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About The Expectant Father, Second Edition
The best-selling, ground-breaking, information-packed guide for dads-to-be is now significantly updated, revised, and expanded. It features the latest research on many topics, from the reasons for premature birth to nutritional supplements. The finances section has been updated; advice for expectant adoptive fathers has been added throughout; information for fathers expecting twins and other multiples is included; and the resources section and bibliography have been considerably expanded.
About the Authors
A nationally recognized parenting expert, Armin Brott is also the author of The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year; Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad's Guide to the Second and Third Years; Fathering Your School-Age Child, A Dad's Guide to the Wonder Years: 3-9; The Single Father: A Dad’s Guide to Parenting without a Partner; and Father for Life: A Journey of Joy, Challenge, and Change. He has written on parenting and fatherhood for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and dozens of other periodicals. He also writes a nationally syndicated column, "Ask Mr. Dad," and hosts “Positive Parenting,” a weekly talk show. Armin lives with his family in Oakland, California.
[ Ask Armin Brott a question! ]
Jennifer Ash is the author of Tropical Style: Private Palm Beach and is a contributin editor to Town & Country. She, her husband Joe, and their son Clarke and daughter Amelia make their home in New York City.
The Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | 6 |
| Introduction | 9 |
| The First Decisions | 14 |
| The 1st Month: Salad Days | 26 |
| The 2nd Month: The Doctor Will See You Now | 49 |
| The 3rd Month: Spreading the Word | 62 |
| The 4th Month: Money, Money, Money | 78 |
| The 5th Month: The Lights Are On and Somebody’s Home | 95 |
| The 6th Month: Work and Family | 106 |
| The 7th Month: Entering the Home Stretch | 122 |
| The 8th Month: Making a List and Checking It Twice | 142 |
| The 9th Month: “Dear, It’s Time...” | 166 |
| Labor and Delivery | 179 |
| Cesarian Section | 197 |
| Gee Honey, Now What Do We Do? | 203 |
| Fathering Today | 239 |
| Selected Bibliography | 250 |
| Resources | 256 |
| Index | 263 |
| [ Download a free 47-page PDF sample! ] |
Introduction by Armin Brott
When my wife and I 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, 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.”
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 anywhere from 22 to 79 percent of men, there are physical symptoms of pregnancy as well (more on this on pages 64-68).
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 childbirth and childrearing are women’s issues. But as you’ll learn—both from reading this book and from your own experience—this is simply not the case.
Who, Exactly, Has Written This Book?
When Jennifer Ash (who is not my wife) approached me about collaborating with her on The Expectant Father, we agreed that the goal was 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 during—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.
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, along with my wife and a number of other expectant and new mothers I interviewed, 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 stay involved and the impact that that involvement had 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, 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.
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 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, and tips about how to be supportive of your partner and how to stay included in the pregnancy.
The book 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 let you know 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 you them 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. 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.
We end this book with a chapter called “Fathering Today,” in which you’ll learn to recognize—and overcome—the many obstacles contemporary fathers are likely to encounter along the road to being an actively involved dad.
As you go through The Expectant Father, remember that each of us brings different emotional baggage to the whole pregnancy process, and that none of us will react to the same situation in exactly the same way. You may find that some of the feelings 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 them in the first month. You may also want to try out some of the ideas and activities suggested in the “Staying Involved” sections in a different order. Feel free.
A Note on Terminology
Wife, Girlfriend, Lover, He, She...
In an attempt to avoid offending anyone (an approach that 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.
Hospitals, Doctors...
Naturally, 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 fathers (and prospective fathers) 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 both times my wife and I were pregnant—you’ll be much better prepared to participate in this important new phase of your life.
Some Special Additions to This Edition
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been five years since the first edition of The Expectant Father was published. Over that time I received hundreds of letters and e-mails from readers offering comments and suggestions for how to make this book better. I’ve incorporated many of those suggestions into this edition and believe that the book is greatly improved as a result.
Throughout, for example, we’ve added information for 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.
In addition, we’ve added some information specifically geared toward expectant fathers of multiples—twins, triplets, and so forth—and we’ve greatly expanded the Resources section to include the latest from the Internet and elsewhere.
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 contact me in writing c/o Abbeville Press (the address is on the copyright page of this book), or by e-mail at armin@MrDad.com. And please check out my Web site (www.mrdad.com).
Good luck as you start this new and wonderful chapter in your life!
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