Half the Man I Used To Be

Here's a new vocabulary word: couvade. "90 percent of expectant American fathers experience couvade syndrome (from the French word meaning 'to hatch'), or 'sympathetic pregnancy.'"¹ Symptoms usually appear after the first trimester (which is about that time for me now...), and include common pregnancy ailments, such as food cravings, mood swings, and nausea. (If pregnancy is not involved, I call these symptoms "hangovers.")

Just last week, I was in the mood for dessert after dinner (who isn't?), was very happy when I got it (who wouldn't be?), and ended the night with nausea and a bad stomach ache a couple of hours later from dessert. Couvade or just a bad Napoleon?

Whether I end up experiencing couvade or not, if you can imagine a hangover without drinking, and nausea without over eating, then that is what I imagine being pregnant to be. (And that's only during the first half of the pregnancy.) That's certainly enough for my sympathy.

¹ Taken from The Expectant Father, by A. A. Brott and J. Ash