Life with a preggo - first trimester

Most guys seem to be terrified of living with a baby. Really, though, there's something else to be worried about first: You've got to live with a pregnant lady for nine months.

There's two things that guys without kids think they know about pregnant women: they get morning sickness, and they have weird cravings.

Here's what you actually need to know about pregnant women: they're completely unpredictable. Will they having morning sickness? Er, maybe. Will they have weird cravings? Dunno.

I wouldn't have known this if my buddy Chris and homegirl Noelle hadn't gone though this first. But even knowing it didn't really prepare me for Katrina's first trimester rollercoaster.

Take the morning sickness thing: I had no idea that morning sickness can well be evening sickness. Now, Katrina has always had a real iron stomach... through ten years of marriage, I don't think she ralfed even once the whole time, at least not without the help of señor tequila. So when she said she was getting queasy one night while we were walking, I thought she was messing with me. Being the ever-caring husband that I am, I broke out an old favorite elementary school song. You may know it:

Great big globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
mutilated monkey meat
little dirty birdy feet
two big eyeballs rollin' up and down the street
and I forgot my spoon...
but I've got my straaaaaw!

Yeah, right about then, she lost her cookies all over the neighbor's lawn. And then she delivered a well-deserved beating to the father of her unborn child. Ooooops. Guess that iron stomach is no more, eh? Even in the evening!

We didn't- and still haven't- seen much in the way of weird cravings. As far as I can tell, the only thing that's changed, food-wise, with my girl is that she went from being a long-term sweet-cream nazi (prior to the pregnancy, we pretty much could only go to ice cream places that had that wierd new sweet cream non-flavor that they serve at Marble Slab and Cold Stone) to her being practically addicted to the darkest ice cream she can find. But heck, I'll take it; that beats having to go out at 3am to try to find bok choy or something.

So anyway, the best advice I can give prospective dads about dealing with your girl that first trimester is to stay on your toes and expect damn near anything. Chances are good it's not going to be anything like you expect.