I’m the husband of a beautiful wife and mother to my three children. We have had 1 hospital birth and 2 home births. We have a 4 year old boy, a 2 year old girl, and a 2 week old girl. People have been having children since Adam and Eve but I have never heard a birth story from a male perspective. Maybe it’s because I never asked, never looked, or didn’t want to know. So why is this something I want to share? Why recall one, let alone three of the most emotional roller coaster rides of my life? Well, I believe my experience could help someone else. As you get older and more experienced with life, I believe it’s extremely powerful to read and learn from others.
Over the next couple of posts, I plan on going into detail about all three births and the after affects of each. But first, I’d like to start with where we are today.
Finding out you’re pregnant can be one of the most joyous moments of your life. It can also be an extremely difficult topic of conversation for those that are having difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant, or for those that got pregnant and may not have been trying. The overwhelming joy when we found out we were pregnant with our first made us want to shout it to the world. We had no shame in posting it for the world to see and share in our joy. By the time we were in our fourth pregnancy (we had 1 miscarriage after our first), we learned to be much more sensitive to the topic and talk personally to those that we knew were struggling to get pregnant. Those conversations, although somewhat awkward, helped each of us talk through our emotions, and I’m not going to say that each conversation went well because when you are staring a couple in the face that recently learned they can not have any more biological kids and telling them you are pregnant, it can be a very difficult thing for both sides to process. But I will say that those people we had these conversations with really played an important part in our lives after the kids were born. Which leads me to my next point.
Lean on others like you’ve never leaned on anyone before. Trusting others is such a hard thing to do, especially when you know that they may not do things up to your standards or they’ve failed you in the past. Now is the time to ask for help from everyone you have somewhat of a relationship with. This is why I love the local church so much. When in need, they can be a huge blessing, especially when family isn’t near by. When we had our first child, we had recently moved to Austin and had very little support locally which led to many other issues. When we had our second, we had a much better support group and a truly awesome family to help us out.
Be as prepared as possible for when the baby comes. Make meals, have bags and clothes and diapers and a car seat and baby soap, and baby nail trimmers, and smoothie packets, and tons of granola bars or nuts.
Also mentally prepare yourself to not be intimate for about 10 weeks. Maybe you know this one already but for our first kid it came as a shocker to me. The baby came out and our doctor told us no fun times for awhile and I about cried on the spot.
Lastly, the most important thing on this list is to be there for your wife. After our first child, I remember my wife and I finally losing it on each other and I called her some names that I can never take back. And that was probably the farthest thing from what she needed from her husband. I remember shortly after our fight, I called her dad at a complete loss at what to do next. He gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received and it’s stuck with me through the years: “Stay by her side, no matter what.” I hung up the phone, swallowed my pride and listened to someone wiser than me with more experience. I’m hoping that this post, along with the following posts will help you as well.