"Pregnancy boner."

I’ve noticed an unusual side effect to my wife being pregnant. Not to her, but to me. You see, I’ve recently found myself becoming strangely attracted to pregnant women.

Now, admittedly, that sounds a bit weird and creepy. And if I’d said that whenever I was a single bachelor I think it probably would have been, but since my own lovely lady has been with child I’ve experienced so much and become accustomed to her body, complete with bump. As I said in a previous blog, if you ever get the chance to see a pregnant woman naked, you should savour the opportunity. [FYI, I don’t mean look in the bedroom window of your pregnant neighbour. Try to keep your perving to the woman you yourself have impregnated]. Because, as I also think I said, she will never look more womanly than when she’s carrying your child. I mean, yes, of course there are days where she just about resembles a human being; bedraggled, with unkempt hair and with no desire to do anything beyond sit on the sofa in baggy clothes because she’s so unbelievably exhausted, as is the norm throughout pregnancy, but then there are the other days. You know the way people say that pregnant women have a glow to them? Well, it’s absolutely true. And it’s glorious. Remember that famous Vanity Fair cover with the pregnant Demi Moore on the cover, which you never really gave a second thought to? Well, if you look at it when your missus is pregnant it’ll probably give you a pregnancy boner.

BRB.

I guarantee you that you will never be more attracted to partner than on those days. And you get to see each and every one of them.

Only it’s not just your own partner that you’ll see during those nine months. Before too long you’ll have appointments and classes and workshops to attend, each filled with couples in similar stages of pregnancy to you. We were at an active birth workshop the other night and I swear I thought every single one of the women there were gorgeous.

I didn’t tell my wife this.

I still haven’t actually.

But, and I’m trying to put this in the nicest possible way, were these women not pregnant I don’t think I would have thought the same. Now before you go all ‘every woman is beautiful in their own way, it’s not all about looks, you MASSIVE SEXIST,’ a sentiment I agree with actually (the first bit, not the MASSIVE SEXIST bit) let’s just go with they weren’t all what I would normally find attractive. But bloody hell, with a bump attached they became positively the most desirable women on the planet. There were that many of them in the one place, the room itself was almost glowing. I think the only thing that tempered my boner was the fact that the midwife was talking about vaginas.

And nobody finds them attractive.

Is this odd? Do I some sort of weird fetish? On paper the things that happen to a woman’s body during pregnancy are almost a catalogue of things that are traditionally unattractive, at least in our looks obsessed culture; the belly gets bigger, she gains weight, parts of her swell up on occasion. I mean, I still find regular, not-pregnant women attractive, but jeez, right now a pregnant woman makes me feel a bit weak at the knees. It has to be the womanly aspect of it. Maybe it’s only now since my wife has become pregnant that I’ve viewed her as a woman. I know that sounds stupid, but I still think of us (me, specifically) as the same people we were when we met (aged 21) as opposed to now (a kick in the arse away from 30), but this is like a transition period and my beautiful wife is becoming a woman before my very eyes.

And she’s fucking HOT.

As are all the other pregnant women.

I hope it’s not just me. This is bound to happen to every expectant father I reckon. And if not, I’ll be over here typing in ‘pregnant women’ into a Google Image Search.

Disgusting Pregnancy Thing #172

They bring a sieve in if you’re having a water birth.

The reason?

In case your missus poos herself during labour and you have to scoop out a floater.

They never show you that on TV.

"A Bag Full of Fannies"

We had our first Parentcraft class last Monday night, a class which details the ins and outs (mostly outs) of labour, and the days thereafter. It was all fairly informative, even if it’s nothing I haven’t already read about in the baby books, but when there’s a medical professional telling you it, it seems more real somehow. As if it’s not actually happening when you’re sat on your sofa reading a book, but when you’re sat in a stiflingly hot room in the local hospital with seven other couples watching a woman struggle to pull a baby doll out of a plastic recreation of a pelvis, it suddenly dawns on you that this is actually happening. And that it is simultaneously hilarious.

