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Last night I got the crap kicked out of me.  Josh hit me.  First with a pillow at about 2:30AM, and then with his arm at about 3:15AM.  He threw the pillow at me because it was in his back.  I can see where throwing the pillow I sleep with to support my pregnancy belly is much easier than shifting, or than saying to me “move your pillow”.  He was mostly asleep, which is something of an excuse.  At least the pillow was soft.  When it hit me it woke me up, but it didn’t do any physical damage.

The arm to my face is, of course, a totally different story.  Waking up at 3:15AM to the sensation that someone is trying to break your nose is never fun.  Realizing it’s your husband who’s swinging at you is even worse.  I never did get back to sleep.  I had all that time in front of infomercials and Law & Order re-runs to be pissy.  When Josh came downstairs at 6:30 he told me that he could explain why he hit me, and that it was actually quite funny.

 Josh went on to explain that he was dreaming about me.  In his dream I was initiating intimate time together, and climbed on top of him.  He reached out in his sleep to put his arms around me.  As I was not actually on top of him, but to the side of him, that’s when I got hit in the face.

When he finished this story I said “how long were you sitting there, awake in bed, before you came up with this explanation?”

He was asleep.  There is that to consider.  So, I let it go.  Still, when I think of my sweet mild-mannered husband punching me in the face it’s somewhere between annoying and funny.

I live in a third world country called Montgomery County, Maryland.  Although it has expensive real estate, exclusive shops, and close proximity to our nation’s capital, it does not have potable running water or consistent electric running to its homes.  Two weeks ago I thought I lived in one of the best places in the world.  Now, I’m just looking forward to drinking water without boiling it first.

Here’s something about pregnancy I didn’t expect.  Food has been flowing right through me.  I’m absorbing nothing.  Yet, I gain weight.  I’m huge.  My boobs, having always been sizable, now seem to have developed minds of their own.  People bump into them and get embarrassed.  They shouldn’t be - how can they help it!  The baby bump has crept up under my boobs so as to make my bras all tight around the back, giving me lovely back-fat bulges.  Nordstroms does NOT have a bra that fits me.  Okay, so all these things seem to be direct results of carrying around another person inside me…but I didn’t think it would be quite this dramatic.

Here are the things that I did not forsee as direct results of pregnancy.  My gums bleed.  Every night when I floss, and every morning when I brush, and when I bite into a crisp apple.  I can’t sleep through a night.  If I’m not getting up to pee, then I’m rolling around trying to figure out how to get comfortable.  My eyelids are swollen.  So are my ankles.  My hair, always thin, is falling out.  I’m starving.  I’ll crave pad thai, but then get sick to my stomach having eaten nothing stronger than a bagel.  Sometimes I just don’t want anyone to talk to me.  I’m freaked out by the idea of being someone’s mommy, but when Josh tells me he’s freaked out to be a dad I get mad at him.  When I think about turning my home office into a nursery I get annoyed, and jealous, of my own unborn child.  Then I panic when I see the gorgeous murals other people paint in their nurseries because I only have two choices 1) pay someone to paint a mural and 2) have no mural whatsoever.

I won’t even get into what daycare costs.  How I won’t have money to pay for daycare and…well…anything else.  And I’m not a poor person.  What do poor people do?  What, in fact, do middle class people do?

I’m in week 17.  Hopefully the hormones will calm down soon.

Another summer, another family wedding.  My brother is getting married in six weeks.  A few months ago I had dinner with my husband and my brother’s fiancee, Nicole.  We talked about marriage - what makes it hard and what makes it amazing.  Nicole’s parents divorced years ago, and mine have been together for 40 years this August.  Nicole has heard from my brother and me about the ups and downs that my parents had along the way.  There were fights and tensions, and some of those still exist.

So the question is “what’s the difference?”  What’s the stuff that differentiates a marriage that works from a marriage that doesn’t.  ALL marriages are difficult, at least at some point.  So, she asked, from an affianced woman to a newlywed, “what makes it work?”

I told her that the difference is the willingness to stand there and MAKE IT WORK.  No matter what.  That knowing you’re independent, and capable of taking care of yourself, you choose not to.  You choose to continue the marriage and to figure out how to live together.  Even be happy together.  It’s easy to walk away, and hard to stand there and work it out.  Leaving just takes the problems to the next relationship, and working it out fixes the issues for life.

I told Nicole this was the most important lesson my parents taught me.  She told me that when she asked my brother the same question, he had the exact same answer.  I don’t think that’s just because we grew up in the same house.  I think it’s because knowing when and how to work it out is truly the “secret” to staying together.