I would like you all to meet Daisy. She is our new puppy. We’ll get back to the puppy in a bit.
I haven’t seen any studies proving it, but pregnant women love to blame stuff on what they refer to as “pregnancy brain.”
I will also grant that I don’t have any other explanation. Anecdotally, pregnancy brain is real.
There are some wonderful aspects to a relationship during a pregnancy if you can keep your sense of humor. As the pregnancy starts nearing the end, some of those things may take a turn for weird.
Nesting is a big one of those. No matter how many projects you might have going on, all of them will be expected to take a back seat to the number one priority, which is anything involving the baby. You have to have multiples of everything, even if you have a pretty good understanding that none of them will be utilized.
Oh, you want an example? Changing table. In the middle of the night, if you are changing dirty diaper, a changing table is a wonderful thing to have. I mean, have you ever tried to bend over at 2:43 in the morning and change a diaper?
The problem is that most babies won’t start in the nursery. They’ll probably start in a bassinet in your room. You might even be forced into a co-sleeping situation. So that changing table is across the house. So will it be useful at night?
Nope. Not until the baby has grown accustomed to sleeping in the nursery next to the changing table.
Do you know when else it is worthless? Most of the rest of the day. My wife will tell you that I’m wrong. In fact, after reading this, she will deliberately use it and tell me how worthwhile it is, but deep down, she will know that it would have been easier to change the diaper at the foot of the couch or chair she was sitting in. Even after a few weeks, I know we’ll be sitting around on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon after church and a blanket will get thrown on the floor, our new daughter will get laid gently upon it, and a diaper change will happen right there, less than 15 steps from the changing table.
The point is, a lot of things become priorities which are really not very pressing, but you can’t tell that to a woman who is nesting.
Now imagine you have another lovely family that is younger than you. During this phase of pregnancy, the motherly instinct kicks in, even if it isn’t strictly maternal.
This is another fun time for the husband and father, because she really does become very kind and concerned towards others.
There arises a small problem, however, if that person is someone in need. The nesting mother will have a desire to offer help for all sorts of things. Things she can provide and things that are beyond her.
So that brings me to a puppy.
I am a lover of animals. I always have been as long as I can remember. Dogs are the most fun for me, because they really do seem to love unconditionally. When we lost our boxer about 4 years ago, the surviving four-legged fur friend needed a buddy. I suggested it but knew that while I was in school to be a Physician Assistant was a bad time. Still, I wanted to get a new dog while the aging dog was still young and playful enough to enjoy a friend.
We had even talked about it. It was going to happen eventually. Once the pregnancy started, we wisely decided it wasn’t time and we would wait for the pregnancy to end and for life to semi-stabilize.
Then out of nowhere, a young family who had a puppy, was trying to find a good home for it. The puppy didn’t know her place and the old dog they had left a small laceration under her eye when she approached his food or got too friendly. She wasn’t hurt, but they didn’t think they could keep her.
Insert nesting mother instinct.
My wife, believing she was doing this for me and the boys, offered to potentially take the dog in. When she told me this, I spoke out of the side of my mouth staring sideways at her like I find myself doing often out of skepticism. The puppy wasn’t my problem. My problem was my pregnant wife thinking this would be okay and understanding what having a puppy meant. I repeatedly told her it was up to her and cautioned her and the boys about keeping things off the floor and having to adjust.
They didn’t listen. They all thought it would be a great idea.
So introduce puppy. We were told she was potty-trained, which I believe she was, but as dogs sometimes do, she regressed in the new environment. We almost have the smell of dog urine off our landing now, weeks after her arrival. She has chewed up at least a handful of the boys play toys and they cry every time she scrapes them with a tooth or a nail while they are wildly swinging her toys over their head causing her to jump at them.
I have consistently and constantly warned them to stop that and cautioned them why, pointing out every time I see it happen that it is because they are provoking her to play.
She has wreaked havoc in the middle of our late term pregnancy. My wife has been at her wits end multiple times.
To make matters worse, she hadn’t been in our home an entire 24 hours before she learned how to operate the door levers to allow herself access to any push door that isn’t locked. She’s smart.
She is still a puppy, though.
After all that is said and done, and after I expressed the most caution about the puppy, I’ll bet you can’t guess who she likes the most…me. To be honest, I like her as well. She reminds me a lot of the boxer we lost. She wants to be my companion all the time. She gets super excited when I get home, follows me everywhere in the yard, stand on top of my feet in the middle of projects causing me to trip repeatedly, but enjoys just being close. When she realizes I’m not leaving the chicken coop I’m working on, she’ll find some shade and just lay down and watch, dozing out until she hears my footsteps start to wander away and then come sprinting after me as if she was about to miss a trip to the moon.
The boys love her too. She is their first puppy. They’ve never had a dog that they had been around as a puppy that was so energetic and playful. She plays tug-o-war, chases balls, and loves to lean on them and beg them for food and treats. They enjoy most of it. The occasional puppy nip still has to be thwarted, but overall, they have exactly what I wanted them to have. An aggressively playful companion to keep them from being fearful of other playful dogs.
Truth be told, I think she is growing on my wife as well. She still says she did it for us boys, but I’m pretty sure she did it out of a maternal instinct to help someone else and just wants to blame me for the torture a puppy put us through, and occasionally still does.
That’s why I made her choose.
Checkmate.
We are both down a pair of slippers, my hiking boots are missing a bootlace loop, my wife lost a pair of old dress shoes, and I think I’m going to buy stock in tennis balls. Still a fantastic addition to the family at the exact wrong time to add her.
Anyway, other women have complained of pregnancy brain as well. I’ll forgive my wife that far. It is either real, or they have all colluded in the biggest lie known to man. I have suggested making lists and having plans for what needs to be done to help, but husband suggestions are often ignored and usually put into a repository to be brought up later in a dispute. What they are rarely used for is practical advice. Maybe some other expectant mothers would be more receptive if it came from an alternative resource. No matter what, if you are a man buying this for your wife, sister, female relative or any close friend expecting a baby, provide it as a gift anonymously. It is your only hope.
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