Skydiving Babies

I started this wee blog off as a sort of chronicle of all the happenings that happen before, during and – maybe – after a pregnancy, but I figure I should probably try and dispense some advice in these entries as well. Not that I have any great advice to give or anything, but maybe for first time parents, like myself, it’d be good to know that you’ll likely go through much the same stuff as I’m going through. At least the man’s side of the whole shebang.

Because let’s face it; the man is the most important person in this pregnancy after all.

That is, of course, a joke.

You’ll automatically become the last person on the list you’ll be worrying about behind wife/partner and child. Which is ok. In fact, it’s exactly where you should be. And if you can’t handle that, I suggest you man up. You got us into this mess, what with your dirty man sperm and all, so you damn well better pick up the slack whenever your wife/partner isn’t able to do all the things she did before. And then some.

Because when your wife gets pregnant [I’m going to just use ‘wife’ because I’m a married man and mainly because I can’t be bothered typing ‘wife/partner’ every time] the tendency is to break the news by saying ‘we’re having a baby’ or ‘we’re pregnant.’ Which in reality is complete bollocks. You may both have a child in 9 months but the only person ‘having a baby’ is your wife. Men can literally do nothing until the child is born, which would make you a horrible person, but the fact is that only person completely involved in growing a human being inside their stomach is your wife. It’s your job to make those 9 months run as smoothly as humanly possible for her; to nod at the right times, to comfort when needed, to drive anywhere and everywhere on request and go get whatever she’s craving no matter what time it is, day or night.

Now I’m not pretending I’m great at all or even any of these things. I’m as new to this baby/parenting thing as it comes, but I’m trying my damnedest to be and do the best I can be and can do. Some of these points will obviously come off as ‘well, duh’ pieces of advice, but as I’ve noticed sometimes even the most basic common sense falls by the wayside in the run up to impending birth…

1.      Be attentive.

Basically, be there for your partner throughout the entire time. Obviously, provided you’re not a complete asshole, you will be, but just make sure you’re never too far away should they urgently need anything. In this age of mobiles it’s never been easier to stay in contact. Be ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice for your wife.

2.      …but not too attentive. 

Yes, she may be pregnant. She is not, however, helpless. Don’t wrap her up in bubble wrap and guard her 24/7. She’s still a person, not a fragile container, so don’t treat her like one. Hopefully she’s wise enough to know her own body and knows how much she’s able to do and what she can’t do. And if/when she can’t do something, that’s where you step in.

3.      Carry on as normal, as much as possible.

You’re having a baby and that’s great. It’ll change your life. I’ve no doubt it’ll dramatically change mine. However, until then you’ve got nine months to keep having your own lives. Naturally the bump will change a few things in your social lives, but don’t just stop doing everything and go into full on baby mode. Do the things you would normally have done and fit the baby stuff around it. Although if you were an avid skydiver before, I’d recommend giving that up.

4.      Be sympathetic

Now that my good lady wife is expecting and can’t drink or smoke (not that she did either anyway) I can’t in good conscience continue doing the same. Although I’ve never smoked I do enjoy the odd drink, for me to suddenly rejoice that I now have a designated driver for the next few months wouldn’t be the nicest thing to do. Your wife is being forced to sacrifice some things – including her body - because of the coming child (even if she never partook in the first place), you should too.

5.      Don’t do too much internetting

Seriously. The internet is great for a multitude of things. What it’s not good for is calming you down during a pregnancy. If your wife has an ache or pain or is feeling unwell, don’t go online to diagnose her. You come out the other side convinced she has somehow contracted The Black Death or leprosy or something. And don’t let her do it too much either. Again most of the symptoms and sicknesses during pregnancy are just the norm and will sort themselves out. If it’s something that looks like it might be more serious, go to your doctor. They’ll know more about it than Barbara, 32, from Stoke who had a really bad experience once and has been terrifying everyone since.

6.      Do read the baby books

If they give you one, which I think they have to, read the book the hospital gives you. It covers all the basics, it’s written in plain English and you’ll understand everything in it. Trust me, if I could make sense of it, you can. There are plenty of other books available of course which cover things in way more detail as well as very specific topics (we have What To Expect When You’re Expecting in the house, which is grand but it’s about the size of an Argos catalogue, and twice as confusing) but the one you get from your maternity unit contains everything you’ll need to know without insulting your intelligence – “Don’t pick the baby up by it’s ears” for example.

7.      Be a team, against the world

When you tell people you’re pregnant the battering ram of advice starts. Advice is great and all and I welcome it, but don’t let anyone convince you that what you want to do is wrong somehow. Unless it’s a proper mental idea. You should probably listen to them then. But it’s your baby and you should be allowed to do what you want with him/her. Within reason, obviously.  And as great as advice from grandparents, friends and total strangers is (because believe me, you will get it whether you want it or not) don’t let anyone tell you how to raise your child, what to name your child, what colour the child’s nursery should be, what buggy you should buy etc. Oh, and people guessing the sex can fuck right off.

