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Great Expectations

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December 12, 2007

Hold onto your hats, wipe your brows and have a cigar. It’s my child’s

Birth Day
By Harry Shenk

         I am so, so very aware of my breathing, because I am so, so very aware of everything in the world.
         The entire universe, right now, is the birthing room at the hospital where it’s finally payday after a nine-month part-time assignment. The doctor is talking and the nurse is cooing and my wife is pushing and I am breathing louder and harder and faster than I’ve ever breathed before.
         Labor for me, of course, has been easy but, surprisingly, it was relatively easy for my wife, too. I mean, we know women who have been in 12 hours, 16 hours, even 24 hours of labor. My wife is in labor for 4 hours, and then a miracle happens. Even though 11,000 babies are born each day in this country, our baby is still a miracle. At 1 p.m. on a bright, beautiful day, on the last day of the bright, beautiful month of November, my wife gives birth to a healthy, bouncing baby boy.
         I can’t yet comprehend how I feel about my son, but I do know one thing. I sure am glad these nine months of pregnancy are over. Now I can finally get some sleep.

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November 21, 2007

The Top Answers to the

Top Ten Questions that Expectant Parents Ask Each Other
by Harry Shenk

#10
Mothers: When’s it due?
Fathers: When’s it due?

#9
Mothers: How are you doing?
Fathers: How is she doing?

#8
Mothers: Are you still nauseous? (first trimester)
Fathers: Are you still, uh, getting any? (first trimester)

#7
Mothers: Have you had your sonogram yet? (second trimester)
Fathers: Have you had your first entirely sleepless night yet? (second trimester)

#6
Mothers: Aren’t those kicks something else? (third trimester)
Fathers: Aren’t those hormones something else? (third trimester)

#5
Mothers: What baby clothes have you gotten so far?
Fathers: How much has it cost so far?

#4
Mothers: Are you taking calcium?
Fathers: You haven’t given up alcohol, too, have you?

#3
Mothers: When are you going to quit working?
Fathers: When are you going to get another job?

#2
Mothers: Who’s your doctor?
Fathers: Who’s your shrink?

#1
Mothers: How much weight have you gained?
Fathers: How much weight have you gained?

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November 7, 2007

When a baby is on the way, your life seems to be a series of serious

Decisions
By Harry Shenk

        Since we don’t know the baby’s gender, we decide to decorate the baby’s room in the primary colors. Since we’re Yuppies, the primary colors are teal, fuchsia and mustard.
        We decide that the baby will call its mother either “Mommy” or “Mom.” We decide that the baby will call me “Mr. Shenk.”
        We decide to try to be ecologically sound and use cloth diapers supplied by a diaper service. Cloth diapers (as opposed to plastic, the second-largest source of our nation’s solid waste) are washed (not thrown in the trash, where they can take up to 500 years to decompose) and are then re-used. The service is a reasonable $35 a month, and they pick up and deliver several times a week. Our friends (many of whom are ecologically purer than thou) guffaw at our decision. They have started a pool, betting that we’ll switch to plastic disposables faster than you can say “poo poo.” So far, the longest estimate is three weeks. Oh, ye of little faith, just wait and see. Just ye wait and see.
        We decide that there should be a primary caretaker for the family, a head of household, you know, a boss. My wife decides that she will be the boss, and I decide that I will be the boss. We have a bit of conflict here until we finally come to this agreement: I get to be the boss, and my wife gets to make the decisions. Ahh, she finally realizes who is running this family.
        We decide not to purchase a pre-learning program for $279.95. Available through the Prenatal Institute of Redmond, Washington, the program consists of sixteen Babytapes, one maternal speaker belt, one instructional booklet, and an infant evaluation form for parental tracking of early development during the first 24 months. The mother-to-be straps the speaker belt around her tummy and, on an audiocassette for two hours a day, plays a Cardiac Curriculum – “progressive variations of a sonic pattern” – you know: boom, boom, boom, boom. For babies who have experienced this pre-learning program in utero, claim its makers, “their mental and behavioral growth consistently surpasses the top 1 percent of all prenatally unstimulated peers, with equivalent social gains.”
        But, for $279.95, we decide that our baby has already experienced enough prenatal stimulation.
        And it’s not just a financial decision. We have noticed that the kid keeps kicking all the time. On a visit last week to the obstetrician, we were told that, yes, we seem to have an active baby. We decide that it’s better to have a lively child than one who is a dunce.
        We decide that it is preferable to rationalize than to worry.

