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Introduction

When my wife got pregnant with our first child, I was the happiest I’d ever been. That pregnancy, labor, and the baby’s birth was a time of incredible closeness, tenderness, and passion. Long before we’d married, my wife and I had made a commitment to participate equally in raising our children. And it seemed only natural that the process of shared parenting should begin during pregnancy.

Since neither of us had had children before, we were both rather ill prepared for pregnancy. Fortunately for my wife, there were literally hundreds of books and other resources designed to educate, encourage, support, and comfort women during their pregnancies. But when it finally hit me that I, too, was expecting (although in a very different kind of way), and that the pregnancy was bringing out feelings and emotions I didn’t understand, there simply weren’t any resources for me to turn to. I looked for answers in my wife’s pregnancy books, but information about what expectant fathers go through (if it was discussed at all) was at best superficial, and consisted mostly of advice on how men could be supportive of their pregnant wives. To make things worse, my wife and I were the first couple in our circle of close friends to get pregnant, which meant that there was no one else I could talk to about what I was going through, no one who could reassure me that what I was feeling was normal and all right.

Until fairly recently, there has been precious little research on expectant fathers’ emotional and psychological experiences during pregnancy. The very title of one of the first articles to appear on the subject should give you some idea of the medical and psychiatric communities’ attitude toward the impact of pregnancy on men. Written by William H. Wainwright, M.D., and published in the July 1966 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, it was called “Fatherhood as a Precipitant of Mental Illness.” (Another wonderful title that came out at about the same time was: “Psychoses in Males in Relation to Their Wives’ Pregnancy and Childbirth.”)

As you’ll soon find out, though, an expectant father’s experience during the transition to fatherhood is not confined simply to excitement—or mental illness; if it were, this book would never have been written. The reality is that men’s emotional response to pregnancy is no less varied than women’s; expectant fathers feel everything from relief to denial, fear to frustration, anger to joy. And for up to 80 percent of men, there are physical symptoms of pregnancy as well (more on this on pages 74–79).

So why haven’t men’s experiences been discussed more? In my opinion it’s because we, as a society, value motherhood more than fatherhood, and we automatically assume that issues of pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing are women’s issues. But as you’ll learn—both from reading this book and from your own experience—that’s simply not the case.

WHO, EXACTLY, HAS WRITTEN THIS BOOK?

From the very beginning, my goal in writing The Expectant Father has been to help you—the father—understand and make sense of what you’re going through during your pregnancy. The rationale was simple: the more you understand about what you’re going through, the better prepared you’ll be and the more likely you’ll be to take an interest in—and stay involved throughout—the pregnancy. Research has shown that the earlier fathers get involved (and what could be earlier than pregnancy?), the more likely they are to be involved after their children are born. And that’s good for your child, good for you, and good for your relationship with your child’s mother.

All that’s very nice, of course, but it’s clearly dependent on your partner’s being pregnant. So a good understanding of her perspective on the pregnancy—emotional as well as physical—is essential to understanding how you will react. It was precisely this perspective that Jennifer Ash, along with my wife and hundreds of other expectant and new mothers I’ve interviewed over the years, provided. Throughout the process of writing the book, all of these women contributed valuable information and comments, not only about what pregnant women are going through but also about the ways women most want men to be involved, and the impact that involvement has on the entire pregnancy experience.

A NOTE ON STRUCTURE

Throughout the book I try to present straightforward, practical information in an easy-to-absorb format. Each of the main chapters is divided into four sections, as follows:

What’s Going On with Your Partner

Even though this is a book about what you as an expectant father are going through during pregnancy, and how you can best stay involved, it’s critical that you understand what your partner is going through and when. For that reason, we felt that it was important to start each chapter with a summary of your partner’s physical and emotional pregnancy experience.

What’s Going On with the Baby

You can’t very well have a pregnancy without a baby, right? This section lets you in on your future child’s progress—from sperm and egg to living, breathing infant—and everything in between.

What’s Going On with You

This section covers the wide range of feelings—good, bad, and indifferent—that you’ll probably experience at some time during the pregnancy. It also describes such things as the physical changes you may go through, your dreams, your changing values, your relationships with other people, and the ways the pregnancy may affect your sex life.

Staying Involved

While the “What’s Going On with You” section covers the emotional and physical side of pregnancy, this section gives you specific facts, tips, and advice on what you can do to make the pregnancy “yours” as well as your partner’s. For instance, you’ll find easy, nutritious recipes to prepare, information on how to start a college fund for the baby, valuable advice on getting the most out of your birth classes, great ways to start communicating with your baby before he or she is born, tips on finding work/family balance (hint: there’s no such thing, but with planning, you may be able to get close). And sprinkled throughout, you’ll find suggestions for how to be supportive of your partner and how to stay included at every stage of the pregnancy.

The Expectant Father covers more than the nine months of pregnancy. We’ve included a detailed chapter on labor and delivery and another on Cesarean section, both of which will prepare you for the big event and how best to help your partner through the birth itself. Perhaps even more important, these chapters prepare you for the often overwhelming emotions you may experience when your partner is in labor and your child is born.

