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One Night Stand Pregnancy Chances

GUY: I can only remember telling other men, because Gina told the women. But the men generally fell into two camps. Either they were not fathers themselves, in which case it was like telling that you had been posted to the Ukraine for 18 years, and you got this pitying look of bereavement in their eyes, as though they would never see you again. Or if they were fathers, it was like, 'Aha! Welcome to the Ukraine!'

One Night Stand Pregnancy Chances

DUNCAN: I didn't like having to tell people I was going to be a father, l felt constrained by it. Suddenly, from being in a relationship but otherwise a single guy living your life, to being a father... You become labelled as something else: a parent, rather than a young man. I found that quite difficult. But I don't think people necessarily expected me to be thrilled by it, so I didn't feel that pressure. I think people realized it was a new thing, it was going to be a new experience, so therefore I would have to find my way through it. It wasn't necessarily going to be joyous news for me. And obviously Dinah was disappointed with that.
 
But it is worth telling people, and here's why. The more people congratulate you, the more delighted they seem to be by your news, the more you will enjoy being congratulated and delighting people and generally spreading sweetness and light. You might even begin to think that it isn't perhaps such bad news after all. Amazingly, the pleasure of others can help reconcile you to your own impending parenthood. (It works for the mother, too.) Soon you will find yourself looking forward to telling people, for it is in man's nature to show off. You may even begin to enhance the whole tale with creative little additions of your own. Within weeks the gravest calamity of your adult life will have been magically transformed into a really good anecdote.

Call it a coping strategy if you wish. But all fathers-to-be gild the lily in one direction or another. Which direction you go in is up to you. If you and your partner have been trying to make a baby for a while, this can be effortlessly transformed into a story of constant and unbridled sexual activity, of sore thighs, cramp and mysterious groin injuries, and of precisely timetabled shags to coincide with ovulation. You can portray yourself as the plucky sexual foot soldier, willing at a moment's notice to go over the top with your bayonet screwed on. 

Obviously you have no screaming need to make babies yourself, but you respect your partner's dedication to the cause, which shouldn't be mistaken for desperation, good Lord no. Not that there was anything wrong with your sperm, we should emphasize. It was just a case of anxiety, of trying too hard. And if it required endless sex to cure the problem, that's just the way it had to be. (Note: This is a sitcom scenario, and your male friends are unlikely to believe a word of it. But that doesn't mean they won't want to believe it, as they may be hoping it will happen to them some day. Lay it on thick. Limp a little if necessary.)
 


Option Two, which tends to be favoured by anyone who can do Roger Moore eyebrows, is the Single Fuck Scenario. Yes, it took only once. Normally we use seven forms of contraceptive, including a full all-over-body condom, and only ever touch each other on the elbows. But just this once we got a bit drunk and one thing led to another and bingo! She's pregnant. Pause for dramatic effect. Eyebrows. (Your friends won't believe a word of this one either, but they will notice the awed response you seem to get, and will be remembering everything you say to use it one day themselves.) To find out more, you can check out One Night Stand Pregnancy Chances.


Joys Of Fatherhood

Reactions from assorted friends and loved ones.
  1. "HAHAHAHA! HAHAHA! You've got it all to come! You won't know what hit you! I've only just come out the other side! I've just been for a coffee with a friend of mine! Now I'm going home to do some gardening! I've got a whole hour free before I have to pick them up from school! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
  2. 'Oh darling, congratulations. You must be so happy. What wonderful news.' (Thinks: 'A grandchild at last.')  
  3. "Congratulations. Well done. Hang on, I've got a call on the other line, got to go, talk to you soon, bye.' Click. Buzz. 
  4. "I knew it. I said so last summer. I knew this would happen. I could feel it in my water. I'm a bit psycic, you know." 
  5. 'Have you been to the doctor yet? Have you had your first scan? Chosen a hospital? Blood tests? Have you thought about a home birth? Any idea about names? Do you know the sex yet? Are you going to move house? Have you booked antenatal classes? They get booked up months in advance ...' 
  6. 'Two pieces of advice. Change a really shitty nappy very early on just to show her that you can do it. And make sure you change a nappy when your friends are round. They'll think you change them all the time.' 
  7. 'HAHAHAHAHA! No, stop it, l think I've cracked a rib! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!'
 
Joys Of Fatherhood


Normally parents-to-be start letting people in on the secret after about three months. This is supposedly because it is much more common to have miscarriages in the first trimester, as I'm afraid you will start calling it, and no one likes to tempt fate. But the real reason is that it takes you that long to get over the initial shock and then pluck up the courage to say anything to anyone.

Even if you are unambiguously delighted by the turn of events, it can be hugely stressful to cope with the unabashed joy of your relatives and friends. Why on earth are they so pleased? Everyone will want to shake your hand or slap your shoulder or even give you a manly hug, having seen people do this in films. And you will smile bashfully and accept their congratulations with good grace, as you know you are obliged to. It's a situation that seems to bring out the rampant insincerity in everyone.

