How to deal with a pregnant partner
By: Boy Blunder
Tags: Satire, Humor, Fatherhood, Pregnancy, Baby

Your “better half” is pregnant, first things first, congratulations! Unless she’s pregnant with someone else’s child, in which case you’re probably looking for a very different article to this.

My wife gave birth to our first child earlier this year. While I fully expected new challenges when the baby arrived, dealing with a hormonal wife during pregnancy is something I definitely didn’t prepare for.

So my fellow dads-to-be, here’s some advice on how to deal with common situations:

Morning sickness

Turns out the “morning” part of this is absolute rubbish. During the first trimester my wife had evening sickness, afternoon sickness, eaten-too-much sickness, travelled-in-a-car-for-too-long sickness, fed-up-of-talking-to-me sickness, doesn’t-want-to-visit-my-mum sickness, amongst all sorts of sickness. However, she was sick so I should be sympathetic, right? Spoiler alert: sympathy gets us nowhere.

Solution: if we can’t beat them, join them. Feign sickness at the same time and blame it on that dodgy (but delicious) kebab eaten earlier. The key thing is practice, work on those gurgling sounds, mix 5 parts water with 2 parts apricot yogurt, and throw in some coco pops for added effect if you need something visual to go by. Or chomp on raw chicken breast for breakfast if you’re really committed. The benefit here is we now have the power to use sickness as an excuse to also get out of doing things we don’t want to do, restoring balance back into the relationship.

Emotions

Imagine the scenario, you’ve come home from a hard days work, you pour yourself a whisky on the rocks, put your feet up, and turn on the television to watch the game. The wife bursts in, demanding to know where she has placed her phone. You remain rationale, asking her where she saw it last, only for her to scream at you and burst into tears that you don’t consider her feelings.

Sound familiar? We’ve been told from family and friends to remain loving, the wife is always right, pick and choose our battles yada yada yada. Don’t fall for it. This a threat to our kingdom, we must stand our ground. The moment she bursts into the room, stand up, stand tall, beat your chest, and let out a loud rallying cry — this is OUR world. If she shouts, shout louder, if she cries, shriek louder. If you have to unzip and urinate all over your living room to mark your territory, do it, it’ll be worth it — eventually she will stand down and the kingdom will be yours once more. Sit back, and enjoy the single malt over a fine game of football.

Weight gain

There will no doubt come a time when our pregnant wife, girlfriend, or both (you sly dog, you) will ask if they have gained weight. It’s natural for insecurity to set in at this time, and it is our duty as loving partners to alleviate any anxieties. Sure, that’s the right approach… if we want to lose the amazing figure we fell in love with for the rest of our lives.

Here’s my take — remind them how much we loved their figure when we first met. This can be done in many creative ways. Maybe try the subtle approach, flicking through old photos and commenting continually how they were at their physical peak in those years. Or perhaps this is the ideal time to pin up those photos of Beyoncé around the house we’ve been saving up over the last decade. If that doesn’t motivate them to stay in shape, order that Playboy magazine subscription and strategically leave them lying around the house, that ought to do the trick.

Tiredness

My wife has always been a sleeper. She needed a minimum of 9 hours sleep at night to be able to function. This was before pregnancy. During pregnancy I hardly ever saw her as she practically lived in bed. I heard this is due to the body adapting to change. I heard excuses. I wondered how she was going to cope when there’s a baby crying throughout the night? Will she get 9 hours then? Definitely not!

We want to make sure our partners are fully prepared for the bundle of joy that is heading our way. Therefore throughout pregnancy, I suggest setting alarms next to their side of the bed at 2 hour intervals, the louder and screechier the better. Added points for bursting into fits of tears multiple times in the night too. Need help crying? A pair of tweezers to the nut sack ought to do it. They may be grumpy, but when the baby arrives they’ll be thankful.

And pregnancy pillows? Don’t get me started, I didn’t marry my wife so I could be replaced by a pillow.

Baby names

You have a list of names you like, but the wife is disagreeing with all your amazing name choices. I feel your pain, brother. The key thing to remember here is we have time. Don’t waste energy talking through which names work and which names don’t. Keep conversation minimal at all costs. If it means breaking one of our earlier rules and simply agreeing with our partners then so be it. Wait it out and continue googling the best names you can possibly find.

Then, as soon as the baby is born, leave the mother to spend some quality time with the little one… and take care of business by registering Captain Thor Bergkamp into this world.

And there you have it. In closing, if there’s one thing you can take away from this article, it’s to take control of the situation and your life. The moment you succumb to anything, is the moment you may as well sell your balls at a car boot sale.

Did you find this article useful? Great, come back next week for my follow up article on how to deal with divorce.