Week 29: Cry Baby

By Published On: July 8th, 2013

When you’re pregnant, you know that in less than 40 […]

When you’re pregnant, you know that in less than 40 weeks, there will be a new sweet baby in your arms. A new sweet baby who cries. Frequently.
What may come as a surprise, though, is that long before that 40th week rolls around, you may find yourself already living with the biggest cry baby in the world: You.
The last time I was on the pregnancy train, when I was expecting Jacob, I had more than a few embarrassing episodes that involved me balling my eyes out without abandon.
I’ll never forget one night at dinner when I seriously lost it after realizing our lab puppy Jake would never get to experience the joy of laughing. But, even that wasn’t as bad as what happened a few weeks in later middle of a church service. Tom was the visiting guest speaker and as he was preaching he began recalling some anecdote about my dog Buddy, whom I had to give away a few weeks prior to our wedding. I began to wail–loud and proud and thoroughly pregnant.
I realized that I had officially entered the water works phase of this pregnancy a couple of weeks ago on Tom’s birthday. We had gone to the movies to celebrate and were about 10 minutes into Man of Steel when we got to the scene in which baby Superman’s mom and dad send him away from Krypton to earth.
Instantly, in my mind, the two adults playing Superman’s parents and the baby Superman disappeared, and there were me, Tom and Jacob onscreen. Any minute, I would have to press a button that would send Jacob into orbit. Tom stood nearby, urging me on, telling me that though I would never see our little guy again, it was his only chance of survival.
Fully immersed in the whole scenario, giant tears began streaming down my cheeks. And then the fun really started. I was such a mess of emotion that to keep from sobbing aloud I had to stop breathing for the entire scene. I could only take in tiny gasps of oxygen. My head began to pound, my lungs felt like they were about to burst. I knew that if I opened my mouth to let out the air that I would begin to splutter, heave, and make a complete ninny out of myself in front of a completely full movie theater. (To make matters worse, we were only four rows back from the screen.)
As I kept all of my emotion (and carbon dioxide) trapped inside my body, I began to shake. Violently. I noticed Tom leaning as far to the other side of his seat as he could to distance himself from my ridiculous reaction. I could feel the eyes of the entire theater burning into the back of my head, but, at that point, my eyes were burning so much from the non-waterproof mascara running into my eyes, that frankly my dear reader, I didn’t give a darn.
Fortunately, the scene eventually ended (some 43 years later, I’m positive), and so did my shaking. Jacob, er, I mean Superman landed safely on earth, and at least until the next sequel, lived happily ever after.
My movie theater episode wasn’t the last impromptu sob session I’ve had, but so far, it has been the most embarrassing. Really, I don’t mind too much. The way I figure it, the frequent pregnant lady cry fests are nature’s way of getting us—or, maybe more importantly, our mates—ready for all the baby tears to come. That’s something I can live with for the next eleven weeks, but you can bet I’ll be keeping a box of Kleenex nearby—and staying far away from a movie theater, at least for awhile.