The whole nine yards – AND A BIT
As we head towards the final days of our first pregnancy experience, my head is swirling cocktails of thoughts which has some of the following ingredients – what is it like to be a father? Will I be a good one? What if I am not dad material? There is so much growing that I need to do – as an individual. What happens to that now? ….and it goes on.
Well. While I am sure I will get the answers to most of the above questions by and by, there is this curious need in me to pen down ‘MY pregnancy experience.’ I hope that it brings some insight to all the ‘expecting men’ and besides being better prepared, they are able to get more brownie points from their wives for being a knowledgeable ‘expecting father.’
Disclaimer: No two pregnancies are the same. My blog, at most, can throw light on one perspective of the entire experience. Expecting anything beyond is at your own peril.
First Things First – 9 months is a misnomer
Pregnancy Term = 40 weeks
12 months = 52 weeks
9 months = ? weeks
Well… even if you are a math genius.. the answer to this question will always be ‘it depends.’ You may come up with a decimal answer but to be precise you need to know which months we are talking about and even then it many not give you a true reflection of the pregnancy term. In a nutshell, Stop Counting the Months. Start Counting the Weeks. And say out aloud ‘Pregnancy is not for 9 months. It is for 40 weeks.’ And I assure you the next time when you say ‘honey, we just completed 26 weeks.’ You are laughing all the way to the bank with those kind of brownie points.
The Planning
‘My wife is expecting’ – True. ‘We are expecting’ – True + Politically Correct + Brownie Points from wife for wording it that way. Now, depending on which part of the world you are in, the above mentioned statement may receive a raised eyebrow with an immediate offering to correct your ‘grammar.’ I certainly did. My response? A courteous smile and change in subject.
Back at home, the day has come when you need to get a confirmation on the ‘all the right signals’ that your wife is getting. So you get the ‘toolkit’ from the pharmacy and pop the following question as soon as she steps out the laboratory. Are you positive? Are you positive you are positive? Is double positive a negative in any form of Math? Ummm.. okay. So we are positive? Right? Great. Let’s do this one more time…
Positive it is.
It wasn’t an accident. No sir it wasn’t. It was a premeditated planned cold blooded pregnancy. The way you do it by marking circles on the calendar and then following the plan to a T. That’s one way of doing it and I would like to believe that’s the way most people do it. A pregnancy out of accident happens only when it is least wanted. That would entail a completely different set of emotions. So I am not even going there. So Focus.
Your wife is holding the magnificent strip which has your preferred color (I am not going to get into technicalities of shades of color). There is this bewildered expression – to start with – on each face. Wife’s expression signifying: joy, more joy, and then some more. You get the picture. Husband’s expression signifying: Joy, seeking confirmation that wife is indeed joyous, again joy upon confirmation that wife is joyous.
Important note to my dear fellow country and cross border men – the first thing that you need to do even before thinking about making a baby is identifying a good Gynecologist for your wife. If she has one already – Great! If she has one and you find her a better one and are able to provide proof that she is a better one – even Greater! If she does not have one and you get her one with proof and all… unimaginable brownie points.(Keep collecting those brownie points…you will be making enough mistakes in the next ’40 weeks’ and beyond to neutralize the advantage and thereafter have a negative balance).
The 1st Trimester
Morning sickness is a misnomer.
It’s probably already a month and half before you discover that your wife is expecting after all the initial discovery bit that I talked about earlier (no technicalities in this blog… to check when does the actual date of pregnancy start… see your Gynecologist… FOCUS).
It’s post the first couple of months that the actual symptoms start to show up. In my case, she would be (pregnancy) sick – morning, day and night. I really wonder why they call it morning sickness then. Maybe it was coined by someone who only faced this sickness in the morning and since then it has stuck on. Oh, well. In the midst of all this, what is your role? Pretty simple. Be as supportive as you can. Pull her hair back when she’s going through the sickness bout, give a gently massage on the back and be in the vicinity. That’s the most you can do. She would hardly feel like eating anything and there ain’t much you can do about that. At this time, she would lose her sense of taste and everything would taste like steel. She would need to gulp down food as though it is medicinal with a constant reminder that it’s not only for her health but also for the health of BUD – baby under development.
Earlier when we had discovered on the ‘positive’ news, I had gone out and bought her the book ‘What to expect when you are expecting.’ A must have for any expecting couple. It’s very detailed and you get to clear most of your doubts by going through that book. For any anxieties that men are experiencing, well, you go fix an appointment with a well qualified psychologist.