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October 24, 2007

I’m learning from this “foreplay to fatherhood” how important children are in the development of the parents as people. People who have children are

The Luckiest People in the World

By Harry Shenk

        My wife is reading a very scary book, The Secret Life of the Unborn Child by Thomas Verny. Do not read this book. It’ll turn you into an obsessive, paranoid person. The premise of this tome is: “Everything that affects the mother, affects the baby.” Fifteen pages of footnotes document such sensationalistic findings as “The unborn child grows emotionally agitated each time his mother thinks of having a cigarette.” Each time she merely thinks.
        Most of the “facts” in this book are based on the assumption that, when the fetus kicks or squirms or increases its heartbeat, it is upset, and that this strain can have a lasting effect. I quote: “Heart rate, like activity, is a good indicator of personality.”
        So, my wife is reading this book with fascination and dread – but I keep telling her not to believe it. Usually, babies kick and squirm just to kick and squirm, I tell her. Usually, kicking has nothing to do with strange voices or inner anxieties or Chuck Berry.
        But … then I read how “there is solid evidence” that, “in cases where a man talked to his child in utero using short soothing words,” his newborn can pick out his voice in a room in the first hour of its life – and respond to it emotionally. “If he’s crying, for instance, he’ll stop. That familiar, soothing sound tells him he is safe.”
        Then I read that problems in the marriage relationship can affect the fetus emotionally and cause lasting damage. “A woman locked in a stormy marriage runs a 237 percent greater risk of bearing a psychologically or physically damaged child than a woman in a secure, nurturing relationship.” Unhappy marriages produce babies who are “five times more fearful and jumpy than the offspring of happy relationships.”
        The missus and I do occasionally argue. But nowadays, if I raise my voice with her, she immediately puts her hands over her tummy (in order to cover up the baby’s ears?) and I immediately feel guilty. Oh, no! I’ve just created an emotionally damaged teenager! What have I done?!
        Stay away from books like this. Prospective parents are paranoid enough.
        One thing I’m learning from these many months of waiting – from this foreplay for fatherhood – is how important children are in the development of the parents as people. To be good parents, we must be good people, friendly people, kind-hearted people at peace with ourselves and our worlds.
        I know, without a doubt, that I will soon undergo major changes in my sleeping and eating habits, in my work schedule, in my relationship with my wife, in my social life, in my behavior, in my values. And many of these changes will be major inconveniences that result in major pains in the neck. Yet I am impressed (with myself) at how willing I am to change – how willing I am to sacrifice my sleep, my schedule and my social life for my children.
        Families are composed of saints. You can call me St. Harry.

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September 26, 2007

Oh, Gosh: Questions at the Hospital

By Harry Shenk

        My wife and I are scheduled to attend a parent education class, but the talk is about finances, which I cannot bear to sit through, even if you paid me. So we ride the elevator to the third floor and sneak around the maternity ward.
        More than 300 babies are born in this suburban hospital very month. The hospital has seventeen birthing rooms (clean, comfortable and softly lit rooms where mothers into labor and fathers go into shock and babies are delivered), but these rooms are private places, so we walk by very quickly and quietly.
        We stare through the windows of the intensive-care nursery. Inside, premature babies have plastic tubes running all through their small fragile bodies. My breathing becomes heavy; I am burdened by cares and worries. Oh, gosh: Will my baby be healthy?
        We pass a mother, heavy with child, walking down the hallway on her mother’s arm. She is pale-white and in pain. Oh, gosh: Will my wife have a difficulty delivery?
        The nursery is full of newborns. A father, garbed in hospital greens, looks very tired. His bluish, wrinkled baby grasps his finger tightly. The dad looks up at me through the window and smiles. Oh, gosh: Will I be so lucky?
        A nurse walks in, followed by two men. She puts the baby she is carrying into a bassinet and shows one of the men, the father, how to stroke his child’s arm. The other man is beaming. He pats his friend on the back; he tousles his friend’s hair; he ducks into the hallway and pulls out his cell phone. The nurse moves the father from one side of the bassinet to the other. She hands him a thermometer and shows him how to hold it in the baby’s armpit. Oh, gosh: Will I be a good father?
        The more I learn, the less I know and the more doubts I have. We go to the hospital for answers, but I leave with more questions. Oh, gosh.

