Deciding To Keep Your Baby

Even after conception, the old wives have some useful tricks. If an American woman wants to know the sex of her child, she is advised to pour Drano (a widely available bleach) down her toilet, and then pee on it. If the liquid turns blue, she'll have a boy. If it turns pink, she'll have a girl. Millions of Americans, possibly including Drano's marketing department, believe this to be true. 
 

Deciding To Keep Your Baby

Alternatively, a woman will have a boy if her belly gets hairy, or her nipples go dark, or her hands become dry and chapped, or she craves meals and cheeses. She will have a girl if she gets red highlights in her hair, or she craves sweets, or her feet get hot or her face goes spotty. Pregnant women who look a little rough around the edges will also have girls, because girls are said to steal their mothers' looks (you can just imagine the pursed-lipped American matron who dreamt that one up). Right breast larger than the left? It's a boy. Bad morning sickness early in the pregnancy? It's a girl. Brain feels as though it's about to explode? You've been reading too many old wives' tales.
 
And then try this one. Suspend a wedding ring held by a piece of thread over the palm of the pregnant woman. (Some versions of this insist that the wedding ring be the woman's own, and that the thread be a strand of the father's hair. But some don't.) If the ring now swings in an oval or circular motion, congratulations! You have a girl. And if the ring swings in a straight line, yes! It's a boy. And if the ring swings all over the place in no obvious pattern, you are standing out of doors in a high wind and really should take this more seriously. 

Now for the Biggest Question Of All:
 
DO YOU ACTUALLY WANT IT? 

Some men have wanted to be fathers for as long as they can remember. They have always seen themselves as fathers-to-be. They know what it all entails and they are prepared for it. They are lucky, lucky men.

ANTHONY: I hoped fatherhood would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. It was something I had always wanted, but some of my previous partners hadn't wanted to be mums. It felt natural and the right time to do it. I couldn't think of a more worthwhile or satisfying thing to do or be. 

FATHER E (ERNIE): The overwhelming sensation I had when I first heard was relief. I'd wanted kids for years and years and years, and the big worry is that you're firing blanks. Second feelings were happiness, of course. Third feelings were, what does Eva think of it? I remember her being quite frightened, and then her deciding, if we're going to do it, let's do it properly. And then the fourth one was, I wonder if it's mine?

A lot of men, though, are more ambivalent. There are no secrets here. You are among friends. You can be as viciously honest as you wish. If the answer is a big shiny Yes, we will be delighted for you. But if the answer is No, no one will blame you. And if there is a small kernel of No within the big shiny Yes, we will understand totally. You can say Yes! to your loved ones, you can scream YES!! from the rooftops, but look hard at yourself in the mirror and you might find that the word 'No' involuntarily pops into your mind. In some cases it's more like NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO, but the effect is broadly the same.

FATHER F (FERGUS): I felt depressed, in a way that I did when left university. Knowing that I had to leave, when I had been very happy there, but knowing it was time to move on. Similarly, when the time came to have children, I felt depressed to have arrived at that stage in my life. And I also felt guilty that I wasn't more excited, and having to pretend I was. To find out more, you can check out Deciding To Keep Your Baby.

Determine The Sex Of Your Baby Old Wives Tales

Once pregnancy is established, people will insist on asking the Big Questions. Some of these Big Questions have no answers. Some have too many answers. Some you will be asking yourself for the rest of your life. This post seeks to solve your more immediate philosophical and metaphysical conundrums, while shamelessly delaying the more complicated ones until later.
 

Determine The Sex Of Your Baby Old Wives Tales

IS IT YOURS? 

Well, is it? Here's a story to consider.
 
During the American Civil War, at the Battle of Raymond in Mississippi in 1863, a young soldier was hit by a bullet in the scrotum. Fortunately, it left as quickly and cleanly as it had arrived, but when next he looked, his left testicle had gone. Very shortly afterwards, in a nearby house, a 17-year-old girl was also hit by a bullet, in her case in the left side of the abdomen. 278 days later, she gave birth to a healthy 81b boy, 'to the surprise of herself and the mortification of her parents and friends.' 

Three weeks later Dr T. G. Capers of Vicksburg operated on the baby, and extracted a miniball. Dr Capers had known the young testicle-deprived soldier, and came to the following startling conclusion: that this was the same miniball that had carried away the lost testicle, that it had penetrated the ovary of the girl and that some unusually hardy spermatozoa had managed to impregnate her. Boldly Dr Capers approached the young man and told him of his theory. The soldier, who obviously had nothing to lose (other than his other testicle), agreed to visit the young mother. They became friends, fell in love, got married and had three more children. None of these resembled the father as strongly as the first.
 
Oh yes, it's yours all right. Next Question.
 
IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL? 