We’ve also included a special chapter that addresses the major questions and concerns you may have about caring for and getting to know your child in the first few weeks after you bring him or her home. If someone hasn’t bought them for you already, I’d recommend that you rush right out and get copies of The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year and Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad’s Guide to the Second and Third Years. These books pick up where this one leaves off and continue the process of giving you the skills, knowledge, confidence, and support you’ll need to be the best possible dad. All of them are also available as e-books.

Toward the end of this book there is a chapter called “Fathering Today,” in which you’ll learn to recognize—and overcome—the many obstacles you may encounter along the road to becoming an actively involved dad.

As you go through The Expectant Father, remember that the process of becoming a dad is different for every man, and that none of us will react to the same situation in exactly the same way. You may find that some of what’s described in the “What’s Going On with You” section in the third-month chapter won’t really ring true for you until the fifth month, or that you already experienced it in the first month. I’ve tried to tie the ideas and activities in the “Staying Involved” sections to specific stages of the pregnancy. But, hey, it’s your baby, so if you want to do things in a different order, knock yourself out.

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

Wife, Girlfriend, Lover, He, She …

In an attempt to avoid offending anyone (an approach I’ve discovered usually ends up offending everyone), we’ve decided to refer to the woman who’s carrying the baby as “your partner.” And because your partner is just as likely to be carrying a boy as a girl, we’ve alternated between “he” and “she” when referring to the baby (except where something applies specifically to boys or girls).

Hospitals, Doctors …

Not everyone who has a baby delivers in a hospital or is under the care of a medical doctor. Still, because that’s the most frequent scenario, we’ve chosen to refer to the place where the baby will be born as “the hospital” and to the people attending the birth (besides you, of course) as “doctors,” “nurses,” “medical professionals,” or “practitioners”—except, of course, in the sections that specifically deal with home birth and/or midwives.

As a rule, today’s dads (and expectant dads) want to be much more involved with their children than their own fathers were able to be. It’s my firm belief that the first step on the road toward full involvement is to take an active role in the pregnancy. And it’s our hope that when you’re through reading The Expectant Father—which is the book Jennifer wishes she could have bought for her husband when she was pregnant and the one I wish I’d had when I was an expectant dad—you’ll be much better prepared to participate in this important new phase of your life.

So why should you get involved now, before you actually become a dad? Simply put, because it’s good for your child, your partner, and yourself. As mentioned above, involvement during pregnancy is a good predictor of involvement after the pregnancy. And children who grow up in homes where the dad is involved do better in math and science, are more sociable, are more tenacious when solving problems, and, thinking waaaay out into the future, are less likely to use drugs or alcohol or become teen parents.

When the dad-to-be is involved during the pregnancy, he and his partner are more likely to be together for their child’s third birthday than partnerships in which dad isn’t as involved. Pregnant women whose partners are involved prenatally are more likely to get prenatal care and, if they smoke, to quit. And according to researcher Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, women whose partners aren’t supportive during the pregnancy are “more likely to view their pregnancy as unwanted.” Finally, your being involved now makes it more likely that your partner will breastfeed your baby (we’ll talk about why that’s so important later on).

For you, being an involved dad will reduce the chance that you’ll engage in risky behavior. You’ll probably start taking better care of yourself, you’ll be happier in your relationship with your partner, and you’ll even perform better at work.

WHAT’S NEW IN THIS EDITION

In the years since the first edition of The Expectant Father was published, I’ve received literally thousands of letters (yes, people still do send letters) and emails from readers offering comments and suggestions on how to make this book better. I’ve incorporated many of them into this edition, and I know that the book is greatly improved as a result. Let me give you a quick rundown:

• ADOPTIVE FATHERS. Although your partner may not actually be carrying a baby, the two of you are still very much “psychologically pregnant.” There’s a lot of research, in fact, that suggests that in the months leading up to the adoption of their child, expectant adoptive fathers deal with many of the same emotional and psychological issues that biologically expectant fathers do.

• MULTIPLES. We’ve expanded the sections geared toward expectant fathers of twins, triplets, and so forth.

• OVERCOMING INFERTILITY. As the average age of new parents increases, more and more couples are experiencing infertility. So we’ve included a whole chapter on infertility in the Appendix as well as information on what you can do to increase the chances that you and your partner will conceive.

• THE ART OF FATHERHOOD. An increasing number of couples are conceiving through the use of ART (assisted reproductive technology), which includes IVF (in vitro fertilization), artificial insemination, donor sperm, donor eggs, and gestational carriers (who used to be referred to as surrogates). We’ve included a number of sections that deal with the fascinating issues facing ART dads and their partners.

• GI DADS. Every year, a huge number of men (and women) from all branches of the service spend at least part of their partner’s pregnancy thousands of miles away. Many of them come home to a child who was born while they were deployed. As a Marine myself (I got out long ago, but as we all know, there’s no such thing as an “ex-Marine”), I knew I needed to do as much as I could to help our service members. For that reason we’ve included several sections in this book designed to help expectant military dads stay involved before, during, and after the pregnancy so that they can hit the ground running when they get back home. I go into these issues in much more detail in my book The Military Father: A Hands-on Guide for Deployed Dads.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

I’d love to hear your experiences, feelings, comments, and suggestions, and I’ll try to incorporate them into future editions of this book. You can email me at armin@MrDad.com. And as long as you’re online, please visit my website (mrdad.com). Info on how to connect with me via social media is in the Resources appendix of the book, on page 300.

Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and let’s get you started on this new and wonderful stage of your life!