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August 29, 2007

Primal Fear
by Harry Shenk

It is 4 a.m., and my wife taps my shoulder. “I can’t touch my chin to my chest!”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So I have meningitis.” I sense desperation in her voice. She stutters, “The baby …?”

I am fully awake now. “Menin-what?”

“I can’t touch my chin to my chest. I have meningitis.”

I try it myself. “Hey, honey, nobody can touch their chin to their chest.” I assume this reassures her. “Go back to sleep.”

She doesn’t.

I don’t.

We lie in bed for the rest of the morning, staring at the ceiling, worrying about the health of our unborn child. By 9 o’clock, we are on the phone with a nurse at the ob/gyn office. My wife – suffering from a stiff neck, aching back, sniffles, piercing headache and slight fever – is describing her symptoms. “Well,” says the nurse, “it’s probably a flu, but it could be meningitis. You better come in and have the doctor take a look at you.”

We wait the standard 40 minutes in the office.

The doctor is reassuring. She checks my wife from head to toe, pokes her back, massages her neck, rubs a microphone over her tummy so we can hear the baby’s heartbeat and tells us that it's probably just a flu. “You can have a flu, and it will have no effect on your baby. Your immune systems are down because all of that natural protection is now directed toward the fetus. I’ve removed a gall bladder from a pregnant woman, and it had no adverse effect on the baby.”

But, to be on the safe side, we make an appointment with an internist just a few miles away. We wait another 40 minutes in the doctor’s office.

The doctor pokes my wife some more, sticks a flashlight in her ears and eyes, takes a urine sample and tells us that it’s just a flu. “Meningitis is extremely rare in adults. Besides, I cannot touch my chin to my chest, either.”

I could be needling my wife, “I told you so” because I told her that nobody can touch their chest with their chin – unless they’ve got really long chins or really big chests. I could be needling her, “I knew it was just a flu.” But I’m not feeling very self-righteous or self-confident right now. I’ve been hit over the head: I’m aware of how fragile she is, how delicate and dependent this fetus is.

Fear is our most basic emotion and fathers, especially expectant fathers like me, are not immune. Anything can happen, and we’re pretty powerless. This fatherhood thing, it’s scary.

