How can I get my partner to understand how hard pregnancy is this time round.

[Anon2304]

I, 32f am currently 9 weeks pregnant. DP (34m) and I have one son (5). My first pregnancy was very easy which I am grateful for. I had minimal morning sickness and only took two pregnancy related absences from work in my third trimester. I worked in the city and commuted 5 days a week. obviously it wasn’t all plain sailing, but overall, compared to some peoples experiences, I think it was a okay.

Fast forward 5 years to this pregnancy, it has been so difficult! I WFH now but the fatigue is draining - no matter how much sleep I get I’m exhausted. The ‘morning’ sickness is 24/7. I’m picking at food all day and most if it is coming back up. I have a headache all day because I’m off coffee completely. This, of course, is all adding to the fatigue. I just feel weak all the time.

This week I have a cold. Im struggling to care for DS and have told DP he needs to help more with the school run, swimming and football until this passes. He has helped with school run - I get DS ready and he takes him in the morning but refuses to help with swimming and football. He says I should be able to manage it.

Ive barely been able to make myself a meal. We’ve been having freezer food for the last 3 weeks. DP has been making his own food but too spicy for DS despite my requests to make meals we can all eat if he is going to cook.

Yesterday I asked DP to sort out our son’s pack lunch and mentioned he would need to run to the shop to get some supplies and he blew up at me!

He says Im ungrateful and should stop demanding stuff just because I’m pregnant. He said being pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t be a mother. But when he has a cold he is dead to the world. Heaven forbid we’re poorly at the same time, he still isolates himself in bed for a week and I do everything. Alone.

DP works 4 days a week and has 3 days off (condensed hours).

I want to know if I’m being unreasonable by asking him to pick up the slack while I’m unwell and until this really bad nausea passes.

How can I make him understand how much more difficult this pregnancy is and that I’m not milking it?

He understands just fine OP.

That's not the problem.

The problem is how he behaves.

Does your son not get free school meals?

Why are you doing all the Patric you work too?

My second pregnancy is also proving much harder than the first which I hadn't expected and it is very tough.
YANBU asking him to help out more. It seems like he considers all these things (son's activities, lunches, food shopping) your responsibility which is a shame as they really are joint parents responsibility. I'd point out it's your DS who suffers if they don't get done and as you are currently physically unable to, he needs to step up.
Have you got anti sickness meds from GP? You should anyway for the constant nausea but maybe it will also help him realise that nausea is a genuine horrible symptom worth treating.
I'm sure others will be along with more useful advice but just wanted to add my sympathy!

He doesn't want to help you.

You are not being unreasonable and as the others point out, he understands. He just doesn't care enough to put himself out. If he can look at you clearly ill and struggling and still not step up there is nothing you can say to change things.

You can't. He doesn't care about you. He's a sexist misogynist fuckwit and he sees you as a domestic appliance. You don't comfort and support an overstretched domestic appliance, you kick it and swear at it. That's you, in his mind.

Oh and regarding him making only himself food - I would absolutely lose my shit at this. How dare he make food to eat but leave his son and pregnant partner unfed? Imagine how that sounds to an outsider/his mum!
He should be going out of his way to cook nutritious food for you at this point. Sorry OP.
Was the baby wanted/planned by both of you? It almost sounds like he is punishing you for being pregnant.

Sounds like although you both work full time you have to do the majority of the running around and parenting? I don’t think you can make a selfish person unselfish.

YANBU.

Gently, OP, your DP probably does understand. He just doesn’t care. I’m so sorry.

This OP makes me so sad. You poor thing.

Agree with all the others. Definitely go to the GP to get sickness meds, it is sadly likely you will get fobbed off at first so can be a long process so best to start early. Try first line for three days, if no significant improvement or bad side effects insist on ondanestron.

Help from the charity Pregnancy Sickness Support is invaluable.

I'd also get signed off work for a bit. And take to your bed at home to force DH to step up when he's there. He gets a whole day to himself each week so you can run yourself ragged around his long hours the other days?! Not ok.

You sound like you have hyperemesis, not morning sickness. How much water/fluid are you keeping down? When did you last eat a meal.

If you're not drinking enough liquid and have lost more than 1-2kg, you need to go to A&I and get IV hydration.

I've had hyperemesis three times and it's an awful, debilitating complication of pregnancy. You need to take it seriously or you will end up very, very unwell.

He does but once in a while - maybe twice a month - he won’t like what’s on the menu and won’t eat it. I make him pack lunch on these days

Please re-read your partners behaviours you have described and ask yourself 'is this how I would treat someone I love and care for?'

I've recently come through my first trimester where I was basically couch bound for the majority of the last 2 months. My husband, who commutes over an hour to work each day, took great care of me, cooking me dinners and making sure I had the foods and drinks I could stomach, he cleaned the house, did all the laundry. He comforted me and was my shoulder to cry on. Basically he showed me we are a team and he is my life partner.
I didn't have to ask for any of this, he was still working 5 days a week with a long commute and early starts. He never complained once, just made me feel loved and supported.
You deserve the same.

Can you stay somewhere else for a while? Like with your mum. Leaving DH to do all the housework and caring for your son?

I had horrendous morning sickness and it's so much worse when you have a child to care for already. Have you gone to the GP for anti sickness meds? My DH was cooking everything (smell made me gag) and running around doing everything. He needs to understand being pregnant isn't an illness but it can sometimes make you very ill.

I WFH and DP works late with his condensed hours so I’ve always done the school runs.
DP is at work for football but can make it work if he wants to. Swimming is on his day off but he refuses to take him because he doesn’t want to deal with showers/changing rooms

So, yeah, he's a shit partner and shit parent.

Knowing what you now know about him, do you want to go ahead with the pregnancy?

He sounds lazy and selfish

Thank you. Sorry you are struggling too with the second one! It’s such a shock especially when you have another little one to look after.

I’ve tried saying DS will suffer too but I just get ‘what about what I need’ and ‘he is fine to miss swimming’
it’s like talking to a brick wall.

yes, I did an online referral for my GP - waiting for them to call me. Fingers crossed it’s soon

Honestly contact pregnancy sickness support while you wait for call back-they will give you the confidence in what to say especially when GP starts on about ginger. And eating little and often.

@TheIndecisiveElf the OP isn't 12 weeks yet, please don't recommend drugs that have a slight but real risk to fetal development. You may struggle to find a GP that will prescribe this but a gynaecologist would usually be happy to after counselling. There are multiple other drugs safe to try first.

He sounds awful and you deserve better

Your H is an utter cock end. Why men like this end up with lovely women is a mystery to me.