02/05/99

Pregnant Fathers

Being an expectant mother twice does not qualify me to talk about pregnancy from a man's point of view. What is it like to start a life and then sit on the sidelines, sharing vicariously in your child's development? I asked a colleague of mine, Scott Goldsmith, whose wife Deirdre will give birth to their first child in a few days, what the pregnancy has been like for him.

He wrote, "Lying in bed, I reach around my wife and palm her belly. I close my eyes and wait patiently. Within seconds, I feel it. Inside her, my unborn child squirms and bumps his or her body against my hand, yet my wife doesn't even stir. Since the baby recently "dropped" onto her bladder, forcing a dozen unwanted trips to the bathroom each night, even this ruckus inside of her can't rouse her from an afternoon nap. But me? I still enjoy the bumps and kicks and tosses and turns going on in there.

Now that we're nine months along, we sometimes see things a bit differently. For example, one particularly grouchy morning, I tried to console my exhausted wife. I reminded her that by being up half the night now, she'll be used to being up half the night when the baby arrives. She disagreed.

"I'd rather get the extra sleep now! You don't get used to being up every two hours. You just get tired!"

Oh.

Another difference is that I will actually miss my wife's state of pregnancy. She won't. To me, she looks more beautiful and radiant than ever. She disagrees. I will miss the mystery of being an inch away from my child, yet having absolutely no idea if it's a boy or girl or what it looks like. I'll miss talking baby talk to her stomach and feeling kicks and punches while guessing what part of the body is where. I'll miss the midnight conversations about whether it's a boy or girl. I'll even miss the arguments about what to name this little blessing. My wife? She wants the baby out. The other night, when I told her that I'd miss her being pregnant she said to me,

"Really? Next time, you can carry the baby for nine months!"

Hmm.

It's been an amazing adventure. The greatest part about it all is that this is just the beginning. Once this mystery ends, a whole new one begins ... HOW TO BE A DAD! At least I’ll have a beautiful new child to teach me and his or her wonderful new mother to guide me.

I know there will be times when I'll feel like my wife does now, saying to myself that I never want to go through this again. I know there will be days when I have my baby crying on one arm, my wife crying on the other and the cat meowing at my feet. I am sure I'll feel helpless for a moment. But then, I will look at each of them and realize that this is what I've wanted. This was my goal. This is my family. This is my home and my happiness."

LINKS:

PREGNANT FATHERS

HOW TO BE A DAD: Fatherhood

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