It's funny - after nine months, it's actually starting to feel that having a pregnant wife is normal.
Things catch up with you at odd moments. I've stopped fussing round in a nervous panic if she tries to pick up things from the floor or change light bulbs. She's stopped trying to do both those things with quite as much adamantine independence as she usually would, she calls for me now. I don't find it funny to help her on with her shoes. Actually, it feels like good practice for whoever is coming out of her in the weeks to come.
Several people have said to me that the last month can be quite tough. The midwife drew a helpful graph that approximated the couple's feelings over the nine months. The female version was a sine wave. Low for the first trimester when everythings all nauseous, high for the second when your body catches up a bit, low and tense for the last one when the bump overtakes your body again and everything gets terribly imminent.
Men, according to this graph, are all happy for the first trimester. It's not happening to them, after all, and you can be all macho and supportive and pat her back while she vomits and enjoy telling everyone. Assuming you've not instantly done a terrified runner, of course. The big mood swing comes later, when some kind of reality kicks in and the swelling evidence is more clearly apparent.
Not sure I totally bought it - I've not had a big mood swing - but graph and friendly anecdotes both say the last month is tough for everyone. It's a hard feeling to pick a word for, the feeling of something this imminent. Exciting and also terrifying and also completely unpredictable. A big old Foetus of Damocles, complete with tiny fingernails engraved on the hilt, hanging over both of us now. If feotus is even the right word anymore, it's maybe grown out of that already.
Fraught. That's a word. It'll do.
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