Read Dude, You're Gonna Be a Dad! Online

Authors: John Pfeiffer

Tags: #HEALTH & FITNESS / Pregnancy & Childbirth, #HUMOR / Topic / Marriage & Family, #FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Fatherhood

Dude, You're Gonna Be a Dad! (2 page)

BOOK: Dude, You're Gonna Be a Dad!
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Dad, you will feel pretty good. Exactly the same, in fact. This is the first opportunity for you to begin to demonstrate that you are an engaged, motivated father. The best ways to do this will be to get informed, be supportive, and most of all, be patient. Oh, and if she gets a severe case of morning sickness, hold her hair while she gets sick.

CHAPTER 1
And We’re Off

When the pregnancy test stick turns blue, the light to fatherhood goes green. It’s something you’ve dreamed about most of your life. You and your buddies stayed up late, wearing your flowery pajamas, having tickle fights, and talking endlessly about your dreams of parenthood.

Or maybe not.

In any case, the time to prove yourself as a superior über-parent is fast approaching. If this book is in your hand, you’re either an expectant father, or intentionally headed in that direction. You and your BMP are pushing the bobsled down the track and readying yourselves to hop in for a fast-and-furious ride that will be filled with thrills, chills, and of course, many, many spills.

When Conception Isn’t a Piece of Cake

The pregnancy process is not as simple as those after-school specials make it out to be. Sometimes people have unprotected sex once and the magic takes place. Others try for months on end with no results, only lots of frustration and disappointing moments.

Conception with Just the Two of You

If you’re at the stage where you’re
trying
to get pregnant, you need to keep your expectations realistic. You’re expecting that little vixen to butter you up with a juicy steak, maybe some wine. As she refills your snifter, you put on your silk smoking jacket and take off your boxers, just to give her that little surprise when it’s time. She’s wearing your favorite lingerie and does a sexy striptease to get the mood right.

Guys, it’s time to wake up. You’re in her world now. Once a woman decides to get pregnant, there’s no stopping her, and your sexual preferences aren’t on the agenda. So, although you’re 50 percent of the biological equation, you get about 10 percent input into the process.

How it works:
Pretty much every month, she ovulates and her body gets ready to have a baby. So when your Barry White — influenced g-r-o-o-v-y sperm meets her egg, the shagadelic party in her uterus gets started. The good news is as a couple who intends to reproduce, you have a license to act like rabbits for a couple days each month. The bad news is that some factors can reduce your chances of getting pregnant and make the rabbit party end in frustration.

The bad news:
If you’re like most men, when she offers to give you oral, you’re all, “Rock on, baby!” But oral stimulation actually decreases your pregnancy chances, because saliva kills your soldiers. Enough to make you cry, isn’t it?

And that weird lubricant you bought from that shady store in the bad part of town? It also reduces your chances of conception, so put away the “liquid silk” you bought (or dig the receipt out of the trash and return it, if you kept that trench coat and fedora you used as your disguise).

Hot tubs and electric blankets? Sorry, those are on the no-fly list, too. Yes, guys, I am here to break the bad news to you: having sex to get pregnant isn’t your ordinary, recreational nonpregnancy sex.

What to do:
Your first course of action will be to have sex smarter, not harder (unless that’s what you’re into.) Ovulation kits will help your girl know when the egg is ready to launch and it’s time to get your soldiers into battle. So whether it’s noon on Tuesday or Sunday at 7
A.M.
, when the kit orders you to have sex, you must comply. It is strangely not as hot as it sounds. I tried to dress the ovulation kit up in a leather outfit and let it boss us around, but even that did nothing for me. It can become businesslike, especially when your partner asks you to hurry up and finish. Depending on the situation, you may even feel cheap and used for sex. Then you’ll know why women get so mad about it when it happens to them.

Calling In the Professionals

After, oh, a year of this, if you’re still not pregnant, then you’ll want to move to the next step: medical assistance.

