Man's Reaction To Pregnancy

The situation is scarcely helped by the example of mums who, eleven minutes after giving birth, have already regained their fighting weight - thanks to careful diet, eight hours' exercise a day, a staff of 15 looking after the child and a quiet visit to a plastic surgeon to have the rest of the fat sucked out by giant Hoovers. Other celebrity mums, of course, choose to adopt because they are too vain to undergo the rigours of child birth, or too skeletal to be able to conceive. (I also understand that if you have had a lot of plastic surgery, you are also at risk of 'splitting' in lots of strange places, and having large chunks of foam burst out of you as though you were an old sofa.)
 

Man's Reaction To Pregnancy

As it happens, much of the fat a woman acquires during pregnancy can be burned off by breastfeeding. The body is hoarding for the future. As soon as the baby starts guzzling the mother's extra pounds should swiftly fall away. Indeed, she could end up thinner than she started - as long as she keeps on breastfeeding the child up to and including its GCSEs.
 
But that's for later. Right now all the mother-to-be can see are the extra pounds on the scale. It may hit her badly. She may lose confidence in her appearance. She may start wondering aloud what to wear. "None of my clothes fit me anymore,' she will say two months before it's true. Again, it's up to you to make her feel better about herself. Be kind and understanding. Shower her with appropriate compliments. Tell her how sexy she looks. Tell her pregnancy suits her. Her skin is glowing. Her hair is glossy. Her breasts look amazing. Give her the soft soap. She won't believe a word of it, except the bit about the breasts, which you have been staring at for the past fortnight. The absolute priority is: avoid the jokes. One man I know, when his girlfriend started complaining about her "child-bearing hips', suggested they were more like horse-bearing hips. Remarkably, they are no longer together, although I hear their foal is doing well.
 
The fact is, she probably will be looking better. In the second trimester comes the 'bloom'. Extra blood is being pumped to her skin, so her cheeks look rosier: she literally looks healthier. By months the morning sickness should be over, so she feels better as well. Her energy has come back. Her hair is looking fuller and thicker, because one of the strange by-products of pregnancy is increased hair growth. And it's not just on her head, either. Soon she should have enough pubic hair to stuff a decent-size cushion.

And so to the bump, which should finally emerge around now. (If you can't make it out from the general weight gain then she may really have eaten all the pies.) It's a glorious thing, the bump - a symbol of woman's fertility, of man's potency, and of future profit margins at Mothercare, Baby Gap and Toys R Us.

You may start fondling the bump (if she will let you), feeling around for movement within, staring at it, telling everyone about it, marveling at its great round weirdness. The revelation hits you: that Women Can Do This, and Men Can't. Not that you hadn't known this before, for you are not a dolt. But it is only now that the profound truth of it smacks you between the eyes.

For some men this is a moment to cherish, and may be the point at which you start fancying all pregnant women something rotten. For you were right when you were soft-soaping her earlier: she does look good, and as the bump comes into its own she will look better and better. (Fancying pregnant women need not stop with childbirth. If you are lucky it will be with you for the rest of your life.) To find out more, you can check out Man's Reaction To Pregnancy.

Pregnancy First Month Signs And Symptoms

• Girl sperms are larger and slower than boy sperms. They won't reach the egg as quickly, but they are more likely to get there in the end. They have more staying power, and they live longer.
• So to increase your chances of having a girl, you should really have had sex around two or three days before ovulation. Only the girl sperms will have lasted long enough to fertilise that huge furious egg when it is finally let loose.
• But if you wanted a boy, you should ideally have had sex on the very day of ovulation. Those lithe and athletic boy sperms will have reached the egg first, while the lumpen, large bottomed girl sperms lagged behind. 

Pregnancy First Month Signs And Symptoms

And even that may not be an end to it. You, as sperm donor, can have influenced the odds even before you engaged in full blooded sexual congress with your beloved. For if you have been in the habit of ejaculating frequently in the preceding weeks, as well as going blind, you will have markedly reduced the proportion of boy sperms in your semen. If you have fallen out of the habit of frequent ejaculation - and let's face it, who of us hasn't from time to time? - then boy sperms will have predominated. A father of four boys may look pleased with himself, but behind his smug grin lie desperation and bitterness.

He may even walk with a stoop. Whereas a father of four girls is often very good at table football. This also explains why so many people you know had a daughter first and a son afterwards (including me.) Armed with this information, you can spend many happy hours speculating about your friends' sex lives, just as they are speculating about yours. In medieval Germany people believed that if you had sex when it was raining you'd have a girl, whereas if the sun was shining it would be a boy. Haven't we come far?