Mostly because it’s hard to listen to anyone say the word ‘vagina’ seriously, and not laugh your head off. And believe me, in one of these classes that word is bandied about a lot. Its vagina this and vagina that. You’d think this woman was obsessed with them. You’d think it was her job or something. Oh wait. Every time she said the V word, I got a case of the giggles. So if that were me I and I had to say the word that many times, I’d try to come up with all the variations I could think of - foofoo, doot, fanny, la-la - just to keep things fresh, so to speak. And those are just the most pleasant sounding ones (or the least unpleasant sounding ones) I could think of off the top of my head; I could think of a lot more that are much more vulgar but shan’t write them here.

Before long the woman produced a bag and proceeded to empty the contents on the table. Pouring out of it came various items; flip charts with pictures of fannies on them, dolls of babies which no doubt were girls and therefore had fannies, and last but not least fannies themselves, or at least the partial skeleton of the fanny area (that’s the pelvis FYI). Big ones, small ones, ones that she could push the doll through to simulate labour. This woman was carrying around a bag full of fannies. Fannies fannies fannies. All I could think of was this woman walking around town with the bag, with everyone else gleefully unaware of the contents. Imagine she got stopped in the street by a friend:

Friend: Oh, what’s in the bag? You buy yourself something nice?

Woman: Nah, it’s just a bag full of fannies.

Friend: …

I struggled to maintain my composure for the entire class. Happily, my wife was in the same boat. A boat floating on a sea of fannies on which we were hopelessly adrift, trying not to laugh our heads off. And we’re going to be parents! Surely parents shouldn’t be struggling not to laugh at the mere mention of the word ‘vagina?’ I suddenly wondered if we aren’t mature enough to be parents. Was this baby malarkey above our maturity level? I mean, I’m nearly thirty. Is there an age at which I shouldn’t find these types of things hilarious? A quick glance around the room however quelled my fears and revealed that everyone else, with the exception of an older couple, were in the same fanny boat as us. People, older than us and who frankly should know better, bravely fighting the urge to burst into laughter which suddenly made me feel a whole lot more relaxed. One fella had gone bright red with the amount of effort he was putting in trying not to spontaneously ROFL.

She did say ‘back passage’ once though, and I’m pretty sure I involuntarily snorted.

There was lots of very technical talk throughout the course of the two hours, and although as previously mentioned, if you’ve read the baby book you’ll know a lot of it already. Although there was a flip chart showing what happens from when you first start getting contractions, and the pictures showed the slow progress the baby makes; while this bursts, that thins, and the baby’s head and shoulders emerges from between the woman’s legs, culminating in a hilarious artistic rendering of the new mother holding her newborn child in a way I imagine no mother ever does while in the hospital surrounded by nurse, doctors and midwives. In fact, I’ve recreated it here:

Only instead of a cat, it was a baby. And there wasn’t a hastily drawn on MS Paint ‘umbilical cord.’ And the person was naked. And not me.

In real life, it’ll probably be Jenny asleep in her bed with baby happily asleep next to her, and me, passed out on the floor.

The Final Countdown

They say time is relative.

Well, when you’re pregnant time becomes relatively terrifying because it goes so bloody fast. We’re in the final stretch now, and every week seems to pass at a ludicrously quick rate. We were at our first parentcraft class only a few days ago (blog incoming about that). Except it wasn’t a few days ago. It was a whole week ago. We have another one to go to tonight.

Where did those seven days go?

These weeks have been flying in since Jenny has been pregnant. The other day we ran into the nurse that took us in for our first appointment at 8 weeks, a day on which we saw our little ‘un for the first time as a speck on the scan, a day where we were incredibly happy at the joyous news, a day which feels like it was only about a month ago.

It was December. DECEMBER.

And although Jenny’s belly has gotten bigger and bigger as time has moved on, it doesn’t feel as though that much time has passed, but at the same time it feels like we’re charging ever closer to the arrival. The weeks are zooming in but the months don’t register for some reason. Maybe it’s because you deal with pregnancy in weeks and you spend so long in double figures that when you hit single figures as we have now you realise there’s not much time left. If I say two months that sounds like ages away, but if I say seven weeks that makes me start to hear the Countdown clock in my head and Europe starting their soundcheck.