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August 15, 2007

The Couvade Syndrome
by Harry Shenk

      Weight gain among expectant fathers is understandable. Yes, part of the gain can be attributed to being supportive of the expectant mother: “Of course, I’ll get you some milk and cookies, honey. And while I’m up, I’ll have some, too.” But empathy can go a long way, and daddies-to-be very frequently assume some of the symptoms of their spouse.
        These “symptoms of systematic magic” were named couvade by British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor in 1865. In this column, I’d like to lecture you about couvade.
        Couvade comes from the French word couvee meaning “to hatch.” In some primitive societies, men take to bed in a charade-like ritual simulating the agony of labor and birth. According to Expectant Fathers, by Bittman and Zalk, this ritual “serves at least two vital purposes: It establishes for the community just who the father is, and it decoys all evil spirits to the father’s hut, where they can spend their wrath on the mock mother.”
      That’s the way the syndrome was originally defined. But now examples of couvade include men feeling morning sickness, vomiting, indigestion, increased or decreased appetite, weight gain, diarrhea or constipation, headache, toothache, insomnia, changes in sexual appetite and experiencing severe abdominal pains during the woman’s labor.
        Couvade syndrome usually begins towards the end of the first trimester and increases in severity until the third trimester. The symptoms of couvade only terminate when the baby is born.
        According to a 1991 study at the University of Texas, “couvade has been seen as an expression of somatized anxiety, pseudo-sibling rivalry, identification with the fetus, ambivalence about fatherhood, a statement of paternity, or parturition envy.”
      Michael Polinski, writing in pregnancytoday.com, sites two studies by Canadian researchers Dr. Katherine Wynne-Edwards, a professor of biology at Queen's University, and Dr. Anne Storey, a professor of psychology at Memorial University. They examined the saliva and blood samples of expectant fathers for hormonal changes at different times during their partners’ pregnancies, typically beginning testing at 10 weeks and ending a month after birth. The good doctors discovered significant changes in the men’s levels of prolactin (a female hormone involved in milk production and possibly maternal and paternal behavior), estradiol (a principal form of the female hormone estrogen), cortisol (a hormone related to stress responsiveness) and testosterone (a male hormone associated with aggression). The studies suggest that “men are experiencing hormonal changes associated with parenthood and that those changes are similar to maternal changes.” Wynne-Edwards says the change in hormones may make the expectant fathers “brain-parents already” and possibly more willing and better prepared to care for their children.
        Right now, at this very moment, about 4 million men in the United States are expecting. An estimated 10 percent to 20 percent of them experience some aspect of couvade. My own anecdotal research suggests that this figure is ridiculously low. The feet of the expectant fathers may not swell and their backs might not ache all the time, but almost all expectant fathers I know put on weight during their wives’ pregnancies.
        Likewise siblings and pets. Yes, a significant percentage of dogs and cats put on weight during their owners’ pregnancies. They’re just one, big, happy family.
    This is all very sweet and wonderful, and the overeating, expectant father should revel in his empathy and sensitivity. However, when the wife, who now resembles a pick-up truck with the doors open, stands before the bedroom mirror, shaking her head and mumbling her new mantra, “I’m so fat, I’m so fat,” the usual standby of “You’re not fat, honey, you’re beautiful!” is not much help. Reflected in the mirror behind her is a potbellied husband, a three-year-old with pie on his face, a lumpy dog and one fat cat.
        The good news is that this reflected picture of the Big Family need not be blamed on anyone’s weakness or nuttiness. It’s a condition – a universal, medically-established condition known as the couvade syndrome. I’m an expectant father. Does the syndrome necessitate that I become fatter? I’m developing a weight-and-see attitude.

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July 11, 2007

I Am Fatter
by Harry Shenk

        The first trimester of a pregnancy is often dreary; the mother frequently vomits. The second trimester is cheery; the mother exhibits unparalleled energy and optimism. The third trimester is weary; the mother needs to lie down, just for while, okay, and get me a glass of milk, will you please, honey?
        Our pregnancy is in its cheery trimester. The wife glows. There’s a flush to her cheeks, and she smiles and laughs at the slightest provocation.
        She’s having my baby. What a lovely way of saying how much she loves me.
        We’re all getting fat. She has a good excuse, but look at me. I’ve gained ten pounds in the last three months – and no matter how much I exercise, no matter how much I refrain from eating chocolate-covered graham crackers, no matter how many meals or jump ropes I skip, I continue to put on the pounds. My wife eats constantly, so I eat constantly. I hope our eating patterns will change once the baby is born. They better. Otherwise, we’ll have to install new joists and floorboards.
        My weight gain, while distressing, is understandable. The books I read explain the couvade syndrome, the physical symptoms experienced by an expectant father that disappear almost immediately after his wife has given birth. My editor here at Dad Magazine has asked me to write an article-length column about couvade, so you have something to look forward by the middle of next month. Suffice it to say here at this syndrome helps explain why we’re now one, big, happy family.
        Yesterday, we made our monthly visit to our ob/gyn group and watched the good doctor measure the mother-to-be’s tummy with a metric tape. He can’t actually measure the growth of the baby so, every visit, he measures her abdomen. “It’s an indirect measurement,” he told us, “like measuring a shoe box to determine the size of the shoes inside.” I could swear that he looked at me out of the corner of one eye, thinking to himself, “Hiking boots. Rain boots. Combat boots … this dad needs a really big shoe box.”

