Women are not the only ones who go through pregnancy. I too have felt much of what my wife seems to be dealing with. I have been there for the highs and lows, the ups and the downs.
For example, men also experience the phenomenon that is pregnancy brain. With a child on the way I can’t spend my brain power trying to remember names, dates, and other useless data. I have to try to remember what all the books I have read say. The vocabulary alone is much like learning a new language in just a few short months. It could be that I am not listing when people are talking to me but its hard to pay attention to what they’re saying when inside I know there are only a few weeks left of my sanity. How to hold a baby (not like a football) how to change them, feed them, cloth them, bath them (apparently more than I do the dogs) and the list goes on and on and on. It’s a lot to keep up on.
I will say there are a few things that I need to remember. I must not forget that my wife needs help getting around more now then she used too. Help getting up, getting down, getting into the truck and getting into her shoes. It is also good to remember this before she has struggled for 5 minutes. At that point I should not offer to help, but run in the other direction.
As the husband you also go through all the strange cravings that your wife does. Cereal for dinner, sure. Peanut butter and oranges, why not. Papa John’s on speed dial, OK! You will go from eating 3 times a day to 6 just like your pregnant counterpart. This could lead into other pregnancy like symptoms as well.
Enter the “man bump”. A pregnant woman gains somewhere between twenty-five to thirty-five pounds but what they don’t tell you is that the husband will try his damdest to keep up. It’s pretty safe to say that I have put on ten or so over the last nine months. The remarkable part is that’s with substantially less beer.