How’s that for a blog post title for ya?  Whew!  Anyway, as Jane mentioned in her sneezing and peeing post, pregnancy week 16 has been VERY good for her.  No nausea, no morning sickness, no headaches, no throwing up, just some hormone flair-ups here and there, and of course sneezing and peeing.

I’ll take her sneezing and peeing any day compared to all of the other stuff she was going through in pregnancy weeks 14 and 15.  Whew!  We had some rough days there.

Anyway, as I continue on this pregnancy journey with Jane, I’ve been noticing more and more pregnancy sympathy pains.  I’ve blogged about them as they’ve hit me, so here’s a new one for you: Sympathy pains have brought on my own hormone-flaring mood swings.  Weird.

Jane mentioned that I was a grump tonight in her post.  After I read her blog post and commented, I did some thinking.  Why was I a grump?  After all, today wasn’t more or less stressful than the past few weeks and months have been.  After doing a little more soul-searching, I realized that I didn’t have an answer as to why I was so grumpy tonight and so short with Jane.

You know what that means… My own hormones are kicking in and making ME have mood swings!  WTH?  Seriously?!  That is the only solution that I can come up with.  I’ve been in a bad mood all night and I can’t put my finger on what caused it or why it suddenly melted away.

I guess a father-to-be can have pregnancy sympathy pains, can’t he?  He can have and experience everything else, so why not those wonderful, joyful pregnancy mood swings?

All I can say is that I’m VERY happy that Jane was in a really good mood tonight.  If she happened to have one of her mood swings kick in the same time I did tonight… LOOK OUT.  It would have been World War III in this house and I would be sleeping in the doghouse tonight.  It would have been bad.

To be honest, I had no clue what I signed up for with this whole “sympathy pains” deal.  I never knew a father-to-be would go through really anything while his wife is pregnant.  This has been such a wake up call for me.  I guess with each one of these little pregnancy sympathy pains I go through, I get to experience a little of what Jane is going through.  How fun.

However, I’m starting to get concerned about my testicles when it comes time for Jane to deliver our baby.  I swear, if they start to hurt even a little while we’re waiting for our son or daughter to enter this world, I’m outta there.  I have a feeling that if any man felt even 1% of the pain there compared to what a woman feels during childbirth, we wouldn’t be able to walk for a month.

So yeah.  Tarzan has mood swings now.  How wonderful.  And if I start peeing when I sneeze I’m seriously… SERIOUSLY going to start freaking out.  I have to draw the line there.

Right now I’d like to take this opportunity to send a big CONGRATULATIONS to my beautiful pregnant wife Jane for reaching another milestone today that is even bigger than sneezing and peeing.  Today Jane reached…

5,000 Followers on Twitter!

Before I dive in, if you’re not following His Boys Can Swim (Jane runs the Twitter account 100% of the time) on Twitter, go to: http://www.twitter.com/hisboyscanswim (opens in a new window).

If you don’t have an account on Twitter, I highly suggest you get one.  It’s 100% free.  It’s also 100% confusing at first, and seems strange, but I’ll explain the whole Twitter deal below.

Anyway, Jane is on Twitter several times a day so you’ll be able to “chat” (AKA Tweet) to her live via Twitter.

I’m proud of her!  Our first blog His Boys Can Swim pregnancy blog post was on December 26th, 2008.  (I can’t believe that we’ve only been at this for a little over a month and a half!)  I think Jane signed up for Twitter sometime around then, but didn’t start Twittering until the beginning of January.

So getting over 5,000 followers on Twitter in around 40 days isn’t too shabby at all.  Here are some interesting stats (from Twitter Grader which change by the hour up and down):

• As of this writing, His Boys Can Swim (AKA Jane) is # 1,367 out of 1,242,061 Twitter users graded.
   
• As of this very moment, Jane is in the top 10 Twitter users in all of Houston, Texas
   
• She’s not listed on the Texas page right now for some reason, but when it updates, Jane will be either the # 7 or # 8 Twitter user in ALL of Texas.

That is really cool and I’m so proud of my Jane.

Now why should you jump on the strange Twitter bandwagon?

Well first, if you own a business or a website, Twitter is an absolute must now-a-days.  It’s a great way to find new customers and it’s a great way for people to find your website.

If you don’t own a business or a website, that’s fine too.  You can meet others with the same interests you have, meet people locally, or whatever.  It’s also a good way to keep up with friends and see what they’re up to.

You’ll also meet a lot of great people.  In fact, Jane has received a few packages in the mail (with SEVERAL more on the way) from people who she’s met on Twitter.  People are sending her their products (pregnancy/maternity/etc related) to try out and then Jane will post a review of the products here.  Really cool idea.  Jane gets to try new stuff out and those who send her stuff get a review on our pregnancy blog.  It’s a nice win-win for everyone.

If by chance anyone from Apple is reading this blog, personally, I would LOVE an iPhone.  It’s killing me now owning one.  We’d be able to post on this blog within seconds after every doctor appointment.  Imagine… just six days from now we’ll be finding out if we have a boy or girl and I take a picture of the ultrasound machine and write a quick blog saying, “We’re having a girl!”  Or, “We’re having a boy!”

Oh how my life would be complete with an iPhone.  So Apple, I would be happy to try out an iPhone for awhile and review it on our blog.  I’d have one already, but that money went to our first doctor appointment.  Priorities.  It’s amazing how fast things change, huh?

Now speaking of reviews, if you have any pregnancy-related products or services that you’d like Jane to try out and post a review for you here, please contact us.

Now please understand we cannot accept everyone and every product.  It has to be something that Jane likes and would use (or EAT as I know we have some chocolate on the way!  Mmmm!) and obviously it would need to be beneficial for our readers to learn about.  Oh, and it needs to relate to maternity/pregnancy/babies/etc.

