Male Pregnancy Blog

One mans adventure through his wife's first pregnancy! May God have mercy on us all! If you are new to this blog you are encouraged to start from the beginning.

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Round 2, Ding Ding.

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Well, I’ve found the time to write another post, it’s only been twenty four months, which I think is pretty good going considering! So what’s changed? Everything has changed. Firstly we have a beautiful two year old son, Felix. The joy and happiness I experience on a daily basis with him is something I simply can’t put into words, maybe it’s because I’m not a word smith, or maybe it’s because there is simply, no combination of letters that can truly express the raw emotion I feel. But hopefully this explanation will help; As I’m sure you all do, from time to time I tend to day dream. The typical manly day dream. You know the one, the one where you imagine your life taking a different direction. It normally consists of birds, booze, money and copious amounts of drugs, well after all, you are a rockstar! …you did actually decide to pick up that guitar and actually learn how to play when you were six. Or you took acting lessons and now you’re Tom Cruise, but taller and better looking like Brad Pitt, okay, so you’re Brad Pitt!

No matter what happens in these day dreams you’re never really affecting or altering anyone else’s life but your own. Hell! even in these day dreams I always imagine finding my other life (real) wife and winning her over, which, let’s face it would be a walk in the park, she married me when I was just averagely good looking me, she’s not going to say no to Ryan Gosling-me now is she!

But now, back in the real world my wife and I have little baby Felix, and my day dreams of the past are dead.

It is impossible for me to recreate and conjure up a new life for myself before Felix was born, because this would mean Felix would never be born. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio-me could meet my wife way before Felix’ birth and get busy making babies, but it wouldn’t be the exact Felix I know and love now. Felix was created in one single, magical moment of time, a moment of time which can only be recreated by taking every step, decision and direction I and my life has currently made, remember! he was made with just one of my little baby-making swimmers, any slight change will alter the course of that one single seed and change everything forever, my diet for instance or not buying that copy of FHM when I was fourteen. So if I’m Matthew McConaughey, Felix wouldn’t stand a chance.

So as I said, my day dreams are dead, but it’s okay because I wouldn’t want my life to be any different anyway, if it meant I could never see his little face or his heart sinking smile ever again.

So here’s to the future, what ever that may be?

I hope the future isn’t a zombie apocalypse. No way would I survive now, having to look after a two year old AND a pregnant wife!

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It's been over a week now since my wife was omitted into hospital to start the induction process. After three days the induction was classed as a failure and so an emergency C-section was carried out. On Monday the 16th April at 19:32 my beautiful baby boy was born, Felix James Gibson weighing in at 8.15ibs. This week has been the happiest and toughest time of my life and even harder for my wife. Once I find the time I'm sure I'll write up a detailed step by step play of events, but for now...look at his little face, oh you're a cutie, yes you are, yes such a cutie...and so on.

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Day two of the induction. Yesterday was the due date and also the day that induced labour was started due to a small complication. After four hours sleep and mainly food and coffee from vending machines I have no energy to be funny, all my energy will be spent on my wife, who is doing amazingly. She has even produced a word document on her iPhone listing critical points and questions ready for when the doctors swing by!

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It can happen any moment now. Labour is imminent.

Which is why we have barricaded our selves in this Easter with supplies. Supplies consisting of chocolate, sweets and box sets. We’re not going anywhere until we have to. When it starts I want to be at home, last thing you want to hear while grocery shopping is 'clean up an aisle three due to spillage.'Although when my wife's waters do actually break it would be nice to be able to make that call and have someone mop it up. They could also give the house a quick spruce ready for our return.

My wife and I however don't want him to come this weekend, this four day holiday has given us the time to relax and mentally prepare for his arrival. Also we have just started watching Game of Thrones and there's no way I want that interrupted! Seriously though this break has given me a chance to reflect on the last nine months of my wife's journey through her pregnancy.

First of all my wife has been amazing. Balancing hard work, pain, sickness and my denial of the entire matter has been almost effortless for her. When I think about it there is no way I could be as strong. We've all seen the affects the common cold has on a man. I think I would probably induce a coma to get through the process. Hook me up to a drip and I'll see you in nine months, just remember to trim my nasal hair!

Since turning thirty I've noticed that my nasal hair's growth has sped up immensely with the addition of a single extra long unsightly white one. It's bloody embarrassing. It seems to grow in a spiral motion, building up its length unnoticed until one day it valiantly springs into action, hanging out in all it's albino glory for the whole world to see. Once noticed it’s quickly plucked, but we both know it's just a matter of time until we meet again...sorry, on a tangent again.

Knowing what my wife can go through I know she will be a great mother and that's comforting. However thinking about it now we haven't agreed on whom should play bad cop, good cop! Growing up my mother pretty much let my brother and I get away with murder. Which thinking about it is pretty lax, even for a good cop. Anyway my mother gave us the freedom to be free, (freedom to be free, does that make sense? Sod it I'm going with it.) ‘and be creative while my dad was fairly strict and slightly fearsome, which strangely enough set a good morel compass for us both.