And I’m suddenly worried I’ve only got a four letter word for Carol Voderman (guess which one?), and I don’t know any of the lyrics apart from ‘doodoo doo doooooo, doodoo doo doo doo, doodoo doo dooo, doodoo doo doo doo doo doo.’

It’s the final countdown.

8 Simple Things When Getting A Woman Pregnant

The man (as I think I've said before) has it easy in this pregnancy carry on. We are literally only responsible for shooting our seed in the general direction of the egg; after that we could piss off for nine months until the child is born. Of course that would make us horrible human beings and I’d like to think that most men are around for the long haul. Even at that though, it’s pretty simple going for the man in the relationship. Women, beautiful complex creatures that they are, are the ones who really shoulder the hardship that comes along with bringing a baby into this world. Here’s just a few of the things I’ve experienced, heard of, or become more accustomed to during this pregnancy:

1. Discharge

Did that word make you squirm? No? How about if I stick another word in front of it? Vaginal discharge. It made me retch just typing that. Those two words are horrible enough on their own, together they’re an amalgamation of bleurgh and yuck. At every doctor or midwife visit they’ll ask you if you’ve had any. The woman, I mean. I’d start to worry if they ask you, for a myriad of reasons. Thankfully there’s never been any of note aside from the usual apparently – I don’t even know what ‘the usual’ means and I don’t think I want to – but the fact that it’s a thing is enough to make me glad I’m not the one that’s pregnant.

2. Tenderness

According to my wife during pregnancy your boobs gets a little sore and tender, due to your pregnant body preparing them for the journey from funbags into feedbags. I’d imagine this is a little uncomfortable as they also get bigger and more engorged. Now, naturally, I’m not going to complain that my wife’s already ample bosom is getting larger but my wife will. And has. The funny thing is though every so often and completely out of the blue she pipes up with ‘my tits are sore’ which has caused me to dub her Sore Tits McGee. A name which you’d think would get less funny after (literally) dozens of instances of me saying it, but it hasn’t lost its hilarity yet.

3. Milk

Slightly related point here. When you’re close to the end of the pregnancy the engorging process begins as the breasticles start to fill up with milk. Jenny has been regaling me of tales of how sometimes a tiny drop milk will seep out of her nipples, and that sometimes she squeezes her own boob and some comes squirting out. This whole process freaks me out and seems really weird without a baby suckling on the end of her teat. But every now and again she asks me if I want to see her doing it, I - obviously - say no, she starts to do it anyway, and I run out of the room screaming like a girl while Jenny chases me, boobs in hand. [Okay, that last bit is a lie.]

4. Pee sticks

Surely we’ve evolved to a point where the best way to determine whether or not you’re pregnant is something more than peeing on a bit of glorified pH paper? Well, apparently not. Our house was coming down with these pre-bump; just sitting on bedside tables, cluttering up the shelves in the bathroom and I’m pretty sure the cat was walking around with one in his mouth for a while. It’s literally a stick that you piss on. But I can imagine it’s not the most ladylike of devices to use as the potentially pregnant woman, squatting over the toilet holding the stick in your hand, trying to pee on it without the male benefit of directing your stream and likely peeing all over your hand in the process. Although after Jenny was satisfied that she was up the duff, I used the remaining one for a laugh and apparently I’m up the duff too.

5. Peeing

Another related(ish) point here. My wife ran to the toilet quite often even when she wasn’t pregnant. She has the bladder of a small child. However now that she actually has a small child standing on her own bladder, trips to the toilet have become ever more frequent. And because being pregnant sort of hampers your mobility she has to almost anticipate when she going to need to pee so that she makes it up the stairs in time before an accident happens. I’m also reliably informed that it’s more or less the same for number two’s. There’s only so much room in a belly for a child and if he/she starts stretching something going to have to come out. And it’s not going to be baby. o

5. Internal Examinations

You know how many people have stuck things up me? Six. That’s a joke (it’s waaaay more), but I would probably need all my fingers on both my hands - I already wish that I’d used a different counting method to illustrate this point - to tally up how many people have been all up in my wife. Since she’s been pregnant, mind. Doctors, nurses, midwifes and the like. I know women have these kinds of tests done semi-regularly, but when your missus is pregnant every bugger and their dog wants a poke. In fact it seems like the only person that hasn’t been up in there of late is me.

