by Israel Butson

Created on: July 21, 2009

Pregnancy is an exciting, challenging, scary, and eye-opening time - not just for the woman who is actually pregnant, but for the man who will soon be a father, too.

A lot has been written on what a woman will experience during pregnancy, and she needn't look far to find an exhaustive list of exactly what she can expect from the journey.

But what about the man? How will the pregnancy unfold for him?

For the man, it is a time of uncertainty. It is a time of anticipation, and it is a time of, well, perspiration. The following list is an attempt to educate men on what to expect during pregnancy. This list is by no means exhaustive. In fact, it's a mere fraction of the many oddities a man will come across...

1. You'll often wake to a gentle tap on your shoulder, see that it's 6am, and get straight out of bed to make breakfast for your wife. For the 4th time since midnight.
2. You'll notice cutlery disappearing, at the same time as finding your rubbish bags getting heavier.
3. You'll start wear earmuffs and shoulder pads to bed. The earmuffs so that you're not awoken by the food-munching sounds at 1am, and the shoulder pads so that you can't feel the tapping finger.
4. Your diplomacy skills will increase astronomically.
5. You'll find yourself driving to your local store most nights, and being looked up-and-down while you purchase yet another tub of ice-cream, jar of gherkins, and bottle of tomato sauce.
6. You'll then find that your wife no longer likes ice-cream, gherkins and tomato sauce. You'll return to the store with a new list - a pizza bun and some caramel sauce - and wonder why the shopkeeper hasn't called the police yet.
7. Your time spent asleep will decrease astronomically.
8. You'll find yourself in a continuous loop of filling a hot water bottle, followed by grabbing a bag of peas from the freezer - the peas for cooling down your overheating wife, and the hot water bottle for warming her back up again 5 minutes later.
9. When your wife uses the car, the keys will go missing. Luckily, she'll probably overheat while you're looking for them, and you'll probably find them in the freezer next to the peas.
10. You'll cross your fingers every night that maybe tonight your wife will get grumpy, and send you to sleep on the couch. It's never looked so comfortable!

Any men out there going through pregnancy right now? If you are, good luck.

You're going to need it.

Learn more about this author, Israel Butson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.