Have one of these statements ever come out of your mouth?
“Could you clean the toilet? I’m not supposed to inhale the fumes from those harsh cleaners because I’m pregnant.”
“You’re gonna have to spray the lawn. I can’t because I’m pregnant. Weed killer is dangerous for unborn babies.”
“I can’t shovel the driveway. I might slip and fall. Falling is dangerous when you’re pregnant.”
“Could you pick up the sock I dropped on the floor? I can’t reach it. I’m pregnant.”
It became the joke in our family that I couldn’t do anything because I was pregnant. Pretty soon my husband started wondering if all those excuses I was throwing out were true. Sometimes I really did make things up to be funny, but most of the time I was completely serious. Pregnant women shouldn’t be using harsh chemicals, pesticides, or shoveling an icy driveway. Bending over to reach something on the floor isn’t going to cause a pregnant woman harm, but if you’ve ever tried to pick a sock off the floor in your ninth month, you know how hard it is. I would usually wait until there was more than one reason to get on the floor, and then I would sit there for a few minutes before getting up. Yeah, it’s that hard.
Usually, I didn’t have to say anything if I needed help. If I even tried to do something that “pregnant women aren’t supposed to do,” someone would be there to stop me, even if it was a complete stranger. People were always offering to carry stuff for me. I can’t tell you how many times I was in the grocery store, trying to reach something off the top shelf, when another customer would sweep in and grab the item for me. Sometimes they would express surprise that I was even trying. One person even unloaded my cart for me at the checkout. Did I really look that helpless? I think it was the waddle that gave it away.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done to help you while you were pregnant?