They are delighted for you, which means they are really delighted for themselves (relatives) or they honestly couldn't give a monkeys (friends). After the first few occasions you will begin to wish you hadn't said a word. After all, no one needs to know, do they? And you'll have to go through it all again when the baby is born, so why not tell them then?

ERNIE: The first person I told was my mother. And she said, 'Oh no.' And I said, "That's not quite what I was expecting." And she said, "Oh no, this is wonderful." I said, "I've just heard "Oh no," mother.'

I told my sister, who cried, but couldn't get any words out. And I said to my brother, 'I've got some news.' He said, 'You're not going to jail, are you?'
 

BASIL: The first people I told were my parents, and I had a sense that I was talking to them for the first time as an adult (not entirely easy with my mother). Then I told my colleagues at work. I was at once showered with delighted hugs and kisses from several intelligent and attractive young women, which is hard to describe as anything but jolly pleasant.

JEROME: My mother was quite shocked that I'd actually had sex. So her reaction was a little muted. She couldn't bear the thought. But my father was fantastic. To find out more, you can check out Joys Of Fatherhood.


Becoming A Dad


FATHER I (IVAN): I reckon I thought the same as everyone else. If you have a boy you are spending endless days playing football in park, and you are bringing up this little image of yourself. And if it's a girl you do nice girly things with them instead. The main thing I remember about my preconceptions is that they all turned out to be completely wrong. It's the classic phrase: it won't change our lives. Which we uttered more than once. We're not going to let it change our lives. There's no reason why we can't juggle work and motherhood and fatherhood and all the rest of it. Of course, it's complete bollocks.

Becoming A Dad
 
FATHER J (JEROME): I don't think it ever occurred to me how it would pan out. Because I had no contact with small children, I had no idea of what they can give you back, or how much effort it was
going to be. I suppose I had a vague idea of contented bliss, like everyone else, but being freelance I was worried all the time that work could dry up and that I would be desperate to get regular work as I knew it would be financially demanding. I had no idea how financially demanding. I mean, you just don't think. But my knowledge of children up to then came from going to weddings and seeing the best man's children running around your feet and knocking over the cake, and then hearing him wish the bride and groom the joy of children .... well, you just think, feed that child razorblades. I had no idea of what to expect at all, It was a big blank void waiting for me.
 
Real fathers will tell us how satisfying it is, how fulfilling, and that they wouldn't be without their children. And we believe them. We also believe they have been brainwashed. They are the Stepford Fathers, rewarded for their loss of freedom with a new pair of slippers and some exciting new hairs growing out of their ears. Or maybe this is the parenthood equivalent of the Stockholm Effect, where hostages start to sympathize with their kidnappers. Or perhaps they just want to lure us all into the web they happen to be stuck in, so we can all be eaten by giant spiders together.

Barmy? Very possibly, but then I believe that a lot of men go slightly insane when faced with the prospect of imminent fatherhood. Some flee in panic, never to return. Others insist on an abortion, despite the terminal damage that might inflict on the relationship. A few propose marriage - which, on second thoughts, might be the perfect way of distracting your attention,
for if you' re too busy thinking about speeches and churches and guest lists, you won't be thinking too much of the vertiginous horror of becoming a Dad. Celebrate your loss of freedom in the most public way possible. Accept the end of youth with an enormous party that will cost someone - usually her furious parents - an absolute fortune.
 
Do you want this baby? Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but in the end most men go along with it anyway. Call it an overwhelming sense of responsibility if you like, although dismal inertia may be nearer the mark. Coming to terms with impending fatherhood has much in common with the process of bereavement. First you feel anger (it's not mine, you bitch), then denial (whose is it then, you bitch?), then despair (oh fuck, oh flick, my life is over), then bargaining (well you never know, it might not be too bad), then finally acceptance (will you marry me?). 



You have mourned your lost youth and freedoms before you have actually lost them, which may seem foolish but will save time later. Besides, once you are inured to what is happening, there is a far more dreadful prospect on the horizon. It is time to tell your friends and loved ones. To find out more, you can check out Becoming A Dad.


Questions About Parenting

Selfish, lazy, feckless ... but then men are hard-wired to think mainly in the short term, to act now and think later and jut our jaws against everything the world throws at us. One such obstacle is womankind's often overwhelming need to make babies.
 
Questions About Parenting

Indeed, this may be mentioned as early as the first date. Imagine the scene. You ate in a louche Italian restaurant. Things are going well. The waiters are friendly and helpful, and you have yet to spill a single drop of pasta sauce on your trouser. You slosh a little more red wine into her glass. You are talking about yourself. You haven't the faintest idea what is going to happen next.

