The Pregnancy Pillow I’m Never Cleaning Again

I shared some big news on social media this week, which you can see here. The cat’s out of the bag: we’re pregnant with baby number two!

Everyone hands out the warning when they learn you’re pregnant, Each pregnancy is different, making sure you know to hold your expectations loosely. Well, now I can personally vouch for the statement’s accuracy.

My first pregnancy with our son was a breeze. We had no complications, no hiccups, no obstacles. It all went off without a hitch. This time around the second pink line on our test brought with it an immediate onset of nausea and food aversions, not to mention the mystery pain in my low-back-over-the-butt area.

We learned about the pregnancy just before Christmas and planned to wait to tell our families in person when we visited them the week of New Years. With morning sickness already in full force, I expected the 10-hour drive to Memphis to be a little rougher than normal.

During my shift in the backseat with our son, nausea hit me in waves, pounding at my fragile stomach with every bump in the road. I brought some hard candies for the trip, which helped with some of the nausea, but by the time we swapped places I could barely open my eyes for feeling sick.

The Pregnancy Pillow

As we approached the second trimester, I went downstairs to our little baby equipment storage area and pulled out my old friend: the pregnancy pillow. Mine is U-shaped with legs that narrow and widen as they reach down. It’s lived in this dusty closet for two years where everything that doesn’t fit upstairs finds a dark home.

I pulled off the summer’s day blue cover to throw in the washing machine to remove dust bunnies or other creepy crawlies I pretend don’t live downstairs. Fresh and warm from the dryer, I carted it upstairs to put it back on the pillow, thinking it would only take a few minutes.

The pillow cover had other plans.

Squeezing the legs past the cinched waist of the cover felt too much like trying on a pair of too small pants, that just barely touch your bum and refuse to move farther. I tugged and pulled, twisted and shoved, all but begging this cover to please fit back on the pillow, until resistance finally gave way. Then came the other side.

In total, putting the cover back on the pregnancy pillow only took about 15 minutes, but it felt much longer in the bedroom forcing pillow legs back into a cover it viewed as a shed identity. No turning back.

With the task finished, zipped and tucked under the sheets of the bed, and hours—years, really—of my life devoted to this, Ryan walks into the room. He asks if I got the cover back on the pillow. Breathing heavier than normal and looking him dead in the eye, I say, “I’m never taking that cover off again. I don’t care how dirty the pillow gets.”