Heinz had 57 varieties; babies, fortunately, have only two. Everyone, though, has absurdly strong feelings about which of the two they want to have and which of the two they expect to arrive. As it happens, technology exists that can tell you for certain whether you are going to have a boy or a girl. At the first ultrasound scan (of which more later) the person with the white coat and the huge tube of jelly will know instantly, at a single glance. But he/she may not be able to tell you, the parent.

Unfortunately it has come to general notice that certain racial and/or religious sub-groupings in the UK are only interested in having boys, and would be inclined to have girl foetuses terminated without a further thought. Never mind that you may not be a member of any of these sub-groupings and that you wholeheartedly approve of the invention of the wheel. If it's hospital policy, and in cities it often is, the ultrasound person won't tell you. You'll just have to wait until the birth, like the couple with the seven daughters and the wild staring eyes who are next in the queue.
 
So forget technology. Instead, consult old wives' tales. You might as well. What they may lack in scientific methodology they make up for in sheer weirdness. All the following are guaranteed true - which is to say that some people genuinely believe them to be true, not that they have any bearing on real life whatsoever. And yet, who knows? Did these old wives know something we don't? Or was it the tales that were old, not the wives?
 
Let's say, then, that you too want a boy. Then, according to folk wisdom, you should have intercourse at night, or on odd days of the month, or standing up, or when there is a quarter moon. The prospective mother should sleep on the left hand side of the bed, and face northwards during intercourse. The Prospective father should be the one to instigate sexual relations, and at all other times drink Coca-Cola. 

If you want a girl, both of you should eat fish and vegetables. You should have sex during a full moon, or during the afternoon. The prospective mother must instigate the sex. She should then make sure she reaches orgasm first and after that she should think Pink. You think I'm joking, don't you? In the United Arab Emirates there are only 52 women for every 100 men, and it's illegal to think in any shade vermilion and aquamarine. To find out more, you can check out Determine The Sex Of Your Baby Old Wives Tales.

Fear Of Fatherhood

For while the women do the physical stuff, it's the men who must carry the burden of responsibility. Not economic responsibility, necessarily: I'm not suggesting that all men are, or should be, the sole breadwinners, although many will turn out to be. Nor moral, nor social, nor emotional, nor intellectual, nor political responsibility, come to that: each couple must make their own arrangements for these. No, I'm talking purely about internal responsibility - the weight of the knowledge that such a trivial event (unprotected sex) can have such far-reaching and longlasting consequences. It is an extraordinary imbalance, and almost impossible to come to terms with. Women, luckily for them, am busy suffering the day-to-day misery of pregnancy.
 

Fear Of Fatherhood

They haven't got time to think about any of this. Whereas, for the first few months, we have virtually nothing else to think about. And if you are at all reluctant, the same sentence will be going through your mind over and over and over again. How could I have been so fucking stupid?

You only have to do it once to make a baby. When do you learn the truth of this? Only, I believe, when you actually make someone pregnant. Until that moment you always assume you have a certain leeway. This may have something to do with the endless scare stories in the press about declining sperm counts.

Thanks to stress, pollution, junk food and cheap red wine, British sperm counts are falling off the map. As a nation we are roughly half as fertile as we were during World War Two. By 2030, it has been predicted, a single man in Redhill, Surrey, will have to service the entire female population. All other men will be sitting miserably in pubs or having sex with farm animals. An entire nation will be shooting blanks. 

Eventually, randy Finns and Americans - the most potent nationalities, according to authoritative new research coming out of Finland and the USA will have to be flown in to ease the problem. Resentful though we may be in our hearts, we will welcome these foreign usurpers, for without their assistance, our old age will be everybody's old age.

Bad news for Britain, then, but maybe very good news for British men who don't want to have children. If men's sperm counts have declined overall, chances are that each man's has decline specifically. Many of us, in other words, have been playing Russian roulette without any bullets at all. Who needs condoms? In fact, over-confidence breeds complacency, followed quickly by children. Sperm counts may be falling, but not fast enough to save you. Here are some good words to remember:

• fertile
• potent
• fruitful 
• firing on all cylinders 

Your testicles, which may now develop a psychosomatic ache, forcing you to take several days off work, are doing only what nature intended them to do. Good grief, if you felt like it, you could probably make some more. 

Let's face it: man is genetically programmed to procreate. Centuries of civilization may have eroded his ability to catch fish with his bare teeth, but he still wants to spread his seed on a Friday night. As adults and (we'd like to think) sensible, civilized human beings, we are naturally quite embarrassed by these compulsions and try our utmost to suppress them. Then we have a drink or two and make total fools of ourselves. All we are doing when we leer at girls is following our biological imperative, which is to impregnate as many of them as we can get away with. 

