Dad Support Club

I have always been scared of pregnant bellies. They freak me out. The idea of a tiny human growing inside another person is pretty weird. I've had thoughts in the past about it and how I was fairly certain I could never have kids because I couldn't look at the belly every day, knowing what was going on in there. My only hope was that the fiancée would grow so slowly that I may just not notice... Plus I see her every day so maybe I won't be freaked out. This conversation even came up with my boss about a year ago when he found out his wife was pregnant. We both agreed that pregnancy bellies are just really fucking weird. Over the last few months, however, I've stopped worrying about all of this. I'm actually looking forward to her showing more and more. (I doubt she's as excited about it as I am...) I have no idea what switch has been flicked in my head that has stopped me freaking out but I'm glad it's happened. My mentality on a lot of th...

So, this post is going to be a really boring ride. I started writing just to get my thoughts out and figured maybe someone would stumble across them who was in a similar position. Although I have no idea what I'm doing, maybe seeing that someone else has the same fears about pregnancy would help them on their journey. The thoughts I want to talk about are about work. Boring, boring, boring, but I started this for me, not for you so shut up and listen here, bucko! I have an alright job. It has all the normal stresses and as with any job. There are shit days where you just get fed up with everything and think about moving to a remote island and living off coconuts and shark meat. The money is fine and we've been surviving without any real financial worries. When we found out my partner was pregnant we looked up how much maternity pay she would get and let me tell you now, I went into panic mode. At the moment we have a good quality of life. We can afford to go out ...

As soon as we found out my partner was pregnant we wanted to announce it to the world (not on Facebook though because I don't feel like old school friends need to know...) We wanted to tell our friends, families, anyone we see regularly that would be excited for us. When you have exciting news, it's human nature to want to talk about it with other people who you know will be as happy as you. The problem is, some people need to know and those people are not usually the ones you would like to tell first. My partner works as a carer for adults with mental heath issues and part of her training (which thankfully she's not had to use) was around restraining people. Some of the people she works with can be extremely physically aggressive so it's not an ideal job for a mum-to-be. A few of her colleagues have fallen pregnant recently and the company has been great with them and very accommodating so I was confident they would do the same for her. She told her manager ve...

"Turn and face the strange. Ch-ch-changes" Last night, true to form, the missus was in the bathroom for an unusually long time. (See here... ) As usual, I went into panic mode. This time is was about 10 minutes. I ended up knocking on the door and asking if she'd fallen down the hole. (Practicing my Dad humour). She came out and we went back to bed. A few minutes later I looked over and she had tears running down her face. Her head was half covered by the pillow so I tried to lift it off. She held her head down so I couldn't see her properly. I asked what was wrong and she said one word... "CHANGES". Imagine being a girl in her mid 20s who has always been fit, healtly and slim and suddenly finding your waist getting thicker, your boobs getting sore and basically just feeling like a pile of shit all the time. It must suck. When she cries I've realised the best course of action is to just be with her but without trying to console her too...

Yeah, but are you really, REALLY sure that everything is ok? It's just that you normally spend about 1:46 minutes in the loo and just then you were in there 2:32 minutes. Have you been crying? Your eyes look like you've been crying... When should I stop asking? The time has probably passed. This happens multiple times a day in our house and I'm fairly certain it's driving the missus crazy. Sometimes I get a "Yeah, everything is fine" but it really seems like everything is not fine at all. Other times I feel like everything is ok but I'll ask how her day was and she will use that as an opportunity to vent (which is absolutely fine but makes me feel like I have completely lost the ability to read her). I imagine this will continue for the rest of the pregnancy but hopefully I can get better at knowing when to be a shoulder to cry on and when I should shut up and leave her to it. Honestly, she's doing a cracking job considering the ...