A Survival Guide to Pregnancy - Guest Post by Knox McCoy

Today's set of new dad tips is from Knox McCoy. He's awesome. I mean, just look at that name. How can a guy with a name like that not be awesome? His folks set him up right. How am I ever going to top that?

We swapped guest posts today. I wrote about working the drive-thru at Taco Bell, an idea Mr. Fort Knox inspired with this post.

So head on over to Knox's site and check it out!

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A Survival Guide to Pregnancy

So you're going to be a dad. That's awesome. I'm so happy for you. What's the first thing you did when you found out? Think about playing catch with your son? Consider how to lawfully yet forcefully grab your daughter's future boyfriend by the throat and casually introduce him to your firearm? Those are good things, friend. Nay, those are GREAT things.

But they aren't useful to you now. What's useful is surviving. I'm not talking about surviving your child's infancy or the surly teenage years. I'm talking about surviving your wife's pregnancy.

Know this: after your wife becomes pregnant, you carry the same emotional relevancy of a crash test dummy. New hormones flood her system and crazily careen and coarse through her on the reg.

The first trip I went on with my wife to the baby doc led to the nurse practitioner telling me that if I had an ounce of the hormones in my stupid male body that my wife had in hers, that my body would explode. She also said that some countries have considered not charging pregnant women with assault crimes because of the hormone quotient. Are you listening? I made exactly NONE of that up.

But I totally get it! New life is being made in there. I expect it to be a little more dramatic than building a ginger bread house. So here's 4 tips to lasting through the pregnancy with your life intact.

1. Acquiesce, Acquiesce, Acquiesce
So dinner comes and she wants Indian Food and you want Pizza. Guess what, Bro Pesci? You want Indian Food. Nothing can be as vitriolic as food choice. Why? Because pregnant women have very polarizing taste buds and it changes quickly. So when she covets a particular cuisine. Then YOU covet that cuisine too.

2. Do Your Chores (And Hers)
Are you miffed because she didn't do the laundry or the dishes look like a Mt. Vesuvius of left overs and soiled kitchenware? Well guess what? She grew an elbow today. What are you doing? A crap ton of nothing probably compared to that.

3. Don't Complain. Ever.
Does your head hurt? Do you get migraines? That's cute. She's growing a human being inside her body and sometimes it stretches, kicks, and thunder punches her. Imagine having a leprechaun in your brain doing scissor kicks against your medulla. That's what it's like but IN UTERO. So maybe you do have a legit complaint, but stuff it. Unless you have a Siamese twin. Then I guess it's all even?

4. It's Not Personal.
Here's the thing: she goes through 9 months of discomfort and at the end of it, a human being comes out of her. That's her journey. In terms of painfulness, you have nothing to compare to that. But you will be lashed out at. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's God's way of balancing things out. But she's going to freak out on you sometimes for no reason at all. One minute you're talking about Richard Gere and the next minute she's in your face threatening you with bodily harm. It's not personal. She just needs to exert some frustration and by sharing a domicile with her, you will normally be the unfortunate target. Just let it roll and tread lightly.

Your wife's pregnancy is like a campfire. Tended to cautiously, it can be super enjoyable. But if ignored and wrecklessly managed, it will burn your face off. I'm not promising you anything, but if you follow these 4 tenets, you have a greater than 65% chance of seeing your child's birth. Godspeed.


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3 comments:

Katie Alicea said...

My brother and his wife are pregnant with their first baby. She is at the end of her first trimester and I am pretty sure that he had to learn these lessons the hard way. One night they both had Bubblicious gum for dinner because the thought of anything else made her want to die.

Ricky Anderson said...

I can relate.

Jana's been sick as a dog since the day we found out.

The meds they gave her for it cause pounding headaches, so it's really more of a 'pick your poison' scenario.

We're 4 months in, so hopefully it lets up soon!

Unknown said...

Knox, the town we live in now is very small and is ridiculously overpopulated with pregnant women. As such, I took it upon myself to copy and paste this link to my wall. I feel like this could be a way to keep the death toll from rising in rural Montana.