It’s 7AM. I am lying here in bed, sick with liquified guts, and I am unable to get my children changed. Their Daddy took over, and I can hear their twin two-year-old voices jabbering away to him. Omgosh, their little voices are slaying me this morning.

“We brush toothbrush, Daddy?”

“This for you, Daddy.”

“Don’t fall boo boo, Daddy.”

“I go down? It dark, Daddy!”

I got a taste of what it’s like for him, hearing them from afar. He hears their voices across the phone line. He hears them for the first time every day in person at dinnertime. He gushes over their adorable voices and I can barely hear how adorable they are after twelve straight hours of whines, pleas, cries, negotiations. Why is it so different when you aren’t the primary caregiver? Why do they sound so much cuter from afar? Why do they sound so much younger and sweeter and gentler after a break? Why do they seem so much more adorable when I know I can lie here and writhe in peace?

I feel guilty and amazed every time I don’t feel the same gush of adoration that he feels. I wonder every time if it would be different for me if I worked outside the home, and I heard those voices for the first time at dinnertime.

I had to ask Mr. Okayest to stay home from work this morning, even though it is his first week at a new job. (He will have to go in for a meeting later, so I am willing my guts into submission before then.) He snuggled me as I writhed, because he knows that his touch on my back is the only thing that calms my distress or pain. I murmured instructions of how to take over preschool carpool stuff, but I know he can handle all other childcare better than I can. No need for instructions. He can do all my jobs.

He can do all my jobs better than I can, in fact. Nobody really talks about that. We give stay-at-home moms a lot of understanding and sympathy these days. There are a million blogs about what I do. But what about these amazing dads with such full plates? Modern fatherhood demands so much of these versatile men. They are expected to be just as involved and nurturing as we mothers are, which is a great thing, but they are also expected to do all the manly things of years past.

Mr. Okayest is way better than okay. I am one lucky woman. I am so thankful to him that I can stay home with our little ones. But, sometimes, I just wish I could be him and hear those little voices over the phone from a desk at work. Sometimes I just want to hear them from afar and appreciate them, without having to endure liquified guts first.

Get it together, woman!

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This article originally appeared on Beyond Infertility, a website about how parenting after infertility is different. I am a regular contributor to their website.