Hormoaning

WEEK 16
Since the beginning of the pregnancy, I've witnessed my hormones hard at work. There's the the schoolgirl acne, the increased blood volume that pools through my entire body, expanding areas (as in all of them), not to mention the "achy" relaxing of all my muscles. The one thing I hadn't experienced were the emotional effects of all these busy hormones. That is, until today.

It started early when Steven suggested we take Madge, our '91 Westy, out for a spin while we ran about our errands. On our drive to pick up fireplace tile, something kicked in. Not with the car, which was surprising, but with me. As Steven attempted to merge onto the 95 onramp, I recalled our potentially-fatal Honeymoon accident, and a sudden sense of fear fell upon me. As Steven accelerated, every nerve in my body demanded he slow down. I worked up the courage to vocalize my worry of never making it to my delivery date, and Steven snapped: "I'm only going 55!" This lead to a 15 minute shouting match, with a final result of Steven slowing to a cool 54.

Later that evening, while showering, I felt it important to recap what had happened. No matter how carefree I was without child, it all has changed. Every cell in my body is doing its best to protect the new life that bobs and swims inside me. I'm taking the stairs a little slower, using the handrail upon decent. I felt Steven was being completely insensitive to my request that he drive a little slower. After all, there was no hurry, no threat of turning into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight. But still he insisted on disregarding my feelings. Then I started crying. In the shower (for twice as long as the actual shouting match itself) while I wondered how I wound up with such a monster for a husband!

Since Raegan herself admits she was in the throes of a hormonal psychosis at the time, I will do our readers the favor of depicting verbatim how it all went down:

Steven, slow down!
I'm only going fifty-five.
I don't care! That's too fast! Don't you remember what happened on our honeymoon?
That was our other car.
I don't care!
In the middle of a blizzard.
What kind of a father are you going to be?
On a mountain.
You don't care about this baby!
How can you say...
What kind of man did I marry?
We just got new tires...
I DON'T CARE!!!
And brakes...
Why won't you slow down for me?
I'm slowing down! Can't you see I'm slowing down? See, everybody's passing us. Are you happy now?
It's not slow enough!
They have a minimum speed limit too, you know.

And now the facts:
1. The conditions which resulted in our accident could not have been more different than our current ones. On our Honeymoon, we were driving our first Westy down the Big Horn Mountains, one of the steepest grades in the country, in the middle of a blizzard, with no snow tires (and crappy old tires to boot). The wind was insane. I was snow-blind. We were almost out of gas. And even after the car spun around, travelling briefly backwards down the mountain road until it hit the dirt and rolled, landing finally upside-down, thanks to our seatbelts, we emerged unhurt. Totally freaked-out, but uninjured.

2. On the day in question, we were driving our new(er) Westy, just back from the shop, with brand new tires, clutch, and brakes on a dry, flat highway in the middle of the day. There was absolutely zero risk involved. Except, apparently, to our marriage.

Before you go making any judgments, let it be known that my husband has been involved in far more accidents than the average human (four in his Miata alone!) and the number of cars he has completely totalled in his lifetime now stands at three: a Toyota Tercel, a Geo Metro, and a VW Westfalia. So I can never be too sure what he's thinking about while he's driving, but clearly it isn't the road.

Touché, sailor.