YouTube videos of puppies, the final 50 pages of Where the Red Fern Grows, literally any episode of Grey's Anatomy — these are things for which any human with a functioning heart would easily shed a tear.
But when you are pregnant? Well, the parameters for what is worthy of a good cry are blown wide open. From being served the wrong entree at a restaurant to butt-dialing your mom by accident, literally nothing is too benign or innocuous to negate the need for an emotional meltdown. Here, a smattering of the things that shouldn't faze a normal adult female but have made me – and likely you, too – sob hysterically while pregnant.
Sorry, but it's no bizarre feat to cry over a cute Budweiser commercial with a runaway puppy or a basket full of kittens. When I cried at a teaser trailer for Shark Week and started sobbing at the sight of a muddy, trash-eating pig in a Febreze TV spot, I knew I was knocked up.
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2When the Grocery Store Has 37 Different Kinds of Oreos but Not the One You Want
If Saturday comes and I have nothing planned and someone asks me what I want to do, it's as if I had all week to study for a big exam and then completely forgot about it, overslept, and lost all my notes.
Oh, I didn’t realize that in order to get some R&R, all I had to do was sleep (but only on my side and never on my back unless I want to suffocate my unborn baby) and not get up (despite having to pee upwards of five times a night). Thanks for the tip.
Excuse me, sir. I'm sorry if my giant belly is teetering on this overcrowded train a mere four inches from your face. I know you are trying your damnedest to not look at it so that you can continue manspreading and nervously scrolling around on your iPhone as if you are actually reading some vitally important email while I maintain a piercing stare. No, don't mind me.
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9Being Offered a Seat on Public Transportation
Image Source: Harpo Studios
There is good in the world, and it comes in the form of a middle-aged woman who has clearly been there before.
The day that I can no longer bend over to the degree necessary to put anything other than flip-flops on my swollen feet is not a good day. Neither is every day following that day.
What once brought me immense joy quickly turns into a daily torture device. For some reason, I'd still peek in there every morning as if I had no idea that none of the clothes currently fit me . . . or that they might never fit again. Cue tears, round two.
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12That Time Your Partner Did Something
Image Source: Buena Vista Pictures
I don't even know exactly what he did, or if it was right or wrong. But it was done and I am emotional about it.
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13No Longer Being Able to See Your Vagina
Image Source: MTV
It's not like I even need to be able to see it these days, but the fact that it's just plain physically impossible to keep tabs on the area of your body that will soon serve as the official exit point of your entire pregnancy is a truly mind-numbing realization.
Good cry: When I found out about it in time to DVR the whole thing. Bad cry: When the recording cut off the last 1.5 minutes of each episode, and all my shiplap dreams were forever dashed.
Seeing someone else cry – even if it's a complete stranger in the park or a melodramatic character from a Shonda Rhimes series – is a pregnant woman's kryptonite.