Depending on why your sperm and her egg aren’t uniting, a doctor may prescribe one or more medications, such as Clomid (clomiphene), to help increase your chances of conception. An unwanted side effect may be that your BMP’s hormone levels get driven off the charts. (Fire may actually shoot out of her eyes.) With luck, such medications and the repetition of well-timed attacks from your seed will yield the desired results. If not, your next step may be to embark on a long, strange trip to the infertility specialist. That’s when things get weird. If you have to go this route, you’ll have to be prepared — with an hour’s notice — to give blood . . . and more. You’ll be asked to fill up a cup with your most valuable fluid, and the only assistance will come from outdated “adult” materials that your friendly neighborhood fertility doc sorely needs to update. I hope you can avoid all of this and just work in conjunction with Mother Nature.

If you have to go down this road, be aware of the ramifications of the process. As each attempt at getting pregnant comes and goes, the stress and pressure to get “results” goes up accordingly. We are trained to be results oriented, and we are attempting to control Mother Nature. As frustrated as you may feel, your BMP will feel the same, only tenfold. As each failed attempt occurs, she likely takes the failure to get pregnant as a reflection on her. Now is the time for you to get “in the zone” for being at your supportive best. Light some candles, meditate, or even sniff some chamomile — do whatever you have to do to get ready to be there for your partner.

Finding Out

She suspects she’s pregnant. She misses her period, or else she’s charting her ovulation cycle and she knows you’ve got a good chance of getting good news. In a rush of excitement, she’ll start the pregnancy testing game. Set aside $50 or more for this wonderful game. If she sends you to the store to pick up the pregnancy test kit, I recommend buying the economy pack.

Your BMP knows she can take a pregnancy test as soon as seven days after ovulation, but ten to twelve days is actually more accurate.

Your BMP knows she can take a pregnancy test as soon as seven days after ovulation, but ten to twelve days is actually more accurate. Trying to hold her off until twelve days will most likely require some rope, a couple of 2 × 4s, a tiger cage, and some ball bearings. On day number seven she’ll take several tests. The most likely outcome will be a negative result, even if she really is pregnant.

Be advised, even if she gets a positive test, she will take several more tests just to be sure — hence the budgetary concerns. This means multiple trips to the pharmacy for you and lots of laser-guided urine attacks on testing sticks for your BMP. Don’t be frustrated. This ritual opens the doorway to fatherhood. And don’t discount the possibility of a physical celebration between the two of you.

If all goes well, at some point you’ll get the good news: she’s pregnant! Way to go, champ. Now you’re feeling that unique emotion that bonds all first-time fathers together. It’s best described as excitement tinged with a yellow streak of fear and a dash of nausea.

Your internal monologue asks if you’re up to the challenge. “No worries,” you think to yourself. “I have nine months before I need to be concerned about this. Besides, my beautiful mother-to-be will be taking care of most of it. My work here is done! Now back to conquering the entire Internet!”

Nope. Sorry, big fella. Operation Blue Cross was just the first step in the lifelong journey of parenthood. You may feel like king of the mountain at the moment, but time is a-wasting. Your bundle of joy is already growing, all the while working on a list of diabolical plots, from
Plan A: See How Many Diapers Parents Can Change in One Hour
to
Plan Z: Get Mom and Dad to Give Me ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

You need to have counter-strategies and disaster-recovery plans in place — and it all starts with some questions for the dad-to-be:
What do babies eat? Do I need to start saving for college? What is the separation of responsibility between parents? Who is in charge of what? Do we need to apply to private school yet?
You need to provide for this little human.

You may hear how they “grow up so fast,” but this is mostly a phrase used by old people who have lost their minds. It takes a lot of time and effort to get your kid launched. But fear not: with hard work, love, and a little help, you will be navigating this brand-new world without a problem.

Your Reaction

Your first reaction may be to pop the cork, open some wine, or shake a martini. Um, slow down there. Put the olives and vermouth away. Remember that the newly anointed mother of your child cannot drink alcohol. Unless she is kind enough to grant permission, you should refrain as a gesture of solidarity. You know, it’s like you’re saying, “Yep, we’re in this thing together.”

While you sip sparkling grape juice and reminisce about New Year’s Eve when you were twelve, you’ll probably wonder how long you have to get ready before the stork shows up. Traditionally, that number is forty weeks from the date of her last period. You’ll get an “official” due date from the doctor based on information she gives him about her cycle, anything she knows about her ovulation, and other factors, but remember, it’s only an estimate. In other words, don’t get your firstborn’s due date tattooed on your shoulder before the actual birth.