8.      Be enthusiastic about baby stuff

This is one I have trouble with. Not because I don’t care, but because I’m stupid, especially when it comes to baby stuff. My wife somehow has a working knowledge of most of the paraphernalia involved whereas I have none. I’m literally coming into this cold. And while I don’t want to leave every decision up to my wife, when it’s comes to the features of buggies or car seats I just don’t know enough to give an informed opinion. As long as I can wheel it around comfortably or fit it easily enough, I’m happy. But since my wife will be the one doing most of the baby-looking-after while on maternity leave, as long as it works as smoothly as possible for her, I can make it work for me.

9.      Communicate

This is another one I have problems with. I’m not exactly the most talkative of folks, despite what the blog might suggest and I just tend to just go with the flow and agree with whatever my wife suggests [interesting sidenote: my wife told me that were it not for my previous blog entry about baby names, she’d never have known how I felt about the naming of our future child. Which was simultaneously funny and made me feel bad]. I mean, I’ll disagree if I strongly feel the opposite but more often than not, I’ll agree with her because we have fairly similar opinions on this whole baby adventure. But I have had to, and you’ll have to as well, open up a bit more and get into the nitty gritty when it comes to your newborn; you’ll have to ask and answer a multitude of questions and you’ll have a better chance of understanding it all if you communicate with each other. In my case, it’s usually asking my wife ‘what does this word mean?’ It’s almost always something horrible.

10.  Try to enjoy it

This is the most important one. It shouldn’t be a time of worrying and fear, and although there is that aspect to it, it should also be a joyous occasion. You’re having a baby. That’s fricking awesome. That’s really the overriding emotion I’ve had all throughout these past few months. Yes, sometimes the terror of the impending situation hits me a smack in the face, but the thought of a little bambino running about the places smacks it right back. Enjoy the scans, the kicks, your wife’s belly getting massive. Talk to the bump, silly as it seems. Sing to it if you like. I’ve rubbed my wife’s belly more times in the past week than I’ve rubbed my own in my whole life. It’s a special time. Enjoy it as much as you can. I’m planning to. 

Right, that’s enough advice for now.

"Firmly regimented procreation passion..."

[NOTE: This entry (ha!) is about shagging. Parents, siblings and family members, read on at your own discretion.]

Now I don’t know if you know this but to make a baby you have to have sex.

As in, sexual intercourse.

I am a man, and as such I like the odd bout of the aforementioned intercourse. However after all the intercourse involved in making a baby, I think I’d be perfectly happy never having sex again.

Because I feel like I’ve had enough to last me a lifetime.

When you start officially trying for a baby – we filled out the forms and everything – what you aren’t told is that everything after that becomes firmly regimented and organised. Nothing more so than sexy time. And because women are confusing creatures, biologically speaking, their periods of maximum ovulation can be guestimated at by, er…peeing on a stick, which is basically like a red rag to a bull. As soon as a woman works out when her ovulation window is it appears to give her free reign to demand sex, at any time or place, in a way that would get me a look of death if I tried it.

So there I am sitting on the sofa, relaxing after a hard day’s work on a Tuesday afternoon, watching the TV and waiting on the oven to beep to tell me that my dinner is ready when from upstairs Jenny yells, “JONNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYY.” That, for weeks, was my cue to go upstairs and perform my husbandly duty, preferably in less time than it takes for whatever was in the oven to finish cooking. No romance, no foreplay, no nothing. Tool, get over here and impregnate me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like it was a horrible experience or anything. As previously mentioned, I am a man, and if sexy time is offered on a plate, who am I to refuse? I mean, sex is sex, right? It was, as it always is, fun.

Well, the first few times were anyway.

Because before long, my beautiful wife morphed into some sort of terminator, but instead of trying to kill John Connor, she was trying to kill Jon(athan) Cardwell by sexing me to the point of exhaustion. She was a Sex Terminator. A Sperminator: “Listen, and understand. That sperminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop until your testicles are reduced to shrivelled raisins.”

It was relentless. In the morning. Straight after work. Before dinner. Just after dinner. At bed time. To the window, to the walls, til sweat drips down my…well, you know the rest. Anytime we had a spare few minutes, we were at it like rabbits. It takes its toll, believe me. If you’re doing the horizontal naked dance that often you barely resemble a human being by the end of the week, just a hollowed out husk of what was once a formerly functioning member of society. After a while you start to feel like you’re a cow that’s hooked up to a milking machine*, going through the motions to achieve the desired result. The odd time after, er…finishing(?) once, the missus, still clearly keen to make the most of being in the ovulation window asked if I wanted to go again, mere minutes after I’d just ‘gone’ once. “A second time?” I would incredulously exclaim. “I’m not 17 anymore, love. If you want to go again, you’ll have to wait at least half an hour and bring me a sugary cup of tea before we start round two. And even then, I’m making no promises.’ For as everyone knows, a second time is a lot more work for a lot less return. 

