A friend of mine is eight months pregnant with their first child, and judging by a recent conversation between her and her hubby I’m thinking it’s going to be quite a shell shock for one of them, even before they get to the sleepless nights, dirty nappies and not a lot of sex.
The penny dropped about how unprepared the father-to-be is for the mental shift from a relative life of leisure and self indulgence to one of responsibility and consideration of someone other than yourself when they were discussing the new arrival of a friend the previous week.
Wife: “It went really well. She had a 10 hour labour.”
Hubby: “Seriously!? It takes that long?”
Actually, the young men these days don’t know how lucky they are, with their arsenal of mobile apps in their pockets to give them something to do. In my day we had to fill in time massaging our partner’s back and being supportive. It was a real drag waiting for your baby to come out, especially as the only telly in the hospital wing was inconveniently located in the waiting room. There’s only so many times you can reasonably excuse yourself to go make a cup of coffee.
Wife: “That’s nothing. Actually, it’s quite good.”
Hubby: “And I’ve got to wait around with you?”
Rooky mistake. If I rolled my eyes and chuckled a little at his naivety over the labour comment, I inwardly cringed for him at this point of the narrative. If anything, his wife’s response was notable for it’s lack of expletives.
Wife: “No. But if you leave, you just keep walking. You can have every other weekend.”
And no sneaking off to the toilet to phone your mates for the footy scores. They’re onto that one as well.
Our ’BIG FAMILY little income’ Facebook Page
’raising a family on little more than laughs’
My husband was soooo unprepared. We even had a fight once we got home because apparently I was feeding the baby too often…. you know every few hours or so! Some men are totally dumb!
And some aren’t. But I’m yet to meet them 😉
I think we need them unprepared so that they will come in the first time! I didn’t think my hubby would handle it but he did thankfully and it was such a support!
Yes, it is interesting having a conversation with parents-to-be – I remember being that naive, and it doesn’t matter how often you try to tell them… I must admit, with each subsequent birth I have said a silent prayer in thanks that I don’t have to be a first time mum more than once! Not that it’s easy sailing with your second or third lol.
My favourite is the “I can’t wait for bub to arrive so I am finally comfortable enough to sleep…” Four years on and I’m STILL waiting haha
Lol. As long as the phone charger is packed hey!
My hubby loved it and was intrigued and excited for the first 24 hours. Then he went through a period of boredom for about 12 hours then back to the full on excitement and intrigue for the final 12. He kept wanting to look down below to see what was happening. Another tip for beginners…Complaining of a headache is not a good idea.
Hubby dear always says that the labour room is no place for a man. It is boring and they can not do anything to help so they should be able to go off and do other things instead 😉 He has been to every one of our kids births and never says anything as stupid as that when in the room in fact he waits until everyone is distracted and has a ‘go’ of the gas, just to check if it is up high enough for me, of course. The labours he found really horrible, aside from when his fingers were crushed by my constant banging of the hand rail were all the gas free ones. Coincidence?
Guess my hubby was lucky on the waiting side, we both had to wait through 15 hrs of repeated induction attempts before anything happened and then it was over in less than hour!
Fast births are terrifying though!
Whole thing is terrifying, I say. And all I have to do is watch. (Terrifying and wondrous)