You may feel pressure begin to build as you realize that fatherhood is just around the corner. You may even experience pure, unadulterated fear. You will soon be a father and have all the responsibility that it entails. As you look down and realize your socks don’t match and toilet paper is stuck to your shoe, you have a horrific vision of a baby depending on
you
for life’s basic needs.

The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.

—Francis Bacon Sr.

Take a deep breath, and try to relax. You can do this. While it’s certainly no walk in the park, less skilled parents are able to keep their child alive until age eighteen . . . or even longer! It may seem as if you’re about to sacrifice all those things you used to enjoy for the sake of your family, but before you run away from home, just know that you’re probably going to love being a dad more than you think. A strange phenomenon occurs when you have a whole bunch of stressful, exhausting days in a row and you think about changing your name to Juan Valdez and hopping the next plane to Parts Unknown, South America: your child will do something that makes it all seem worthwhile. Maybe it’s a simple smile, or the way he greets you with a huge smile right when you arrive home from work. Maybe it’s the first time you hear your child call you “Daddy.” In ways both small and large, this child will affect you in ways you can’t predict.

Her Reaction

Like most men most of the time, you’ll be in touch with your feelings, but what about your BMP? She will most likely feel a hundred emotions at once. You are excited and thinking, “This is awesome.” She is starting there, and then wondering how fat she’ll get. Maybe she’s feeling some fear at the thought of giving birth, hopeful that you are excited, and worried about labor pain . . . see what I mean? You can see how things are much different in BMP-World than for you and your simple caveman brain. In fact, she’s already thinking . . .

When and How Do We Spill the Beans?

About five weeks in, you’ll start considering whether it’s time to start telling everyone you know that you’re having a baby. You and your BMP are feeling the love. You’re about to bring a child into the world. The sun seems to shine a little brighter, and you’re noticing things you’ve never seen before, like car seats, strollers, and how cute the clothes are in the infant section. Why have you never noticed these things before? As you find yourself idly thinking that you prefer the brown-checkered stroller to the green one, you’re brimming with excitement, and it seems like the right time to start crafting a witty Tweet to your peeps announcing the creation of a life in 140 characters or less.

Sorry to keep reining you in, but please put down that iPhone. When it comes time for your big announcement, you can rest assured there will be “an app for that.” But in the meantime you and your BMP need to come to an agreement on how to proceed before you go blabbing around town about the fruit of your lovemaking. Before you spill the beans, put the beer down for a second and listen: Miscarriages are hell. I’ve been there. The reason most couples wait until after the third month is that the chance of miscarriage plummets by quite a bit. If this happens, God forbid, you don’t really want to have to go back and tell everyone about this very personal and very painful thing that just happened.

So the old-school method is to wait until around weeks 8 to 12, when the mathematical chances for miscarriage go down significantly. The actual chance of miscarriage at this point in the pregnancy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 percent, depending on what study you’re looking at. Most guys say to themselves, “Great! We’ll do it week 12! Now let’s go look at a flat-screen TV for Junior’s room.” But a quick scan of pregnant women’s websites will tell you that mothers today don’t consider the decision so black-and-white. It’s difficult for the two of you, who are so excited about this great news, to contain yourselves and keep from accidentally having a slip of the tongue. You may give it away accidentally from something as simple as cutting out a magazine article on pregnancy and leaving it lying on the counter. So, my best advice is to make a plan on which you both can agree about when to break the news, and keep it to yourself until then.

When to Tell

After conversing with a number of pregnancy veterans, I put together this plan for your consideration:

First Month

Keep it on the down low (unless that means what my wife told me Oprah said it means — then forget I used this phrasing!). The two of you can exchange knowing glances and have your own little secret all to yourselves. Many people will go ahead and let their close family know, but be warned: some grandparents-to-be can be, well,
intense
. They can pick a name, buy clothes for the baby, and help her apply to college all while you’re still looking at the plus sign on the pregnancy-test stick. The whole thing escalates to a new level. Just make sure the grandparents know before the public at large. If they’re the last to know, they may never forgive you, and surely you’ll need them to help out in the future.

BOOK: Dude, You're Gonna Be a Dad!
10.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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