What to expect The First Trimester
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| What to expect The First Trimester The first trimester is a strange time |
The first trimester is a strange time. Your wife may look pretty much
like the same woman she was before your sperm and her ovum
collided, but her body is going through changes even faster than you
can change channels with a brand new remote. Hormones are firing
away and all sorts of other chemicals are doing their stuff. The
resulting side effects are varied, not only from woman to woman,
but for each individual woman from hour to hour.
You can expect that your wife will be more tired than normal.
This tiredness ranges from very little, to as if you are living with a
female bear in deep hibernation. (A smart husband who plans ahead
can also take advantage of this by timing the pregnancy so his wife is
in the first trimester during the championships of his favorite sport.)
Another thing you can expect to some degree is morning sickness.
The name is kind of general, and with good reason. This sickness
can be anything from a little upset tummy to a full-blown, hold
nothing back, tossing of one’s cookies. Most women fall somewhere
in between. The sickness can also appear at any time or throughout
the day. So remember, if you see your wife heading towards the
bathroom, don’t stop her to ask her what’s for breakfast—and don’t
get in her way.
Also, many women have to go to the bathroom more often during
this trimester. This is another one of those perfectly normal but totally
baffling chemical reactions. Once again, if you see your wife rushing
quickly towards the bathroom, make sure you stay clear.
Finally, and most scary, you can expect pretty big mood changes.
To use the remote control analogy again, she can change her mood
faster than you can cycle through all the channels—even if you don’t
have cable. These mood swings are often directed towards you, the
husband, as you are usually the closest object to her, plus you were
directly involved with the start of this whole process. Sometimes
she’ll treat you like you’re Fabio or that guy who took his shirt off on
that old Coke commercial. Other times she’ll treat you like you just
gave Fabio a brush cut and made the guy on the Coke commercial
put his shirt back on. Or, she may treat you as if you had just shot
Fabio, that Coke guy, and her favorite hairdresser. You—being the
man—are pretty much helpless here. All you can really do is enjoy
the good moods, and batten down the hatches to weather the bad
moods. Remember, this probably won’t last much longer than a
few months.
What to expect:
The Second Trimester
The second trimester is kind of the temporary return to near normal.
It’s the proverbial calm before the explosion. Your wife will begin to
show that she is pregnant but she will act pretty much like a larger
version of the woman you married. If there’s anything you and your
wife ever wanted to do but haven’t had the chance, this is the time to
do it. After this trimester, your wife is first going to be too pregnant
to move a whole lot, and then you’re going to be married with child
and you’ll both be too worn out to do a whole lot.
One cool thing does occur in the second trimester: you can actually
feel your baby inside your wife. The baby makes its presence known
through kicking—presumably in some form of Morse code that only
babies can understand. While the kicking might be a slight annoyance
to the mom, it will be the ultimate in coolness to you—sort of like
the feeling you’d get if you could watch four football games and the
Playboy channel at the same time. This will probably be the first
time when you actually realize that, “Yes, there is a living, growing,
little future Hall of Famer inside of there.” The only downside of
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kicking is that it usually occurs (or is more noticeable) at night, thus
preventing your wife from sleeping. Which means that if you have
an inconsiderate wife she may wake you up, figuring if she’s up then
you’re up. Just think of this as practice for your child’s teenage years
when he’ll really be keeping you up late at night.
The second trimester is also the time that many expecting mothers
will undergo ultrasound. Ultrasound is taking pictures with sound
waves. The procedure is totally painless for both the father and the
mother—and the baby. It’s what doctors use in order to: determine
the sex of the baby, make sure everything is progressing okay, and
have something extra to charge you for. At the end of the procedure
they will present you with the first picture (though you’ll have to
pretty much take the word of the medical professionals that this really
is your child) of your unborn child. If it still hasn’t sunk in yet, it will
now—you’re going to be a father. Oh, at this stage don’t worry if the
baby doesn’t look like you—because it won’t. This is nothing to be
alarmed about and no reason to consult a lawyer. At this stage all
babies look pretty much like small versions of those aliens from Close
Encounters of the Third Kind.
To sum it all up: the second trimester is pretty cool