Personally, I was happy not to know. I suspect that if you do find out, your mind gets to work and you start imagining all sorts of rubbish, much of it recycled from your own appalling childhood. Will I like this baby? Will it like me? You can speculate all you want, but the fact remains that you have no idea who this little individual will be - and simply knowing whether it's a he or a she won't change this. Until the birth all you will have is the evidence of your eyes. And until your baby grows to the size of a potato in the fourth month, you won't even have that.

At three months there isn't really a bump as such: only a hint of the joys to come. Swimming around in amniotic fluid, Junior is just about fully formed. Fingers, toes, eyes, ears - they are all there. He or she also has a covering of fine hair. Muscles are beginning to develop. Prod the infant and it will wriggle. It's a long way from being born, but already it knows that it doesn't like being prodded. Personality already! Fingernails follow later.

 
Even without the bump, the mother-to-be will be starting to gain weight. This may be a painful experience for her, and a deeply tedious one for you, especially if you love her and don't care how much she weighs. Such is the malevolent, misogynist influence of the gay men who run the fashion industry that most women now seem to equate even the smallest weight gain with moral failure. But there's no choice in the matter. Pregnant women put on extra pounds. It may be permanent, it may not. To find out more, you can check out Pregnancy First Month Signs And Symptoms.

What To Do In The 1st Trimester Of Pregnancy

More rundown of the restrictions your beloved will now be suffering.

What To Do In The 1st Trimester Of Pregnancy

• Passive smoking. OK, so she has given up smoking. It was a struggle, and she has only stabbed you twice in the three days since, but she has done it, and you are proud of her. Then you read somewhere that she must give up passive smoking as well. Eh? Should she go around with a fire extinguisher, just in case? Or never leave the house at all?
• Environmental factors. 'Before conceiving' writes Dr Miriam Stoppard, 'make sure you avoid X-rays, hot saunas and pollutants such as dioxins and PCBs (found in many garden and household products).' Christ almighty! was my first thought when I read that. Only the previous week my girlfriend had had her leg X-rayed after she had slipped in a pool of weedkiller in some Turkish baths. 
• Pate. Don't eat this. Can cause liver damage in babies. Don't even smell it (smelling = passive eating).
• Unpasteurized cheese. Gives them listeria (do all French babies have listeria?).
• High temperatures. Can damage foetus if maintained for several days. Avoid illness, saunas, piping hot baths, the Kalahari desert.
• Cat. If you stroke it, baby gets toxoplasmosis. Instead, throw can of Whiskas at its head. Ten points for a direct hit.
• Drugs. No, sorry. 
• Barbecued food. Store raw meat separately. Don't assume that if meat is charred on the outside it will be cooked properly on the inside. Wear a placard around your neck with the words 'I AM PREGNANT' written on it in marker pen and ring a large bell to make sure everyone knows you're coming. 
• Herbal teas. Steer clear of cohosh, pennyroyal, and mugwort. You do already? Very wise. 
• Seafood. Beware of sushi. Might have tapeworms! Beware of oysters. Full of bacteria! Beware of fish fingers. Taste like cardboard!
• Soft-boiled eggs. No, Salmonella. Also, may really be dinosaur eggs and could hatch and destroy world as we know it. (Salmonella slightly more likely.) 

Above all:

• Avoid stress, say the experts. There is only one way to do this. Ignore all experts.

By contrast, the following are guaranteed safe and carry no risk at all of anything.

• Biscuits (max. two packets a day).
• Daytime TV (EXCEPT repeats of 'Bergerac').
• Arguments with loved one (non-violent). 
• Unprotected sex (safer now than it will ever be). 

So where is it, this baby? For all her other physical symptoms the mother-to-be won't yet be' showing', as elderly female relatives would say. But it's not the baby's fault that it isn't big enough yet. At conception you would need a powerful microscope to see it. By two months it is the size (and indeed shape) of a broad bean. By three months it's as big as a squash ball. By four months it's a largish potato. By five months it's a TV remote control That's good growing, by any standards.

Meanwhile, you continue to wonder whether it's a girl or a boy. Are you going to have a boy who will play football for England? Or are you going to have a girl who will play football for England? Curiously it's all down to you, the father. As habitues of pub quizzes know, you produce sperm with 23 chromosomes. Twenty-two of them need not concern us here.

They regulate height, weight, colour of eyes and likelihood of playing football for England. It's the last chromosome, the sex chromosome, that makes the difference. An egg fertilised by a sperm with an X chromosome will grow up to be a girl. If it's a sperm with a Y chromosome it'll be a boy. And here's what else we know. To find out more, you can check out What To Do In The 1st Trimester Of Pregnancy.