The good cop, bad cop scenario seems to work and although I consider myself the chilled-out reflective, liberal minded one in the relationship and my wife the strict one (I've come to that conclusion because I'm always being told off for various antics.) 'When it comes to our first child all of that goes out the window...okay I'm sorry for what you’re about to here next.

As my wife and I are both cat people we consider our pet, Mr. Pusskin Robins as our first child. We consider him this because we love him too much and my wife even more so. She is completely unable to be strict with him, unable to tell him off when he breaks house rules. The house rules apply to everyone not just Pusskins. For instance it would be rude for a guest of the house or even me for that matter to sit on the table while eating, or scratch new furniture with sharpened nails or sit outside the bedroom door at the crack of dawn, screaming at the top of my voice demanding that I have breakfast right now! Quite frankly you would be asked to leave and never return. However because I love Mr. Pusskin Robins I have to be firm and strict.

So through default I will become the bad cop, I will be like my father, which I can't quite believe. I should have realised that the white nostral hair from last year was the first sign!

I

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Ready to pop

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Labour bag...check

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there you have it!

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My wife just had a baby shower. We got loads of cool useful stuff from her girlfriends.

If guys did baby showers I can't help but think we would get stuff like the above, along with miniature lightsabers.

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The wife and I had our first National Childbirth Trust class this weekend (NCT). Like many blokes I was a bit apprehensive, 'as long as I don't have to talk to anyone or we don't mix groups I'll be peachy'. But after ten minutes I was on first name basis with everyone and we were all stood in a linked circle each massaging the person in front of us. It was like the scene from The Human Centipede and as equally upsetting. But as the day went on I found myself relaxing in to it and enjoying the company of all the new mums and dads to be. Some couples seemed super prepared and others not so much. 'Wait...your only supposed to push at the end, not when your contractions start?' I felt great knowing that I already knew a bit, thanks to channel 4's One Born Every Minute, but happy that I was learning loads too. The eighties water birth video complete with eighties father sporting a flat top, neon vest and sunnies was first class! Especially when, straight after the birth he pulled his sun glasses down and winked to camera, with a fake twinkle and 'ting' dubbed on after. Seriously this dad was kool! (I think that's how cool was spelt in the eighties?) So I now know everything about labour. I'm feeling happy and confident, bring it on! But wait of course I'm happy and confident I won't actually be going through it. As I looked around the room all the women had a sort of glazed look on their face, state of shock I suppose, not helped by the passing round of a circular six pack of Dairylea. 'Yes ladies that is ten centimeters'. The realisation of the task ahead had set in, it's all down to them, it's going to be hard, it's going to be painful, it's going to be traumatic. There's nothing I can do except keep my kool! Thanks eighties dad!

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So I got the cot up and a spot of decorating done too! I must say it was a very proud moment getting this done, standing back and really imagining my son in there. I'm sure mothers have already noticed that its to close to the window and heater but it's a spring baby and curtains will be going up.

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Hashtag whatdadstalkabout

Its started! I went to the dentist on Friday and spent five minutes taliking about Bugga Boos and how expenisve they are. 

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Watching one born every minute...this made my mum LOL (and me) #OBEM #poogirl

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So I painted the room today in preparation for the little fellow joining our humble abode. It’s a scenario we see all the time, you know, on those adorable films where they mix romance and comedy. It’s normally a montage involving white dungarees and various tins of blue or pink paint, while filtering Spring sunlight casts over a sickly couple as they start preparing the babies room. The closing scene I’m sure ends with Jennifer Garner beautifully and blissfully unaware that she has paint on her nose while the chuckling chiseled husband removes it with his thumb, they then both embrace, cutting to a wide shot of the ridiculously large Manhattan loft style nursery. However I’m sure the husband dies half way through the film and Jennifer has to battle this harsh world as a single parent only to learn that…oh wait it’s a ‘Rom-Com’ sorry, forgot about that! Jim Carrey dies half way through, but its all okay…he’s recorded hilarious anecdotes about life and how to live without him while containing valuable lessons for his son, which he comically acted out in hospital with all the nurses and other sick patients on his I-phone, which he then uploaded to his tumblr blog. I’m sure each lesson in life is then set to be posted yearly on the anniversary of his death. The son most likely played by several actors and assumingly ending with an '18 year old' Shia Labeouf becomes the perfect human being and all thanks to his dead dad. A real laugh out loud tear jerker! What was I talking about again? Oh yes the perfect moment when you finish painting your first child’s nursery, that was it. Except I wasn’t painting our nursery. We don’t have a nursery. I was painting our bedroom. The bedroom we will be sharing with our new born, and it was raining outside and the wife was asleep on the sofa. So not the Hollywood moment we all know and love. A large part of me wishes that I had more, a large house, a car, a loft style nursery and of course more money but none of that should take my poignant 'father to be' moments away from me. I read something the other day, which rang true "The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything". So it wasn't the filmic cliché of getting the nursery ready, but you know what! I still felt proud after I had finished painting our bedroom another coat of eggshell and I can’t wait to have the little screamer in there sleeping with us. And I love rainy days, and I love my sleeping wife. Cut to a wide shot of the happy father to be with a mug of tea in hand.

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Boobie beanie in action...does this give you permission to stare...hashtag yes

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How frickin cute is this guy!?