Men complain too much

About 30 weeks into my wife’s second pregnancy, I noticed her rubbing her belly. By this point (just 60-odd days till due date), the belly was quite round and I could see the tell-tale ripples of a baby moving around inside.
I asked Sam: “Do you ever forget that you’re pregnant?” I’d been wondering because – in a move that I’ve come to regret and rejoice in equal measure – I was wearing a simulator pregnancy belly myself.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think you ever really forget. The way I see it, motherhood starts the moment you find out you’re pregnant. You’re constantly thinking about the baby, worrying. No, not worrying… you’re always trying to make sure that your baby is as healthy and as safe as it can possibly be. So you’re aware of it. Always.”
Then she turned it around and asked me: “Why? Do you ever forget?”
“Nah,” I lied. “Of course not.”

Actually, I forget about it all the time. That’s how it went during Sam’s first pregnancy: I never forgot that “we” were pregnant; but because “we” weren’t pregnant (Sam was, I wasn’t) my life carried on as normal. I went to work as normal, I ate lunch as normal, I hung out with the smokers (catching up on gossip and passive carbon monoxide) as normal. I exercised and played footie with my mates as normal.

And I could. Because if I ate something dodgy, only I was affected. If I walked up the stairs wheezing from the second-hand smoke, only I was affected. If I ran around a park kicking a ball around, there wasn’t anybody else inside my belly that I had to worry about.

So when people ask me why I decided to wear the Empathy Belly during Sam’s second pregnancy, there’s the answer: I wanted to live through the experience with Sam. And I wanted to – like her – be aware of our baby. I didn’t want to forget. Ever. So what have I learned through the experience? I’ve learned that men complain too much. Or at least, I complain too much.

I started wearing the Empathy Belly during Sam’s third trimester, when she started showing and when she was – to use that cruel term that celebrity gossip magazines seem to be so fond of – “visibly pregnant”. By the end of the first week, my back was killing me. Between the floating steel balls, the heavy chest and the steadily expanding tummy, the Empathy Belly certainly adds on some extra weight. Its American manufacturers warned that I should: “Immediately discontinue using this device if you feel any sharp pain, dizziness or other adverse effect”. So that’s what I did.

Moms soldier on...

When Sam asked me why I’d abandoned the Empathy Belly (she found it cast aside, in the same dirty pile as my gym shirts and my beach shorts), I told her that it was hurting my back. As the words left my mouth, I realised the dumb irony of it all.

Then, just this past weekend (I’m writing this at the start of Week 32), our two-year-old daughter went to two birthday parties on the same Saturday. After all the excitement and all the junk food, little Isabel was left with a huge hangover. She spent most of Saturday night being sick, and in between changing the bed sheets and nursing the little party animal back to health, Sam and I must have had about three hours of sleep.

Add that to the physical strain of being pregnant, and Sam was absolutely exhausted on the Sunday morning. But she soldiered on, as moms do. As moms must. As the completely-not-pregnant father, I can take a rest whenever I like. And even with the Empathy Belly on, there’s nothing stopping me from taking it off. Pregnant Sam, of course, doesn’t have that luxury. But you’ll never hear her – or any other pregnant mum, for that matter – complain about it.

So although I joke about how the Empathy Belly makes me a pregnant man, and about how I know exactly what it’s like to be pregnant, here’s the real truth, and here’s what I’ve really learned: the more I learn about what it’s like to be pregnant, the more I know that I’ll never, ever, really know what it’s like to be pregnant.

Ever since I started wearing the Empathy Belly, I’ve been amused by the extent to which people have allowed me to speak, with great unearned authority, about pregnancy. Mind you, I suppose being pregnant means that people will naturally pay more attention to you.

And as a pregnant man, I’ve come in for more attention than most. You may have seen me on the TV, heard me on the radio, or read about me on the front page of The Cape Argus. And although people seem to think I am lapping up all the attention, the truth is that I’m really not.

I feel bad about all the attention I’m taking away from Sam. While I’ve been hogging the limelight and getting everybody talking about me (“Look at him! Isn’t he special? What a sweet thing to do! What a great husband he must be!”), Sam’s had to carry on quietly in the shadows, getting on with the business of actually carrying and caring for the real, live baby inside her.

The beauty of the belly

My sister-in-law is also pregnant at the moment and, to my shame, I can’t remember the last time I asked her how she’s coming along. It’s her and my brother’s first baby. Is what I’m doing taking the attention away from the two girls in my life who really are pregnant? Sam, Celeste, if you’re reading this… I’m truly sorry if it is.

There’s a temptation to talk a lot about the physical side of it all. After all, you physically have to carry a baby inside you (or, in my case, carry a bag of water strapped around you); and the physical symptoms of pregnancy are the most obvious. My simulated pregnancy is purely superficial and physical. Strap on the belly, I’m pregnant! Strap it off, and – hey, presto – I’m not!

Despite, or probably because of, this empathetic emphasis on the external aspects of pregnancy, I’ve been offered a glimpse behind the curtain into some of the emotional, psychological, not-so-obvious aspects.

For example: about two weeks ago I had an experience that provided wonderfully amusing material for my blog but it also taught me a very valuable (and painful) lesson.
Somewhere around Week 29 of my (fake) pregnancy, someone walked past my desk at the office and said: “Hey, Mark. I see you’re wearing that pregnancy belly. Oh! Oh no, you’re not! It just looked like you were.”

That small part of me, the one hidden deep beneath my Id and my Ego, that makes me quietly long for the opposite sex to find my physically attractive, died a quiet death that day. And I couldn’t help wondering how women manage to go through the last few months of their pregnancy unnecessarily feeling – and often being made to feel – unattractive.

I’ve always made an effort to remember to tell Sam that I think she’s beautiful – pregnant or not. But as Due Date approaches and as her tummy gets bigger, whenever I tell her that, she offers a faint half-smile… as if to suggest that it’s nice to hear me say that, but she knows that I’m just saying it.

And that’s a pity, because I really do think she’s beautiful. But I think I have some idea now of why she doesn’t believe me. And maybe, after reading and laughing about the girl who unintentionally thought my fake boep was my real boep, maybe you do too.

I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be pregnant. And despite going about as far as a man could possibly go try to find out, I don’t think I ever will. But I sense that when you’re pregnant, being pregnant is pretty much all you ever think about. You’re so aware of the baby (that bulging belly is hard to miss, especially when it’s your bulging belly) that it’s only natural that it would be something you think about a lot of the time.

After all this attention that’s been heaped on the pregnancy, what if something goes wrong? And when I’m not worrying about that, I’m worrying about other things. Like, am I paying enough attention to my wife? And to my existing child? Remember her, the little two-year-old, she used to get all the attention. And – the biggest question of them all – is pregnancy the only thing I ever talk about any more?

This stewing is not a particularly attractive or helpful habit. But I’m almost certain it’s a habit I share with many, many other men. (Us fellas, we don’t talk about things.) And maybe that’s what Mother Nature decided not to let me be pregnant for real. Maybe men just aren’t strong enough for it.