Tiffany Raiford
The late, great Dr. Suess once said, “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love,” and he could not be more accurate. I cannot even begin to count the number of ways in which my husband and I are weird together, but they’re good. We have some serious fun, some seriously weird habits and we absolutely understand one another like no one else. It’s what makes us a great team, and it’s what makes us happy.
It’s a good thing we have one another to be a little weird with, because the moment you choose someone to marry and have kids with, you are about to get a whole lot weirder. We always thought we were normal and that everyone does what we do, and then we decided that it was time to have our first baby. And then I got pregnant. And then we got even weirder. Turns out, we’re not as weird as you might think, since most pregnant couples do the same things we did (and we know this, because we have four kids). During each of my three pregnancies, we learned that we do some strange things, and we learned that it’s okay to be a little weird. Life is more fun when you have some weirdness and someone to join you in your endeavor of crazy. Here are just a few of the weird things we did when I was pregnant, and they’re pretty much the same that other people do.
We refer our pregnancy as “we”
Yes, we are pregnant. Yes, our pregnancy is going well. Yes, we are excited that we are pregnant. Yes, we are those people even though we swore we would never be those people. We are pregnant even though technically only I was ever pregnant. But it’s all right. He was so excited to have been the man who did that to me, and he was so excited about the approximate 20 seconds of work he did to knock me up that I’ll give it to him. I mean, he did knock me up twice at once that last time, so he can be pregnant if he wants.
We plan every car trip around the public bathrooms available
True story; I’ll never forget my mother’s reaction to this. When I (I mean we) was pregnant with our first and we were planning a day to Christmas shop with my mother and his mother, we made a comment about not taking the usual route because the bathrooms in the different locations on another route were better. My mom looked at us and we just nodded. Yeah, I had to use the bathroom a lot, and now I know where every clean-ish bathroom in the area is located and, yes, I planned my drives around those.
We frame photos of my uterus
They’re called ultrasound photos and we frame them, show them off and pretend that we are not showing photos of the interior of my uterus to complete strangers. The mutual agreement to say nothing makes it all right.
We actually discuss tripods
We only got to do this once since only one of our kids is a boy. When we went into the doctor’s office at 18 weeks during my third pregnancy to find out the gender of our baby, the tech rolled the wand around my stomach, stopped and said, “So, your doctor didn’t tell you that you’re measuring large?” “No,” “Then he really didn’t tell you that there are two babies in there?”
Um.
No.
But it’s okay because LOOK AT THAT THING! We knew before she said anything that the first baby was definitely a boy. That thing was huge, and we talked about it endlessly.
We take photos of moving bellies
Videos, really, but sometimes photos when the baby was in a weird position and I was all strange looking, but yes, we did take photos of my stomach. We’d lay on the couch, in bed, in the car, wherever, and aim the phones at my stomach just waiting for movement to snap a video or a new photo. Because for some reason we thought people might care.
We talk to the baby
It’s not weird, really, but it kind of depends on the nature of the conversation. For instance, when I once carried on an entire conversation with my stomach walking through the store as people gave me the, “better you than me,” speech when I mentioned it was twins, it got weird. “Babies, these people are jerks. Don’t listen to them. They aren’t kind and you are loved and we are blessed and we want you even if everyone else said they’d hang themselves or slit their wrists. Don’t you dare listen to them.” Maybe at home it would have been fine, but I did begin to notice people were staring.
We pet my stomach like it’s our new puppy
All the time. Every day. All the time. We pet it like it’s a national treasure and we are the lucky recipients of it. I spent a collective 27 months of my life being pet, and I was okay with that.
We just hang out in the nursery
It’s always been our favorite room in the house no matter which baby or babies we were expecting. Grown up adults and suddenly we wanted nothing more than to be in the room with stuffed animals and pink frills and tiny toys. Maybe it’s weird, but we like it.
We become superior and genius beings
Get pregnant, spend a few months that way, and suddenly you develop this look that you give one another. It’s the look that entails a few slightly raised eyebrows, a small smirk and a knowing expression. You will exchange this look regularly when people talk to you, when advice is given and when someone announces their own pregnancy. This look will convey things like, “Yes, we are baby experts now that we’ve created a human with our private parts only 8 weeks ago,” and “Oh, yes, you think that just because you have four kids you are an expert on all things baby but we know that this will not happen to us,” and then you laugh at the silliness of others in the privacy of your home or vehicle when alone.
And then you become those people that have four kids and think you know everything. Whatever. It’s fine.
We place bets on my lady parts
“Definitely the 20th.” “No, I vote we make it 36 weeks and a few days,” “No, you’re definitely going to make it past 37, maybe even 38 weeks, with the twins,” “I don’t think so, I’m sure my mucous plug is coming loose,” “Really? Huh, maybe you’re right,” he says.
I’m always right, babe.
But really, those kinds of conversations actually happen.
Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for IMG
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