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June 27, 2007

In a Heart Beat
by Harry Shenk

    As we enter our eleventh week, we visit the ob/gyn office, where there is no wait (hey, we’re learning the system), where yet another doctor – this one driving a white Mercedes with his name on the license plate – does yet another exam. He rubs some Vaseline on my wife’s tummy and tours it with a Doppler, a microphone that resembles an electric razor. First we hear the placenta throbbing. Then the doctor turns up the mike and we hear our baby’s heartbeat.
    Tha-bump, tha-boomp, tha-bump …
    The wife giggles. I gasp: “Wow! That’s awfully fast!”
    A baby’s heart beats 120 to 160 times a minute, the doctor explains. Adult hearts provide only 60 to 100 lub-dubs a minute. “Why?” I ask.
    At this stage, the fetus is doubling in size every month, the doctor tells me. “That would be like you going from 150 pounds today to 300 pounds next month.”
    My baby. The doctor is talking to me about my baby. I’m feeling included. I’m feeling proud. I’m feeling lucky and in love. This thing is probably going to turn out all right after all.
    We go to a nice, fancy restaurant for lunch. We order salads and pasta and pizza and dessert. These days we’re eating for three. Tha-boomp.

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June 20, 2007

Class Act
by Harry Shenk

    Last night we went to our first class together. This is a free lecture series for prospective parents at the hospital. The two discussion topics were “Common Discomforts of Pregnancy” followed by “Hospital Finances.” A dozen pregnant women were in the lecture hall, and seven men.   The women take notes during “Discomforts” and the men take aspirin during “Finances.”
    Did you know that, even with a good insurance plan, the average layout before labor is $5,000? That includes non-reimbursable, good-for-one-time-only stuff like home pregnancy tests, prenatal vitamins, extra food, bigger bras and documentary photographs of the mother-to-be’s ever-expanding abdomen. And did you know that the hospital bill for a Cesarean birth costs about $9,000 extra? Extra??
    Even though insurance companies usually pick up 80 percent of the hospital and ob/gyn costs, most insurance companies shy away from prenatal testing. So if, like me, you’re worried about the health of the baby, you can spend more on testing your fetus than colleges will spending testing your kid two decades later.
    There’s $200 for each ultrasound, $800 for an amniocentesis, $400 or each chromosomal analysis and $35 for each Tay-Sachs blood test. The Tay-Sachs tests are such a bargain, I’m ready to give blood several times. Maybe they can check my oil and water while we’re waiting? Oh, that’s extra? Never mind.
    The lecturer asks, “Are any of you experiencing increased fatigue?” All of the women raise their hands. I join them. One of the things I’m worried about is that I’m not going to get another good night’s sleep for, oh, let’s say, the rest of my life.
        And all I get from the pregnant women in the room for my raised hand is a bunch of belly laughs. (Another discriminatory thing I’ve noticed: The expectant mother is met with herbal tea and sympathy; the expectant father is greeted with laughs and beer and pats on the back. No fair. I don’t drink beer.)
    I’m not sure how many more of these classes I can take. Squeamish men, the lecturer informs us, might want to skip next week’s “Cesarean Birth Film.” And I’m not too keen on “Abnormal Birth and Obstetrical Complications” either. Maybe this exclusion thing has its benefits. I don’t know. I guess I’ll ask one of my beer-offering, back-slapping, liberated and facetious buddies.

