From: ksouth@iguana.dsd.es.com (Kerri South)
Subject: Re: "my wife and I are pregnant", revisited
Reply-To: ksouth@dsd.es.com
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 04:09:55 GMT

In article <28481@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, bweiss@cs.arizona.edu (Beth Weiss) writes:
> > judyd@rosebud.CNA.TEK.COM writes:
> >If my husband had ever said "We're pregnant" within my earshot,
> >I would have punched him.
> 
> Well, I dunno that I'd have punched mine, but I don't really like the
> phrase.  He usually said "We're expecting", "we're going to be
> parents", "Beth is pregnant", or (my favorite) "I'm going to be a
> dad!"  (Note: being a dad is something I can't share :-)
> 
> >If he were the one with the distended belly, the swollen feet,
> >the pinched nerves, the roiling stomach, the constipated bowels,
> >the fatigued body, and the stretched skin, I would never presume
> >to assert that I was capable in any significant way of sharing
> >that burden.  Support, yes, share, no.
> 
> Even reading this, I want to be pregnant again (and Jordan is only 5
> months old, and I still have a few pregnancy pounds to shed).
> Hmmmm.....
> 
> --
> --Beth Weiss
> bweiss@cs.arizona.edu

Ah, perfect. Let fathers who are sharing so much in the pregnancy and
childrearing say "I'm going to be a dad!". That is great! My husband
has told me that he's pregnant and I didn't mind; it was his way of saying to
me
that he was living with an altered wife! Maybe the hardest thing for him
is that I am much less affectionate and tend to ignore him in the evenings
when I'm tired and nauseous (but not so much anymore :)! ) With less
affectionate you can also read much less inclined to sex.

I would take exception to his saying "we're pregnant" to others. Physically,
he hasn't changed one bit. He eats the same, he sleeps the same (except I
have been kicking him more and I scratched him in my sleep one night). 
Physically, I've been feeling pregnant each and every day since about 1 week
after conception. He can forget I'm pregnant for hours every day (at work),
even though we have offices right across the hall from each other. He
can look forward to dinner. He can feel unchanged sexually. He can do all
the things he used to do in the evening (as long as they don't involve me!!)
The PURELY physical and lifestyle change and sacrifice is much larger for
the woman. So is the joy of knowing that you are incubating a small but
growing human. Let the father be congratulated. Let him be admired for
putting up with and supporting a pregnant partner. If he participates
equally in caring for the child after birth, let him be considered an
equal there. The man can never be the equal in pregnancy, though. Nature
designed things that way. No amount of societal change can affect that.

I can never experience the joy of having a penis (I imagine it would be
most enjoyable.) I will never ejaculate. I will never father a child. 

I am pregnant; my husband is not. I don't think it's being nitpicky to have
a personal objection to "pregnant" men. Words are very important. They
have connotations that go far beyond the actual pronunciation and spelling.
I might as well go around saying "We have a penis" because I am so intimately
involved in sex with my partner. 
To me, "pregnant" is a very earthy physical
word that means the actual physical pregnancy: the enlarging breasts, the
incredible hormone levels, the swollen uterus, the growing fetus, the
placenta, etc. 

Let's not take such a rich, wonderful word and change it to mean "expecting".
I feel like it's robbing the woman's body of the one perfect word that
describes it.



-- 
Kerri South, Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Design Systems Division, P.O. Box 8070, 
Salt Lake City, Utah 84108        (801) 582-5847 
INET: ksouth@dsd.es.com
Newsgroups: misc.kids