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Oh well, if your partner feels like he needs to disappear and leave the house during your PMS days he better be prepared for this. I have 3x the hormones of a pregnant woman expecting one baby so you can imagine how much my poor husband has to deal with.
Some days I couldn’t be more in love with him, I send a thousand texts and can’t wait to see him after work.
Some others I get so angry at him for the silliest reasons... (I remembered one time when he mentioned he needed to go on a diet and I went ballistic! Insensitive pig :) here am I, trying to cope with all the changes in my body – which are massive by the way – and there he is, whinging about the tiniest belly talking to me about feeling fat?! Oh boy, I exploded completely.... poor guy...
And finally some other days I just can’t stop crying.. or laughing... feels insane... both at the same time even...
The rollercoaster you go through is unbelievable.. It was more than usual for me to feel all the above mentioned in the space of a couple of hours...
Sometimes I got so crazy I even mentioned things such as leaving the house, that I wasn’t good enough for this, that we shouldn’t be together... The important thing is to keep in mind this is hormones talking and the partner needs to learn never to take you seriously – but show support and respect to your feelings. You guys will need to work together and make sure things don’t blow out of proportion.
The good news is that eventually your body tends to get used to all the hormones and the massive mood swings start to happen less and less. Oh well, hopefully, I do know some women that were a bit insane the whole pregnancy... many in my family and with one single baby...
However, one thing I wasn’t aware of is that your partner might also go through some hormones as well. I wish I knew that before so I would have given him a bit more support instead of feeling that he didn’t even know how much I was suffering or how dare he ignoring MY needs first in such a delicate time for me! Poor thing...
Did you know that your partner can even experience pregnancy symptoms like vomiting, nausea, indigestion, headaches and even the same crazy mood swings? It seems that this is called couvades syndrome (from the French word couver, meaning 'to hatch'). (at the time I thought it was the typical man-flu, desperate for attention… but I was very wrong and now that I know, I try to support him whenever happens)
I researched a bit about it as my golden husband obviously had to have a bit of this bearing in mind our triplet condition - plus I should have expected that as he is also a sensitive full hearted man (adorable man by the way, if you don’t mind me pointing out here :)
Now back to the condition, it is basically a sympathetic pregnancy and some studies seems to point that 20% of expectant fathers will experience some degree of "couvade syndrome". Good news is that it goes away – just like ours… and hopefully we will all be more sane again once the babies come into this world. I can’t wait. :) (I am sure he can’t either although he is becoming an expert on how to deal with my hormones… He is just too much of a bloke to understand he might be going through a bit of the same as well).
Yeah, it seems this is a rollercoaster journey for both of us and gladly we are a supportive couple so things weren’t that hard despite all the silly things I felt and said.
My main recommendation (if you want one :) is just to be aware that hormones are powerful and be prepared to have a bit more patience than usual. Both of you… obviously mainly him as you are going through a bit more changes and more hormones at this stage but be aware he also might need your support and despite looking like a shout for attention, he might suffer some sympathy symptoms too :)
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