Helping pregnant wives
My wife is pregnant. Very pregnant. “I can’t tie my own shoes” kind of pregnant.
I came across a post on Be A Good Dad this morning about helping out a pregnant wife who is 39 weeks. While my wife is only a few weeks further away from her due date, I’m constantly trying to figure out things to help her as she slows down, from easing foot pain to just plain doing more around the house.
Two things in particular that BAGD lists seem to be particularly helpful.
Take care of low stuff. Pick up stuff off the floor before she gets around to it. Move the laundry so she doesn’t have to bend over. BeAGoodMom likes to remind us that she only can bend over a handful of times a day. Don’t make her waste those bend overs doing chores.
Take charge once in a while. Instead of saying, “I’ll help with dinner. What should I make?” just make a decision and run with it. Sure she might get sick of Mac & Cheese and frozen pizza but she’ll be happy to not have to make the ever stressful what’s-for-dinner decision every night.
While I often don’t have time to blink before my wife makes food, this is one I should pick up some slack on.
I’d love to hear from the rest of you what things have you done (or had done for you) that really ease the late stages of pregnancy.
My comment-contribution here is at a *very* late stage of pregnancy: In the delivery room!
After we’ve “checked in” to the hospital, I brought along my laptop only for music (I don’t think there was wifi access but my wife isn’t into surfing anyhow). As our baby was late, I had also slept on the floor just to stay with her while waiting for the inducement to kick in.
“Baby was stubborn” so even after inducing there was little activity but Wifey was already feeling the pain; where she finally opted for an epidural.
Thus, come delivery time, she couldn’t feel what she was doing: Am I pushing correctly, or even pushing at all?
Once it was all over, Wifey said it was very good that I was standing behind the Dr during delivery, giving her the thumbs-up feedback that the baby was coming out- that she was in fact pushing “correctly”. That feedback helped tremendously during the process.
Being there throughout was a good thing, even though there was little I could do to ease the whole ordeal for her.