Restriction Of Pregnancy

No wonder the mother's exhausted. If the physiological upheavals don't get her, the emotional ones will. In the second trimester, during the "glow' or 'bloom', she will be full of energy - enough to retile the bathroom, or build that new wall in the back garden. But for now all she will want to do is lie on the sofa and eat biscuits. Be kind. Encourage her to put her feet up. Score brownie points now, while it's easy to. Above all, be patient. She needs to be looked after. Is there nobody else who can do it? Then you'll have to.
 

Restriction Of Pregnancy

Just watch out for the tears. When she's not tired, she'll probably be crying. Old weepie films will set her off. Country music, the sight of babies in prams, nasty stories in the news, memories of childhood and/or dead relatives or friends ... to be honest, even an unfavorable weather forecast may open the floodgates.

Double your tissue supply and try to remain calm, for this could be the most severe test of your relationship yet. It's bad enough when they cry when there's something wrong, but for many men the non-stop waterworks of the first trimester can prove challenging. If you have had a hard day, you may find yourself glugging the wine with ever-increasing abandon, leading to the first great Vicious Circle Of Pregnancy.

Why should mother-to-be suddenly express concern at your drinking? Because she can't drink herself, of course. Neither can she smoke or take drugs. Her doctor will throw up his hands in horror if she so much as looks at a chunk of unpasteurized cheese. And if she spends too much time surfing the internet, she will read bloodcurdling reports ('US study links coffee and miscarriage') that will stop her doing everything else that is fun, too. Still, you have to be careful. 

Pregnancy is the most extraordinary upheaval. During pregnancy and birth, virtually every part of a woman's body undergoes some form of physiological change. She can have backaches, bleeding gums, piles and nosebleeds. She can suffer nausea, heartburn, stomach cramps, headache, joint pain, indigestion and crippling tiredness, as well as insomnia. Her feet can swell up, her bones can go soft, her saliva can taste disgusting. Have I mentioned varicose veins? Or stretch marks? It's a great list, which contains more than a dozen excellent excuses not to have sex with you. And I bet she can think of a few more.

She can't drink, she can't smoke. Pregnancy experts can roll out endless lists of dos and don'ts, and their long misshapen fingers wag bonily at you should you ignore them. Given the strictness of the advice now on offer, it's amazing that any babies at all are born without two heads or a packet of Benson & Hedges in their top pocket. Here is a quick rundown of some of the restrictions your beloved will now be suffering. You can be sympathetic and understanding, or you can mock loudly - it's up to you.

• Folic acid, which is one of the vitamin B family. Everyone knows that pregnant women should take folic acid supplements (it reduces the risk of some birth defects, like spina bifida). Now, I read that they should ideally 'increase folic acid consumption' not just before conception, but three months before they stop contraception. Does anyone ever find this out in time? Or is this advice put in just to make you feel bad about yourself before you have even started?
• Physical fitness. All mothers to be are constantly bullied on their fitness levels. Paula Radcliffe would probably pass muster, but no one else ever does. Swim 50 lengths a day! Cut out lard from your diet! Eat bananas by the lorryload! Have a leg removed to keep your weight down! By the same token, though, pregnant women must 'avoid violent exercise'. No more rugby league, then, and she may add this to the list of excuses not to have sex with you.

To find out more, you can check out Restriction Of Pregnancy.

Changes In Your Body During Pregnancy First Trimester

Incidentally, be aware that miscarriage seems to involve some of the nastiest terms in the medical lexicon. Doctors occasionally refer to a miscarriage as a 'spontaneous abortion'. If the embryo has not developed properly it might be called a "blighted ovum', About a quarter of miscarriages in the second trimester are caused by the cervix getting ahead of itself and opening prematurely. This is called an 'incompetent cervix'. These are not terms anyone who has recently had a miscarriage needs to hear.
 

Changes In Your Body During Pregnancy First Trimester

If all is going to plan, your beloved should now be showing the first physical symptoms of pregnancy. Some unscrupulous men keep a list of these on their person at all times.

• Morning sickness. Or more properly, 'morning' sickness, as most writers on the subject are keen to stress that feelings of nausea can arise at any time of day. Some women will barf copiously, others will just mope around feeling ghastly, while a few are spared morning sickness and so are hated by all other mothers-to-be. Don't try and claim you are suffering morning sickness yourself, especially if you had a drink or two the night before.
• Tiredness. They vomit in the morning, and in the evening they are knackered. They're really good fun, the first few months of pregnancy.
• Weak bladder. Most men under 35 are correctly proud of their extraordinary bladder capacity, for which they will pay in later life with regular nocturnal visits to the toilet. For women, this process begins during pregnancy. Even in the first few months they can barely look at a glass of water without wanting a pee. Try and wean them off diuretic drinks like tea and Coca Cola. Alternatively, carry a bucket. 
• Breasts. They will become tender and may tingle a little. This is nothing to do with you, although you may as well take the credit. The veins on her breasts may also be more prominent, and her breasts may actually feel heavier - to you as well as to her. So if she starts talking about moving up a bra size, try to be sensitive, and don't make any jokes about eating all the pies. 
• Smell. This is the real killer, especially for those unscrupulous men we were talking about earlier. One of the odder symptoms of pregnancy is a drastically enhanced sense of smell. She will know that the milk has gone off before you have opened the fridge door. My partner says she could smell someone smoking on the other side of the street, even if she was indoors with all the windows closed. There are sound biological reasons for this: smell helps mother and baby to bond immediately after the birth. After only a couple of days a mother may be able to identify her infant merely by its smell. 

