!
I am so sorry he was so hurtful to you. Really, they just have no idea. I sometimes think they try so hard to 'experience the experience' with us that they've convinced themselves that they can.
You are an amazing mother/wife/homemaker.
~K!
I think my husband knows that he has know idea what it's like, but I don't think he knows just how much he doesn't know what it's like. Even as a mother a woman, a person who has experienced this, I can not begin to find the words to express the true aspect of it all. The feelings the emotions, the thoughts it's all to much.
I was disappointed after having our first baby how my husband reacted, how he suddenly became so selfish, and thoughtless. After our second pregnancy ended he was okay, but still clueless as to what it was like. After our third time and the birth of our second he was much better, and wiser as to keep his thoughts to himself, as well as admit that I was pretty much the provider. He learned to ask questions..
I think that it's impossible for anyone to know what that whole process is like until they go through it, and even then it's near impossible to explain what it's like.
Mine would not say this..but it has brought up a good topic a time or two.
Maybe I'll blog about that.
I'm so sorry this bothers you as much as it does. It really shouldn't because you KNOW what you went through.
Mine would not say this..but it has brought up a good topic a time or two.
Maybe I'll blog about that.
I'm so sorry this bothers you as much as it does. It really shouldn't because you KNOW what you went through.
When I was in my first trimester with Rachel, my husband always wanted to go out and do things at night together, including shopping. I was tired in my bones.
One night we were in the car on the way to Costco and I mentioend how tired I was. I replied, "You don't think I'm tired."
By the time I was pregnant with Hannah, he knew never to SAY such things, but I still don't think he gets it.
By the way, I still think the only people who understood what an awesome job I did during childbirth were my nurse and doctors. Nobody else got it. ; )
My husband got wicked sympathy heartburn with our first daughter. Luckily, he never made his belly ache seem worse than mine. He would have had a lot more than a belly ache to deal with ;-)
Now I know why all my real-life (as opposed to internet) girlfriends think I (pick one) married a prince among men, am not worthy of my husband, am the luckiest woman in the world, etc., etc.
Not only was he great during pregnancy, labor, and post-partum (which was rough on him because I was NOT fun to be around after my first child was born) he also never fusses about money, doesn't watch sports on T.V., rarely criticizes my driving, and after 18 years of marriage, still laughs at my jokes.
There's also the jewelry he gives me.
So anyway, back to your insensitive fellow, Angie. I like LisaL's response best. Bide your time until he's sick, and then tell him you know exactly what he's going through. The vomiting? Just like morning sickness. The body pains? Eerily similar to the first stage of labor!