Your pregnant, (congratulations) not feeling great, a tad on the swollen side, somewhat emotional, perhaps a little bit nauseated. Someone calls you and wants to come over, or your sister asks you if you can help them find an outfit for an upcoming wedding. You don’t want company and the last thing you want to do is waddle around the mall helping your svelte sister pick out a hot dress. So you pull the pregnancy card. You aren’t feeling up to it, you are too tired, you need to lie down, your feet are swollen. Same thing with sex. Your partner wants it, and you just are not in the mood because you are pregnant. Or food you can finally pig out on ice cream because well, you are pregnant so why not?
The reality is that the pregnancy card does exist. Despite the fact that pregnancy is NOT a medical illness or condition, there are certainly some precautions that you should take. Everyone in the world will coddle you while you are pregnant (only to forget about you once you push the baby through your vagina) and pretty much allow you to get away with murder. You can lash out a boss, butt in front of people in line, get others to do things for you that you would normally do for yourself. People even tell you to get rest and relaxation while you can, because those does will end the moment your baby is born.
The question is, is there a problem with this? Is it wrong to capitalize on the fact that you are so cool and amazing that you are in the process of making babies! It’s not as if you have a cough or a cold, or something that will go away with medicine. You are creating life and you have earned the ability to make a few excuses and get out of a few things in life that quite frankly, you’d rather not do. Right!?! Right.
The twisted reality is that people are TREATING YOU differently, and the extra attention and feeling that everyone around you thinks you are piece of fine china that needs to be handled with extra special TLC is not such a bad thing. Why not play into it a little bit. Until of course, you hear about the pregnant women running marathons, or carting around 4 other kids while volunteering their time to coordinate habitat for humanity projects. Then people may question why it’s so hard for you to get off the couch and make yourself a sandwich. (Which is precisely why you should do your best to avoid any contact or exposure to the extra super duper pregnant women who do it all).
The longer pregnancy progresses, the more the pregnancy card comes in handy. You will find that you can do things in which other people would normally be screaming ‘off with her head,’ only to receive gentle pats on the back out of fear that they will unleash the beast of hormones raging inside you.
While very few people are a fan of crying as a form of manipulation, many pregnant women cry a lot. Need the grass cut, want a new pair of shoes, feeling like going to bed at 8pm despite the fact that your other children need to be bathed. No problem. You are in the process of creating life dammit, and you should be able to do whatever the Sam’s hell you want to do.
Realize of course, that this is just a short-term thing. It’s not as if you are disabled, or are being left with a long-term disability. Baby comes out and people will cut you off. They might even throw the things they did for you while you were expecting up in your face, and unless you are willing to hand over the reins of cuteness to every one who wants to baby-sit your newborn, people wont be so attentive and considerate. Some may even resent the fact that you were a raving lunatic, or psychotic ‘female dog’ during your pregnancy. In fact, if you pull the pregnancy card too much you might never find another human being willing to procreate with you again. For men, seeing their partners pregnant can be a frightening experience and one that has them sleeping in a guarded position just in case too much estrogen surges through your veins in the wee hours of the night.
The pregnancy card. Obviously, pregnancy is a special time in your life. And yes, you can easily and quickly manipulate people around you and get away with nearly anything because people won’t want to upset you. When it’s all said and done, it’s easy to blame any of your ill behaviors or diva moments as a side effect of pregnancy. The advice here, is to enjoy it while you can if you must use the pregnancy card to get you out of trekking down to the mail room every single day, then so be it. But be prepared for the fact that regardless of the fact that you may be sitting on a donut for weeks, or leaking milk out of the 5 extra nipples that showed up after childbirth when your pregnancy is over, its over. You will then have to hand over all the coddling and babying and special attention to the bundle of joy who gave you carte Blanc to behave like an emotional mess for a seemingly short nine months of your life. (And let’s keep all of this a little secret between just us gals, okay?) Just because your doctors says it okay to continue running during your pregnancy, shouldn’t mean you HAVE to do it.