*I don’t know who should be more offended here, my wife for being compared to a milking machine, or me for comparing myself to a cow.

However, our hard arduous work paid off. Which is great but thank the Lord that since becoming pregnant the desire for and frequency of sexy time has diminished. Not due, necessarily, to not wanting to, but rather Jenny has become so tired throughout the whole business of, y’know, carrying another human being in her stomach not to mention the fact that she was hideously ill for a while there that often by the time we get home from work, naked fun time is the furthest thing from both of our minds. Also, now that she’s gotten quite big in the belly region and baby has begun kicking and I’ve seen a scan (see previous entry) of the little person with distinguishable features and everything, I wouldn’t be entirely comfortable putting another appendage up in that already crowded location. Well, that and if I’m in the middle of it all and all of a sudden see a ripple on my wife’s belly from my future son or daughter kicking out in retaliation at me invading his/her space, I’m pretty sure I’d either be too terrified or too busy laughing to continue.

The logistics of pregnancy sex are just mind boggling.

So we’ve found it best just to abstain.

Well, now that I’ve made you all suitably uncomfortable with the thought of me in the throes of firmly regimented procreation passion, I think that’s as good a place as any to stop.

"WTF is a foot muff?"

You know the way people who after having one child decide they want another? I think I’ve worked out why.

It’s not because a child is a bundle of joy, and it’s made them gloriously happy; so much so that they want another in their household. It’s not because they want to give their current progeny a brother or sister so he/she doesn’t get lonely. It’s not even because they even really actually want another child.

No.

Not at all.

I’ve come to the conclusion, after traipsing round God knows how many baby shops, that the only reason to have more than one child is to get the best value for money for the extortionate prices that baby paraphernalia sells for.

Not to get ahead of myself here, but after this illuminating trip I’m currently planning on having approximately 18 children and they’ll all use the same buggy so as I get my money’s worth. Because if you just have the one child most of this stuff is literally only good for a year at most.

Take car seats for example. There are many many MANY varieties of car seat. Each one more amazing than the last. One’s the clip in kind, one’s the slide in kind, there’s one with super adjustable padded straps, there’s the one with a swivel base that looked like something you’d see on the Starship Enterprise, there’s another with a built in poo catching tray (there’s not, but I wouldn’t have been surprised). So many different shapes, sizes and designs, yet some of them have the audacity to be so ludicrously expensive yet say on the tag, 0-9 months. NINE MONTHS!

And then you’ve got all the extras that the salespeople all but insist you need. Not want. Not would be nice to have. Need.  Blankets? Fair enough. Toys that dangle from the handlebars? O...kay. A foot muff. What the fuck is a foot muff?

So if I’m spending this much on a seat and all the “optional” extras it better be ready to hold my (or anyone’s) ass for a lot longer than nine poxy months. And then when said child gets older and larger, you have to buy another seat to fit their expanding frame. Which is dearer still. And then the child has the audacity to outgrow that one as well.

Kids, eh?

I haven’t even got one yet and it’s costing me an arm and a leg.

And there are the actual sales staff themselves, who in my very limited experience with them have overtaken car salesmen as the Most Annoying Salespeople In The Universe. At least when car salesmen give you the hard sell on the all singing all dancing features of a car, you can politely refuse the special edition of the car of your choice; they’ll be annoyed but once you’ve definitively said ‘no’ there isn’t much else they can do. Baby stuff salespeople have leverage over you. Leverage in the shape of your future son or daughter. And no matter how much you tell them you don’t want the carry cot they can whip out the it’s-better-for-the-baby card and try their hardest to fucking guilt you into buying it. And you will, because you’re a new parent and you obviously want the best for your first child. They’ve got you by the balls, and they bloody know it. The bastards. It goes something like this:

- “Now, I know you say you don’t want the carry cot, but do you want me to show you it anyway?”

 - “No, no, you’re alright. We’re happy enough.”

 - “Are you sure? Because when you take into account the benefits of the carr…”

 - “Seriously mate, we don’t want one.”

 - “But this one is better for the baby’s posture and will protect from the rain, sun and will convert into a makeshift bomb shelter once the nuclear apocalypse comes.”

 - “Look, seriously, we don’t want the…wait, did you say nuclear apocalypse?”

 - *nods*

- “Hmmm, well I don’t want to be that parent whose baby isn’t prepared for inevitable nuclear holocaust. (pause) We’ll take the carrycot.”

Fuck. The fucker guilted me good.