6. Stretch marks

These are a thing, apparently. Jenny has been lucky enough not to really get any, but that’s probably because she’s been liberally applying moisturiser and baby oil to her belly region for months now. So much so that if I laid a hand on her belly I might slip off the other side and off the bed.

7. Domestic abuse

No, they don’t ask you to beat your wife, but rather on your first few visits they take the pregnant lady in a few minutes before the man and ask if this was a planned pregnancy or if I, the man, was forcing you to bear him children. Like it’s medieval times or something. Although thinking about it, it was probably for the best. If I were in there when she asked those questions I’d have probably got all uncomfortable and answered questions with a joke in a misguided attempt to break the tension.

Nurse: So, are there any problems at home? You’re not a victim of domestic abuse, are you?

Me: Only when she doesn’t do the dishes, AMIRITE? Hive five! Oh, hello there officer.

8. Offputting similarities

If you ever see a pregnant woman naked* try not a compare the mid section area to anything else, because for the life of me I can’t see anything other than a noseless Homer Simpson anymore. I’ll let you work out which bits are what.

*it is a rather glorious thing FYI. Bump and all, a woman never looks more…womanly. It’s pretty awesome. Homer aside. 

That’s all I can think of for now.

Ta-ra

This one isn't funny. Sorry about that. It's not serious either though.

I had my first freakout a few weeks back.

It was a minor one but a freakout nonetheless. Lying in bed, unable to sleep, with my wife snoring away beside me, I began to panic. She’s seven months pregnant right now. We’re in the final stage. I can hear Europe playing in the background. We’re on our way to the end of level boss, and I suddenly found myself woefully unprepared.

I was out of mana and my enchanted sword was banjacksed.

It wasn’t the raising of the child that was freaking me out though. I’m still pretty confident I can do that and do it well. No, it was more the fact that it suddenly twigged in my brain that at any moment the baby could arrive. I’ve been, wrongly - stupidly - working on the assumption that babies somehow know their own due date and arrive perfectly on time with no mess and no fuss. Obviously I knew this wasn’t the case, but when you give a man a date, he’ll work to that date. And I have been. So when it - finally - dawned on me that this little ‘un could potentially arrive at any minute…it unnerved me. Mainly because we still have so much stuff left to do, preparation wise.

As I lay there in the dark, when I should have been sleeping, I was running through all the things we/I had to do. Most of it involved decorating the baby’s room, but when I listed them in my mind it seemed somewhat insurmountable. Carpeting, painting, getting new doors put on, buying various things from IKEA. All these things are fairly simple and don’t take that much time to do, but the ‘could happen at any time’ aspect reared its head for the first time and I flipped.

Very quietly and without waking my wife, but still…I flipped and couldn’t sleep for a while.

I explained my freakout to Jenny the following morning and she calmed me down, in much the same way I have done for her before. It’s never happened this way though and I think the worrying has somehow, maybe through osmosis, passed to me instead, because she’s as cool and calm as you like at the minute. She informed me that she’s had all her major freakouts already, some in front of me, some in work and some on her own.

It’s all fairly normal though. I think now that we’re in this stage of the whole pregnancy thing, both of you are living in a perpetual state of fear. Ordinarily in everyday life you’ll have no worries, but currently when you factor in that this baby could potentially drop at any moment you tend to sit on a permanent fear level, never quite relaxing. If 1 isn’t scared at all, and ten is too terrified to leave you house for fear of something horrible happening, I think we both rank at about a 3 or 4.

Which is good in a way. It spurs you into doing the stuff that you’ve not been doing or putting off, and in the weeks since my freakout we’ve actually completed all the things that I was freaking out about. It puts you in a state of continual awareness and readiness, like a cat ready to pounce; I’m ready at a moments notice to spring into action when the waters break.

 Which is when you move up to a whole new level of fear.

Shit.