If you’re wondering how chocolate fits in that group, then you’re either not pregnant or your wife isn’t pregnant!

Father-To-Be Stress.
A Visit To The Doctor.

Next on my list this evening is what I’m doing to keep my father-to-be stress levels down.  If you’ve been following our pregnancy journey, you know that I’ve got a lot of stress due to many factors: economy, slow/dead business, no maternity insurance, a pregnant wife, and we have to sell our house that we just bought a year ago to make sure we can pay for the doctor/hospital bills, baby, and lower our stress levels a little overall when it comes to money.  And there is a little stress over the fact that I can’t stop eating ice cream at night!  (I have to add some humor here somewhere.)

What’s crazy to me is how I’ve lost 14 pounds during Jane’s 16 weeks of pregnancy.  I’ve been eating a lot of ice cream just about every night and I only started walking about a week and 1/2 ago!  Huh.  I don’t get it.  And yes, NO LIE… I just finished off the Cookie’s and Cream ice cream Jane bought today!

Anyway, here’s something new for you…

I’ll admit that I went to the doctors today.  If you look back a few blog posts, you’ll see how I had some crazy chest pain at 5 AM one morning.  It was scary stuff.  It ended up being gas because my stomach acids are kicking into high gear and causing all sorts of crazy things to happen.  Anyway, you can read about everything that happened in that post.

So today I went to the doctors and he gave me some sample meds to take to lower the stomach acid in my stomach for 10-15 days to give my stomach a chance to heal.  I’m NOT a fan of having to take any meds.  I’m one of those guys who doesn’t like going to the doctor, I don’t like hospitals, and I don’t like taking medicine.

However, the stuff he gave me is super mild, can be taken with anything at anytime, it’s like a longer lasting Tums.  And I’m OK with that since I’ve been eating those like candy lately.

Also, to keep stress levels down I’ve been walking quite a bit lately.  Walked around 5 miles today.  Will try to do at least that every day and I want to start doing at least 10 to 12 miles every Saturday or Sunday.  Once I get in the groove, I’ll mix in lifting some weights in a week or two.

I know that the only real healthy way to lower stress is by exercising like crazy.  I also just read in Men’s Health magazine that if you have whatever you’re stressed about while you’re working out, you could actually be doing more damage than good.  Crazy, huh?  So I do all I can to have a completely clear head.

And speaking of head, I’m doing all I can to get back into the right mindset again.  2008 was a landslide year.  Literally starting in January my business went down each and every month.  Either I lost clients for one reason or another or the clients that I did have didn’t pan out because of the economy.

That does a number on your psyche… BIG TIME.  So I’ve hit some really down periods which is not like me because I’m usually a pretty upbeat self-motivated guy.  Now here’s a side of Tarzan that I have not shown on our blog thus far…

What have I started doing to recondition my mind?

I’ve hit the books.  But not just any book.  I’m not sure what it was that attracted me to them, but I’m reading OLD books I’ve found in my collection I’ve built over the years of old rare books.  Funny, I’ve never been much of a reader, but I used to like finding and getting these old gems.

Now for some reason, when I try to read any of the books on self-improvement and personal development that have been written over the last 5-10 years or so, I have a tough time getting through them.  Most of them have too much fluff now-a-days.  I don’t have time for fluff.  I need the real-deal answers and how-to information NOW.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great book written recently… but they’re just not cutting it for me.  Books written early to mid 1900′s are cutting it for me right now as crazy as that may sound.  And just for S&G, I figured I’d take a picture of the 3 that I’m reading right now and let you know what they are.

Note: Do not let a pregnant women smell an old book. Yikes! Almost caused instant nausea!

The first book, the blue one on the left is called, “Riches Within Your Reach” by Robert Collier.  This one is from 1953.  And this one is pure GOLD.  Nearly everything you read today in the personal development world (or see in movies like “The Secret”) are all based on the writings from Robert Collier.

The second book, “That Something” is by W.W. Woodbridge and believe it or not, that baby was written in the year 1914.  95-years-old.  Crazy.  I honestly think I’m the first person who has ever opened it.  (It’s small and can be read in 30 minutes.)

And the third book is, “Wake Up and Live!” by Dorothea Brande.  This one was written in 1936, but my copy is the 12th printing from 1942.

Live many things I’ve discussed on our pregnancy blog, I feel funny about disclosing the above for some reason.  I guess it’s because it’s yet another glimpse into the private life of Tarzan.

However, we’re here to document our pregnancy journey and the above plays the BIGGEST roll for me in this journey.  We have a baby on the way and I’m getting more active to lose weight so I can get these stress levels under control and be healthier.  I’m working hard to fix my mindset and get it back on track so I can focus on my business, make changes, create new ideas, and figure out how to make money in this economy.  And on and on and on.

So son or daughter, when you read this in 20 years or whenever, know that I’m doing all this stuff with you in mind – to do all I can to provide you with an incredible life.  I want to be able to do a ton of fun things for you and your Mom.  I want to help you grow not just on the outside, but where it really counts, which is on the inside.

Oh God, my pregnancy sympathy pains and hormones are kicking in again, I’m getting tears in my eyes… Oh no.  We’re out of ice cream.

You might also want to read:

1. Mood swings: The survival guide for the father-to-be.
2. 15 weeks pregnant and the floodgates have opened: Crying during pregnancy and beyond?
3. Father-to-be woken up at 5 AM with severe chest pain… Pregnancy stress?
4. Where in the heck has Tarzan been?
5. Another father-to-be realization: Learning the sex of our baby makes things REAL.

Tagged as: doctor appointment, Father, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Blog, pregnant, stress, Twitter, week 16