As I write this post, I am sitting in the recliner with my feet up. My smallish dog is nestled beside me, my arms are stretched out farther than they have ever been before as my “belly dances” and I mentally calculate how long I have until it’s my daily “power nap time.”
Yep. You guessed it. I’m pregnant. The State of the Uterus is very much occupied.
I am at the point in this pregnancy that no longer classifies as a “little bit” pregnant. I am really pregnant. Like middle-rapidly-approaching-end-of- third-trimester pregnant.
It’s our second kiddo, so we are excited (and less terrified than the first time we did this…) Although my preggo brain is not nearly as sharp as it used to be, lately I have been thinking about how the whole experience of pregnancy is like being a military spouse… because really, who doesn’t love a good analogy?
So, here are my slightly blurry (though hopefully amusing) thoughts on how pregnancy is like being a military spouse.
1. Both pregnancy and military wife life impact your sleep habits.
It’s amazing how something so small in our bodies can impact something so important like sleep. If you have ever been pregnant (or know someone who has) then the whole beautiful experience throws sleep schedules right out the window. Just the other night, I rolled over (while making more sounds than a hippopotamus trying to learn to fly) and I woke up because I literally heard my hip(s) pop.
Not surprisingly, military spouse life also throws a bit of kink in our sleep habits. Maybe it’s our spouse coming home at 0100 because someone in his company made what I call a “bad life decision.” Or it is the phone ringing at 0215 on New Years Eve to inform our spouse of the same reason above. It could be that our spouse is working nights for a while, in the field, has a 12 mile ruck to do the next day which requires a 0330 first call… And of course, let’s not forget during deployments or TDYs, when we will wake up at all hours of the night just to Facetime or Skype with the spouse we miss so much.
Want to read the other 5-funny-but-true ways that pregnancy is like being a milspouse? Jump on over to Army Wife Network to read on.
Readers, do you relate to this post? Which point is your favorite? What would you add? Jump in and leave a comment below.
PS: Be sure to join us next month when I share how parenting a newborn is like being a military spouse… Buckle up, because it might get messy. (But oh-so-fun!)