 
Life doesn't get any better than this.
And then, when you briefly stop talking to shovel in a bit of food, she pounces.

'Do you want children?'
 
First priority here is not to spit your mouthful of food halfway across the restaurant. But this also allows your brain to chug into action for the two seconds it needs to formulate the instant and appropriate lie.

'Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. I love children.'

No you don't. She looks you straight in the eye. She knows you are only saying this as a form of verbal foreplay, that you don't mean a syllable of it. She knows you are Short Term Man. But then so is everyone else. What is a girl to do? Simple. She will remember everything you have just said for later use, should the relationship get that far.
 
'Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. I love children."
 
You may never be forgiven for this lie, however many times you apologize for it. Did you only want me for my sperm? You will ask, years afterwards. Well no, of course not, she will say (failing to look you straight in the eye), but you misled me, and we had only just met. Which is what any man would do, you will respond. For if we all said 'No, I detest children with a passion and wish to stove their tiny heads in with a mallet', then our chances of what might be called 'getting a result' would be sharply diminished. Only you probably won't say this last bit, but just tell another lie instead.
 
One problem is that most of us have only the haziest, vaguest notions of what it is going to be like. I asked the fathers what their preconceptions and expectations of fatherhood had been, how they imagined it would be.


FATHER G (GUY): Most of my preconceptions of fatherhood were influenced by memories of my own father. I suppose I thought you had to be rather grown-up to be a father. Because I remember my father as being rather grown-up. It seemed impossible. Thinking, oh my God, how am I going to be suddenly grown-up overnight, a serious person, who didn't have time for fripperies and banalities, just did serious stuff like mow the lawn and wash the car at the weekend. Smoke cigars, drink whiskey. I didn't see how I was going to get to that. Fortunately I never had to.

FATHER H (HARVEY): I largely expected that I would take to smoking a pipe and spending more time in the shed making things from balsa wood. Neither has proved true. To find out more, you can check out Questions About Parenting.



Parenting Early Years

The brutal truth is that while most men would like children at some point, not every man wants them right now. It's not a good time. You've got work to think about. Money's too tight to mention. There are other thing, you'd rather be doing. You're too young. Life is fine as it is. You have problems with commitment. What about football on Saturdays? The fiat's too small.

Parenting Early Years

You were going to split up with her soon anyway. You don't want to sell your nifty bachelor's car and buy a Volvo. Everyone has his reasons. They are all good reasons, and they are all the same. It's all a bit too much like hard work.

To which your partner will say something like. 'That's totally selfish'. And what if it is?

You are a hunter-gatherer. It is your job to be selfish, when strangling a deer with your bare hands. And right now you would prefer to eat all that deer meat yourself, rather than having to give the best bits to young Jocasta or Kelly-Marie or Sid. (And isn't wanting to have children every bit as selfish as not wanting to? It is, but she will say that she is driven by fundamental biological needs, whereas you are just lazy and feckless. There is no winning this argument, although we all give it a go hundreds of times.)
 

Viewed from your current state of comfort (soon to end) there is no obvious upside to parenthood. Children are nasty, brutish and short. They are also expensive, malodorous and excessively fond of fish fingers. You have seen friends of yours, once young and vibrant, who within months of childbirth have been reduced to wizened, elderly husks, shorn of all hope and facing almost certain bankruptcy when the next credit card bill arrives. 

Years have passed: you have seen the men grow fat and complacent, the women become bitter and start eating Ryvita. Everyone shouts at each other all the time. Their sex life, so far as you can determine, has ceased. Having done what they were designed to do - create a screaming small child - their organs have withered and, in extreme cases, vanished completely. These are the people who now hang out in DIY shops, glumly eying up planks.
 

Before all this happened to me, I believed implicitly that people had children because it was the best way of filling up time. If you haven't time to do anything else or think of anything else, you are less likely to brood on the desperate pointlessness of human existence, and so leap to your death off the nearest bridge.
 
Only by exhausting yourself into premature old age can you still these doubts and anxieties, for then even the most meagre treat becomes something to savour. At my local pub I used to see a father of two who had managed to escape for perhaps 45 minutes to enjoy a pint of bitter, which he consumed in silence with a manly tear in his eye. No one talked to him. No one wanted to disturb him. Sometimes he would finish his drink too quickly.




You could see him wrestling with his conscience. Did he have time for another quick half? Could he afford it? He was a successful writer with a healthy and ever-expanding income, but you would never have guessed it by the way he peered pitifully at his handful of small change. Every extra sip, you felt, would tear a disposable nappy off his youngest son's freezing body. And so, head bowed, he trudged out, sighing like a corpse expelling its last breath of air. He wasn't the most glowing advertisement for the joys of fatherhood. To find out more, you can check out Parenting Early Years.