Husband Experiences Woes of a Sympathetic Pregnancy

“Tired a lot, nauseous, a ton of weird cravings….” listed off Philadelphia resident T. Lindeman. “Occasional mood swings and weird cramps.

“And that’s not even getting into what my wife is dealing with.”

When L. Burton announced to her husband that she was pregnant, Lindeman took it with all the enthusiasm and excitement in the world. Little did she know the immense impact it would have on his body and lifestyle.

“I can’t let him shop by himself,” explained Burton. “He’ll beeline to the ice cream aisle and start loading up the cart.” For any other man, this wouldn’t be an issue. However, Lindeman has what doctors are calling “a disgusting degree of lactose intolerance.”

“I normally don’t even like ice cream,” whined Lindeman. “It’s these damn pregnancy cravings!”

Lindeman is adamant that his body is experiencing a “sympathetic pregnancy,” which can be found in many tomes of medical literature next to the chapter on snake oil.

“It’s absolutely wild the effect this has on the human body,” said Lindeman. “I’ve definitely been feeling the mood swings, especially when driving. I’ve never experienced road rage before!”

Burton confirmed this behavior, but said it was nothing new. “[Lindeman] has always been the type to get emotional. He weeps during episodes of Love is Blind and Severance!” Lindeman chose not to respond to these allegations, except to say he was a “sucker for good television.”

But pregnancy isn’t all sappy TV, aggressive driving, and constant snacking. There are also downsides that Lindeman is acutely aware of.

“I don’t mind the sympathy cravings,” said Lindeman. “But it’s the physical toll—the sympathy morning sickness—that gets to me!”

Every morning like clockwork, sometime between 5AM and 10AM, Lindeman finds himself face-first in the toilet bowl. And no, he’s not having a morning slurp like a dog.

“Sick as a dog, more like!” Lindeman exclaimed. “All these new hormones rushing through my bod, there’s no wonder I keep vomming. But everyone says that’s just how it goes in the first trimester.” Unfortunately for Lindeman, he is already well into the second trimester.

“It’s not morning sickness,” said Burton, who by coincidence often joined Lindeman on the floor next to the toilet. “He’s just sick from drinking or eating too much the night before.”

When Lindeman heard this, he remarked “That’s her opinion. But doesn’t she feel better knowing that I’m going through all of this with her?”

“It doesn’t stop with the morning sickness,” furthered Burton. “He’s also producing what he calls ‘sympathy burps,’ and claiming the baby is giving him gastroparesis.

“I think he’s having too much seltzer water and ginger ale to, as he says, ‘settle his stomach from the pregnancy.’”

Without a doctor’s diagnosis, there’s no way to know for sure what’s causing it, claimed Lindeman. But Burton is a doctor, and she said it’s definitely the seltzer.

“Who knows?” shrugged Lindeman.

As the pregnancy stretches on, Lindeman has taken to having a “bit of a siesta” every day. From approximately 11AM to 6PM, Lindeman can be found curled up in bed, “catching flies with my honk shoes on, and maybe a couple of cartoon Zs coming out of my head.”

Is this affecting his job? Or his helping around the house? “Yes,” said both his bosses and his wife.

“The doctor said naps are vital to the growth of the baby!” Lindeman is heard to say as he curls up with a big fuzzy blanket.

In his endless pursuit to ensure the baby has the best possible future, Lindeman has also started sympathy nesting.

“Lauren [Burton] is getting a BBL,” said Lindeman, referencing what he calls the forthcoming Baby Boy Lindeman. “So we need to make sure there’s lots of cozy places for that thing to rest and be happy.”

Lindeman has helped paint furniture, given up his office for the nursery, and even brought in twigs, yarn, and shiny things before being told that’s not what “nesting” means.

Unfortunately for this publication, our interview with Lindeman led to a monologue.

“I don’t mean to make light of women’s experience with pregnancy,” said Lindeman as he made light of women’s experience, “but it is just as hard, if not harder, for men.