Here is another ‘side effect’ of pregnancy which is most astounding. While she was losing her sense of taste, her sense of smell became so elevated that it started to resemble a hound dog. She would get to know what’s cooking in the entire neighborhood. I discovered this when one fine morning I walked out of shower and got the most disgusting look from my wife. I stopped on my heels with complete amazement trying to figure my folly. Little did I know, that the blunder I had made was to use a ‘soap.’ Since she had now grown a heightened sense of smell, all fragrances now were hurting her senses. Well, a little difficult to earn brownie points in this kind of situation, you say? Well, you get some for making the effort. I walked over to the nearest grocery store and picked up 10 different kinds of soaps while sniffing each and every single one of them. This was done with a lot of stealth, I should mention that, lest you come across as an individual with an obsessive compulsive disorder.
What happened next? As I reproduced all the variety of soaps in front of my wife, each and every soap failed the ‘maternity nose’ test miserably. No matter which soap I used, as soon as I stepped out after a bath, I continued to get the same disgusted look from my wife. End result? I bathed without soap for some time and used a deodorant only once I had stepped out of the house. After a few weeks, my well-intentioned wife permitted me to use soaps and life smelled beautiful again.
2nd and 3rd Trimester
All the symptoms that I mentioned in the 1st Trimester period continued well into the 2nd trimester. However, a miracle was on the horizon as she was approaching her 6th month. Her sense of smell was returning to human levels, her taste buds were not being as defiant and she was starting to get her appetite back. Also, her ‘sickness’ was almost gone and she was now able to eat decent portions of meals. This was also the period when she started to put on some weight. To be fair to her, she didn’t throw around much of it. It would help though if you went domestic for some time. Small initiatives would do the trick. Take a lead on some of the household chores as she would be feeling exhausted with carrying all that weight around, prepare her a quick snack, avoid socializing without her, go to the doctor with her on all the check ups. In my case, doing some of these things helped. Figure out her needs in your case and see what you can do about it. Some of the additional things that might help – massage the legs (as she will have cramps every now and then), affirm her views about herself (if she is saying she has pregnancy glow – well, she has it – no arguments), go for a quick shopping trip as her clothes will be out of whack (not too much driving though or clubbing any other shopping).
Oh yes, one more thing. Ultrasound. From the 1st to the 3rd trimester, there will be few Ultrasounds that will take place. If you are not from India and are reading this, you don’t get to know the sex of the child as that is against the law. You will however get to know the health of the mother and child, which is the original purpose of the Ultrasound. Towards the end of the 3rd trimester, there will be one last Ultrasound that will take place. It’s also called the Doppler test. This is the big daddy of all the other ultrasounds because it will give you the status quo on the baby’s health and call out any areas of attention.
The final frontier: 37th – 40th Week
The wait got agonizingly slow when it came down to the final few weeks. I was sitting in the 40th week of my wife’s pregnancy and every time she ever so slightly made a sigh, from any corner of the house, I would jump on my feet and appear in front of her not knowing how the ‘sigh’ was to be interpreted. This would go on till, well, the D-day of course. There was a lot of anticipation everywhere and it was difficult to…FOCUS. My In laws had moved in with us for this last leg of the journey. There was comfort in the idea that there was someone to take my wife to the hospital when I was away at work. Though that did not bring my ensuing anxiety levels down a great deal.
Mood Swings
Usually this is a big call out. Not so much in my case. Unlike most people (men and women) who swear by the ‘vagaries of an expecting woman’s temperament,’ I did not have to face such a situation. Thankfully, my wife was reasonable in her demands. Like a craving every now and then for a special kind of cuisine (Chinese) or ice cream (choco bar). Sorry guys you are on your own on this one. A simple advice when the craving strikes – get what she wants, when she wants and life will be peaceful. If you can stock up your fridge with certain food items, by all means – do that.
Of course, the male species go through mood swings as well. While women are going through this psychological, emotional and physical life altering experience, men are silently shitting bricks as well. Not so silent in some cases. As we landed in the final couple of weeks, my wife and I started to give each other some stiff competition. In order to calm my fledgling nerves, I tried meditation, long walks, yoga, kickboxing, music, dance – to name a few. Well, all of it helped to some extent or the other. Find your calling and go for it.
The Labor Chamber
The 40th week has kicked in and I merrily (you think?) reach office.