Kingsley Amis, after his sex drive faded away, said it had been like 50 years 'chained to an idiot'. It is this idiot who makes the babies; it is us who must answer for his action. If this doesn't seem a particularly good deal, that's because it isn't.
 
In other words: it isn't your fault. Don't beat yourself up about it. All your instincts - which is to say your penis, and particularly the very tip of the penis when it thinks sex is in the offing - have been telling you to make babies. Your brain cells have been trying to tell you to have a cold bath and an early night with a nice cup of cocoa, but you haven't been listening.

No one ever does, and that's just the way it is. Without men like you, selflessly sacrificing their youth and sanity, Britain would grind to a halt. You never know: it could be you in 2030 in Redhill, Surrey, servicing the entire female population. Then you'd be sorry. Or at least, very very tired. To find out more, you can check out Fear Of Fatherhood.

Tricked Into Fatherhood

So how do you feel? Now that you know you are going to be a father?
 
FATHER A (ANTHONY): Ecstatic. I'd wanted to be a dad for many years and it was like a dream come true.

FATHER B (BASIL): A combination of (a) elation, (b) denial, (c) an absurd and rather pathetic rush of masculine pride, and (d) a distinct sense that the world had changed.

FATHER C (CLIFF): Scared, I think, was the overriding feeling.

FATHER D (DUNCAN): Horrified, would be the answer.

Tricked Into Fatherhood

Surprised, shocked. It was unexpected, that's the thing. You've got plans in your life and ideas and goals and things you want to do, and the news that it's suddenly going to change, it's a big shock. I found it quite difficult to take on board.
 
Myself, I felt my heart sink into my stomach, my stomach drop into my pants and my testicles fall through the floor. It's a strange sensation, being roughly half a storey lower in your spirits than in your body; and quite different, somehow, to other moments of crisis in your life. I have been sacked from jobs and I have been dumped by girlfriends, and both feel much the same. 'Of course,' you say when they give you the bad news, 'I totally understand,' even though you don't. You're just trying to maintain your dignity by being absurdly reasonable. It's quite different when you learn that you are going to be a father. 'I don't understand,' you say. But this time you do, totally.
 
It is God's little miracle. Or it is probability thwarted - the victory of blind chance against those very large numbers. Or it is a sign. Or it is simple good/bad luck (delete as appropriate). Some people try for years to do this. They work and work at it, wearing away their primary sexual organs until they are no use to anyone. Sex becomes a chore, parenthood an obsession. Many couples invest huge sums in IVF treatments, disregarding the success rate, so desperate are they to hand on their genetic inheritance to another generation, whether that generation wants it or not.

It may have taken you this long, and this much effort, to make your baby. Or, to use Ben Elton's favorite noun (and verb), it may have required only a single, idle shag. It may have been planned, or accidental, or something of both.
 
Prospective mother: 'It's planned."
 
Prospective father: 'It's an accident.'
 
(Note here for reluctant fathers. It is generally considered bad form to say 'It's a mistake.' It may well be a mistake, although few parents will say this for certain until their child is about 30. 'Accident' is more diplomatic, and less likely to be remembered later by hostile witnesses when everything goes wrong.) 

But however it has come about, the result is the same. You are going to be a father. It's time to move to stage two of the process: Get Used To It.
 
THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE 

The books are very clear on this. Fatherhood is the ultimate challenge. By comparison, wrestling tigers with your bare hands is child's play. Scoring winning goals in FA Cup Finals? Any fool can do that. But creating something out of nothing, and then paying for its upkeep for a quarter of a century - that's a true test of your mettle.
 
Not that everyone thinks this. Some people (all of whom are women) believe that fathers have the easy option. Our contribution, they say, amounts to just a few minutes bumping and grinding (which shamefully ignores the several seconds of diligent foreplay we also bring to the feast). After that, they say, the woman has to do everything. She must lose her shape. She must buy a whole load of new clothes that are even less flattering than her old clothes. She must puff and gasp and swear as the baby grows ever fatter within her. For nine months she must feed this tiny succubus with the very core of her being. And then, when all hope is lost, she must endure the unspeakable physical and psychological trauma of giving birth. Whereas all we have to do is stand around looking faintly concerned.
 

They are right. It's all true. As is so often the man's lot, we must delegate much of the hands.on physical work to others, and content ourselves with a purely managerial or consultative role, It's our job, for example, to say 'Are you sure you should be carrying that? It looks terribly heavy,' while not lifting a finger to help. During their wife or girlfriend's pregnancy, if it hasn't happen before, most men will discover the Homer Simpson that lurks within. Look in the mirror: the process may already have begun. Women talk enough about the physical changes that they must experience during pregnancy, but men are not immune. You will grow fat, you may lose your hair, and beer will be your friend. And there is not the slightest thing you can do about it. To find out more, you can check out Tricked Into Fatherhood.