“Between the sickness, the crampings, the hormones, not to mention the sympathy incontinence we get after the birth, our bodies will never be the same. We are forced to give up our own bodily autonomy for the sake of our families—without any say in the matter! It’s my body, it should be my choice!”

“Who knew 40 seconds of passion would lead to nine months of discomfort?” responded Burton, referring to how uncomfortable Lindeman makes her with his new complaints and irritating behavior.

She isn’t the only one made uncomfortable by Lindeman, who left us with these final words:

“Ugh, I need to go. I think my milk is coming in.”

Lindeman Claims He Will Build a Bar

“I’m going to build a bar.”

With these words, T. Lindeman of Philadelphia, PA made a declaration, a vow, and a promise.

After moving in August of 2023, Lindeman and his wife, L. Burton, settled quickly and easily into their new home. Carpets were swapped with hardwood, bare walls became adorned walls, and their television was set up to stream through an Xbox. Every space was filled with mementos, meaning, and love.

One room, however, was still a question mark.

“It’s the room downstairs, in the back room behind the garage,” explains Burton. “We originally used it to store spare couches, since we had a lot of couches.”

But once the furniture was passed along to friends, the room was empty, a big absence of love and meaning. That’s when Lindeman made his declaration.

“I’m going to build a bar,” he said. “And it’s going to be great!”

The goal, Lindeman posits, is to have a “chill hangout space,” where people can “relax” and “take it easy” and also “slurp down a couple of pints of big boy bevies.” His enthusiasm for this new project was clear, though not as infectious as he had hoped.

“My co-worker and I made a bet,” Burton says. “We knew it would take a while for [Lindeman] to build it and get it ready. So we made a wager on what specific date we thought it would be finished.” Perhaps embarrassed about the lack of confidence in her husband, Burton refuses to even hint at what date she picked.

But that lack of confidence might not be unfounded. Though a self-proclaimed “LEGO maniac,” Lindeman has no real experience building anything of any true substance.

“He claims he built a desk during the pandemic,” says Lindeman’s friend M. Protesto, a seasoned woodworker who had volunteered to help Lindeman in his project. “But that was just putting legs onto a single piece of butcher block. Not really much he could mess up.”

But Lindeman could not be dissuaded. He went to work researching, planning, organizing. He even bought a binder to hold his “schematics.”

Plans in hand, Lindeman flashed them in front of Protesto.

“They seemed ok, from what I glanced at,” shrugs Protesto. The question remained, would he be able to actually execute the project?

After sitting on the plans for a few weeks, the wheels of progress began to inch forward with an influx of confidence from a surprising source: in what can only be described as a bout of madness, his parents gifted Lindeman tools for his birthday. Armed with his own proper equipment and borrowing his father’s miter saw, Lindeman had no excuse not to begin with haste.

Lindeman visited several places to get the wood he needed for the project. He started at Home Depot, which didn’t have great quality. Then he went to Lowe’s, which also didn’t have great quality. Finally, he went to a lumberyard in West Philly. It didn’t have great quality either. But he bought it all anyway and brought it home. Some of it wasn’t even warped!

Eventually, the room was filled with piles of wood, tools, and screws. It was time to get to work.

When it comes to cutting wood, the inexperienced Lindeman subscribes to one rule: “Measure twice, cut yourself twice, cut the wood once.”

Things began to come together. With a Bud Lite in hand and Thin Lizzy on repeat, a bar began to appear.

Now over a year after they had moved into their home, it seems like there is still a long way to go with the project.

“The frame is built, the kegerator installed,” exclaims Lindeman. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel!”

“But not much light,” adds Burton, referring to the fact that a vortex of sawdust spins continuously around the room, blocking out both natural and artificial light. With sharp tools all over the floor and scraps of wood piled over every spare surface, Lindeman’s work is a bit of a mess. But he insists that is just what it takes.

“Once we tap that keg,” smiles Lindeman, who doesn’t know the first thing about how to operate a kegerator, or even how to properly pour a beer, “nothing in the world will taste sweeter.”

As of now, the bar is still incomplete.