10:40 AM:
It’s been just about one hour and I get a call from my wife – ‘I think my water broke.’ I say to myself – ‘You think?’ To be fair to her, it is her first time. To be fair to my reaction, it is my first time too. The scene was perfectly set for my in-laws to get into action. So while I hurriedly unplug the laptop and ‘decide’ to get into a panic mode, my in-laws drive my wife to the nearby hospital which was about 20 mins drive. I get into my car and rush to reach my home first. I need to pick the ‘cord stem cells packet’ from the refrigerator (more on cord stem cells in another blog…FOCUS.) which was left for me to pick up from home.
12:30 PM:
I reach the hospital and am told that my wife is in the labor room. I am also told that entry in the labor room is ‘by invitation from the doctor only.’ I show the lady guard what I have in my hands (what I picked up from home…FOCUS) and she smiles and says that she would hand it over to the doctor for me. She also tells me she will check with the doctor if I can go in. I step out onto the hallway where you have the hospital like immovable plastic chairs stacked up against a wall. I see a couple of families sitting there and looking at me with a knowing acknowledgment. I bob my head and take the seat closest to the labor room. In another few minutes, I am summoned by the doctor. I go in wondering what to expect. I see our gynecologist there and ask her if my wife is about to deliver. I am told there is still some time. I look around and notice that there are three separate chambers. As I strain my neck to peep into each one of them, I see my wife merrily walking towards me from one of those chambers with a smile on her face. With a bewildered expression on my face, I ask her if her water really broke or was she referring to some other broken piece of item at home? I ask her how come she is not in the bed and instead strolling around like an evening walk at the park. The doctor jumps to her defense and says she is only in early labor and there is still plenty of time. I am told that we will need to ‘induce pain’ if natural labor pains does not start. I glare at my wife with an incredulous look and she pacifyingly looks at me suggesting that she will ‘work on’ natural labor pains knowing that it’s beyond her control.
2:30 PM:
I am sitting along with other expectant fathers and there is still no news from the labor chamber. I check whether I can go in and I am told wait for the ‘invitation.’ I feel like ‘Neo’ sitting there outside awaiting the call from the ‘Oracle’ (for the uninitiated: ref. the movie ‘Matrix’). While my head is spinning thinking that she might be undergoing labor pains right this moment, I hear a voice from behind saying ‘hello.’ I turn around and my wife astounds me again. She is standing there with a half wry smile. I am told that the process to induce pain has been initiated and she has been told to take a walk to induce it further. After 5 mins of walk in the park, she goes back inside.
5:30 PM:
When I am tensed, I tend to stay quiet and with my thoughts. When I have a certain company of my father in law, both the aforementioned options are not available. Through his networking skills, I got to know that in the waiting area we had another expectant father who was a tad bit early in visiting the hospital. It was a case of premature labor and the efforts were on to keep the baby in the womb, so to speak. In a way, I feel blessed that we touched the 40th week without any ‘broken items.’ Though that does not alleviate any of the tension that I am going through at this time.
8:30 PM:
As I check with the lady guard on any updates from the world beyond, I am told that the labor pains have kicked in, albeit not at the levels which would call for ‘expect news anytime now.’ I am summoned inside and told that I can spend a few minutes in the name of spousal support. At this time I am wondering how they show the husbands in the delivery room holding hands of their wives in various movies and soaps across channels. And why this differential treatment towards me. Maybe they would call me right when there is more certainty of the baby popping out. I spend a few minutes with my wife and step out again.
10:30 PM:
The final summon. This time there is an urgency. I am told that the baby’s pulse is dropping and we are far from home as far as natural delivery is concerned. They would need to do a C-section as there is fetal distress and they would need to do it quick. As I see my wife being shifted in one of those portable beds, a bunch of paperwork is thrown into my face. I am told I need to sign it. In that haze of a moment, the only words that I am able to register are ‘emergency, operation, consent, accountable.’ With one eye on my wife who now had a breathing mask on her face, I sign on the paper immediately. What was difficult to see was my wife being told to sign on the document as well. With half consciousness and awareness, a pen is thrusted in her hand and she signs on the document. As I see the attendants push the portable bed inside the elevator and the doctor walking alongside, I say to the doctor ‘I hope there is nothing to worry about.’ The response is a stark silence as the elevator door closes.
11 PM:
I am waiting outside the emergency room which is located in one corner of the hospital. I see a woman in casual clothes rushing through the hallway and then disappearing. And then minutes later I see her again. This time, in a medical outfit rushing into the emergency section. My heart is racing and my mind enveloped with all sorts of thoughts. I have no other option but to wait.
11:45 PM:
An attendant from the emergency room walks out. I am told that the mother and ‘baby’ are fine. A sense of relief washes over me. I am now a brand new father of a baby boy. I feel I have aged in the last few hours of my life like never before.