The main thing to remember is that she, too, is having to adjust to a new and very strange state of affairs. Think of what is happening to her body. Unfamiliar hormones are whooshing through her bloodstream. Soon she will start gaining weight - a terrifying prospect to most women who are not already generously upholstered. 

Meanwhile, at all times of day and night, alien words and phrases are popping unbidden into her mind. Stretch marks, Varicose veins. Mothercare. Without being told to by anyone, her body is gearing up for action. For the next nine months it will have one priority: to grow a baby. Everything else, including the mother's health and well-being, will come second. The conscious mind has no role to play in any of this, which may come as a shock to the conscious mind, which has had things very much its own way up to now. But the body was already programmed for this at birth, and has been ready since puberty. The mind is the passenger here; for once the vehicle is driving itself. To find out more, you can check out Changes In Your Body During Pregnancy First Trimester.

Early Miscarriage Sadness

Most other options are variants on these. They include The Condom Split At The Crucial Moment; She'd Miscounted Her Days; She Said It Was Safe, The Cow; and We Like To Plan Everything Down To The Tiniest Detail And Before You Ask, We Already Know It's A Boy.

 
But whichever brand of lies you choose, these are good moments for expectant fathers. Mothers-to-be are said to 'glow' at various stages in a pregnancy (although they would be the first to admit that they look like shit on a stick at others). Fathers-to-be may enjoy a similar luminescent effect for completely different reasons. Relentless ego massage is good for the soul, and can persuade the most stubborn doubter that fatherhood may actually be worth doing. You never know, you might even be quite good at it. As you look in the mirror next morning, you are admiring the cut of your jib, just think about the magnificent genes passing on to your child. They are far too good to waste. He/she should be grateful that you are his/her Daddy and not some other wastrel or fat bloke. So what's the problem? Isn't it about time you grew up? Can parenthood really be that awful? And if it is, you can always leave.

Incidentally, that last sentence probably isn't one you should say out loud. Miscarriage, of course, is possible. Around a third of all first pregnancies end this way. The real danger zone is between eleven and 13 weeks, after which you're almost in the clear (around three quarters of miscarriages occur in the first trimester). It's at best an unpleasant experience, at worst traumatic. It also may be a one-off. An embryo fails to develop as it should, so the body cuts its losses and expels it. For some women a miscarriage is a sort of training run. Next time she gets pregnant her body will be better prepared and should make a stronger baby. Some women will miscarry several times before going to full term, but in most cases the probabilities remain in their favor.

FERGUS: The first miscarriage I hadn't really felt anything much. For the second one we went in for the scan, and they were putting the thing over the stomach, and there was absolutely nothing there on the screen, so we said, where is it? And she said, I'm afraid it's gone. And I had a delayed reaction. I remember being with some friends two nights after and I suddenly felt unbelievably sad and I burst into tears, rather embarrassingly, in this restaurant. The intensity of my response seemed to come from nowhere.

IVAN: That was fairly ghastly, the whole miscarriage thing, that was horrible. I think when you go through a miscarriage, it's awful for the woman, and men tend not to know how to react. But it's just as hard for us. Everything is focused on the mother. And fathers just have to get on with things. I found that quite hard. But it was great when she became pregnant again, because the last thing you want after a miscarriage is a huge gap. It's like falling off a bike and getting back on again. I know that's a crude allusion, but ...

Early miscarriage may not cause her much physical pain, beyond period-like cramps, but her sense of loss may be overwhelming. Do not underestimate her need to grieve. (Or yours for that matter.) A later miscarriage - 13 to 24 weeks - may be more physically demanding, necessitating a sort of mini-labor to expel the foetus. This is not something either of you would easily forget.

But do not be deterred. However appalling the experience, most women who miscarry will give birth to a healthy baby next time round. For there will be a next time round. It's remarkable how many reluctant fathers-to-be lose all trace of their former reluctance after a miscarriage. Perhaps they needed a trial run too. To find out more, you can check out Early Miscarriage Sadness.