15 July 2009

So we’ve figured out that however you became pregnant, you are now. You could have planned it or not. You could have a great relationship with your wife/partner or not. You could be a gay couple with a surrogate mother. You could have wanted this baby or not. You could have just broken up with your girl friend and found out she was pregnant!

You are an individual and your life has brought you to this point. Not only may you feel different from ‘women’ but you also may feel different from every other man reading this blog. Your life makes you unique.

But we get drawn back into our commonality. You and the other expectant fathers are all pregnant now. All of you will become a father by the end of the year.

You could have a miscarriage and lose this baby, but you still became a father … even if fleetingly. You may or may not grieve as deeply and long as your wife/partner but it’s in your imagination … your ability to see that this baby (under other circumstances) could have lived and then you would actively be fathering.

I’m not here to focus right now on losing a baby but that is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’. That is what all women and men who lived prior to … or live today without … medical care know. Anything and everything that can happen during pregnancy and birth can and will happen … the good and the unfortunate.

Today the words ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ have come to mean … ‘good, safe, easy birth usually at home and with a midwife’. This is the illusion and you need to see the truth.

Pregnancy and childbirth are very dynamic periods of a woman’s life … and your life as a man and an expectant father. In regards to health, any woman is more likely to potentially have some type of discomfort or ill health during pregnancy and birth than if she weren’t. Besides … sometimes your baby may have difficulties.

So within us as humans we know that pregnancy and birth require very special attention. You now live in societies where men are expected to be with their wife/partner during the birthing process. This may not be your historic cultural relationship to childbirth.

In fact, in all modern societies it was just one generation ago that fathers started to come into the labour and birth process. Perhaps your father was the first to do that in your family and now you will be the second generation of men to be there during the birth.

So we have to get you there already skilled and confident.

This is where you have to get your head wrapped around another concept besides our human commonality. Whether your partner or baby is healthy, well and happy or not you skill have to learn the same set of skills and do that during pregnancy.

The reason you have to do this is simple. You are becoming a father. You have what you have … full stop. You must become skilled to be the best man you can be and the best father … and this will come from the skills you learn during pregnancy. Because pregnancy is the period of time it takes to move any human adult man or woman from being an ‘adult’ to moving through the phase of becoming a mother/father to being a father or mother.

So your skills are independent of whatever is happening in your life! Everything, everything, everything that happens is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ although it may not be wanted or frequent.

Whatever is happening in your life is natural and normal. You may have absolutely no power to change what is outside you or happening to or around you. You can grow the skills to cope, manage and deal with anything and everything life throws at you.

So, watch The Dog Whisperer. Cesar teaches humans to share a common language that each of us can communicate to each other and dogs. He also shows people how to use and recognize ‘non-verbal’ communication. He also shows other people what feeling calm feels like and how that feeling is just the ‘way’ you do things no matter what is happening or how the dog is behaving.

We’ll talk more about The Dog Whisperer in the next entry. Watch at least 20 episodes. You will learn exactly how to approach your Pink Kit Package.

Bottom line

This blog will help you develop skills while your baby is growing inside its mom’s belly. You also need skills to be an effective help during The Birth. Here’s the best resource The Pink Kit Package (The Tool kit for fathers-to-be) is what you need to learn starting at 24 weeks … or later if you are reading this later in pregnancy. Become a wonderful birth coach/support and Wow your doctor or midwife, your parents, friends and partner. Step up now.