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June 13, 2007

The Zen of Pregnancy
by Harry Shenk

        I wait and I wait and I wait. Finally, the ob/gyn doctor and my expecting wife and ready to talk to me. It’s official, the doc says, your wife is pregnant. “Congratulations.”
        And that’s that. He and the mother-to-be continue chatting, and I no longer get any eye contact – I am no longer addressed or even obliquely referred to, even though I’ve got a 28-page list of questions for the expert.
        The doctor looks at his watch and indicates that he’s read to move on to those other patients twiddling their thumbs in his waiting room. “Is there anything else?” he asks my wife. She turns to me (Mr. Listmaker) and says, “Uhhh, honey?”
        “Not him,” says the doctor, “you. Do you have any questions? You’re the one who’s going to have this baby.” She asks a couple more (she’s seen my list) and then informs the doctor that her husband (you know, that speck on the wall over there) is the worried one. “Don’t worry, be happy,” says Bubba Doc. “You can read through this stuff,” he says, gesturing at a bundle of brochures and books we are about to receive, “and it will explain some of what’s going on. But, as time goes by, you will do best by being in touch with your wife, supporting her and sharing in the experience. You learn as you go. Think of it as the Zen of pregnancy.”
        No wonder I feel excluded. I’ve got a Buddhist priest for an obstetrician, and he’s got to rush off and meditate. Sorry, but I don’t have time to be supportive and in touch. We’re having a baby.

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June 6, 2007

How Am I Feeling?
by Harry Shenk

    Throughout these nine months of anticipation, friends and family will be constantly asking my wife, "How are you feeling?" During this first trimester of the pregnancy, as we share our news with the outside world, it is only natural for people to be asking me, "Harry, how are you feeling?"
    My most profound feeling is a sense of exclusion. I've made my contribution to this joint venture, now my wife gets to be both chairwoman of the board and chief operating officer.
    The feeling of being left out is in no way ameliorated by our first visit to the obstetrician. This doctor, recommended to us by friends of friends, belongs to a very popular and prestigious group of ob/gyn doctors with offices in several nearby communities. Several.
    Ob/gyn doctors are very busy people. You show up on time for your appointment, and then you wait and wait and wait. On our first visit, we wait for an hour before my wife is called in. My wife fills out forms, my wife is examined, my wife and the doctor talk. Finally, after forty minutes, that's a total of one hour and forty minutes if you're counting (and I'm counting), I am called in.
    I had to wait one hour and forty minutes before I could find out what the doctor had to say. You’ll have to wait a week. Big deal.   Stop your complaining.   Stay tuned.

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May 30, 2007

We Are Pregnant
by Harry Shenk

       We are eight weeks pregnant. Our embryo is becoming a fetus. It is only one-and-a-half inches long, but already it has a head, a spine, hands and feet, a snubby nose and the beginnings of ears. In the center of its pale irises are the pupils, covered by a thin membrane. Its heart has been pumping for a month.
       I have this knowledge of our fetus because I've started reading books, which are stacked on the night table that used to hold our contraceptives.
   Everywhere I look, everywhere, I find irony.

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I Am Harry Shenk
by Harry Shenk

     I am a normal, average guy -- a white, middle-aged male living in a ranch-style home in the suburbs. I am a relatively old new husband (I turn 40 in a few months). I've been married for a bit over a year and we just found out that my wife is cooking. She has a bun in her oven. She's knocked up. She's in the family way. She's preggers.
    As a journalist, I often include myself in stories I write for newspapers and magazines. (It's called the New Journalism, founded by Tom Wolfe in the late 1970s.) I'll try not to make this Great Expectations column all about me but, if anything shouts out for self-reflection, this is it. Me, me, me, me, me. And the occasionally She, She, She.
    For every ten parenting books that are directed at the new mothers, there's only one for the new fathers. The Publishing Powers don't think that we expecting dads are doing much thinking about our new roles, our new responsibilities, our new lives. They're idiots. We're thinking about this kind of stuff all the time.
    I hope to share my thoughts, and my experiences, with you here in this column. I hope you'll find it entertaining and educational. I hope my editor doesn't yell at me. I hope my child doesn't end up resenting me. I hope my wife doesn't kill me.
    This is a time in my life when I am full of hope.