MONEY & ENTERTAINMENT

Here is a question which is on the lips of every young man, to which the answer is most of the times: no, or not yet, although the ulterior performances prove the contrary.

Until you become a father, both you and your partner have to go through nine months of pregnancy, and, for things to go as good as possible, we offer you some rules to guide you in your new posture. It is very important to do all these with pleasure.

Appetite comes with eating.
How do you react when you first find out that you are a daddy? It is certainly news that causes a strong emotion and, most of the times, a true shock, especially if you are very young, ambitious, and full of energy and if you have plans of personal assertion. You can feel suddenly as if you have been put to a carriage and overwhelmed by a suffocating responsibility which you haven’t chosen and for which SHE is guilty.

The idea that you have just lost your freedom and your worriless living corrodes your mind like a drill and words like: but we are not ready/ we can’t afford it/ what are we going to do now/ how did this happen come through your mouth almost involuntarily, offending your partner, inducing her a feeling of guilt, incapacity, revolt, and anxiety and causing a crisis in your relationship. Of course, it would be unjust to generalize – not all men think like that. Thank God, would say the women who get shivers at the thought that the news that causes them such joy could cause such a reaction to their partners. There are a lot of men who could go out the window and cry their happiness out loud.

But there are a lot of cases when hearing the news, the young daddy got out to buy cigarettes and never came back. No matter what the mood is when the news is heard, most men hurry to drink something. By themselves, with the friends, neighbors, and the male part of the family: father, father-in-law, brothers, brothers-in-law, etc. Why is it important that the woman shares the joy of the gravidity with her partner? During the pregnancy, any emotion of the mother, be it positive or negative, is also transmitted to the baby.

It has been medically proven that, if she is cheerful and if she feels good, there are positive hormonal changes in the body of the baby, and if the mother is going through some tensioned moments, if she is sad, furious, anxious, the baby isn’t too well either. So, it is very important that the future daddy to receive the news connected with the existence of the pregnancy as well as possible.

How is it best for the future daddy to receive the news? (advice for your partner)
1. Right away, but not out of the blue, for him not to be completely surprised.
Otherwise, the woman risks a reaction that can be offending and profoundly disappointing for her. Even if the couple has tried hard to have a baby after many years of treatments and medical tests, the news shouldn’t be given to the future day out of the sky, otherwise the lady risks causing strange reactions, from fainting to going mute, and, if the gentleman has passed his first youth, even a heart attack.

So, a short preamble must take place, like: how would it be if we were three instead of two, and only afterwards the pregnancy must be confirmed. Also, she should expect a line like: are you really sure?, but without being necessarily followed by a tender embrace like the ones she saw in the movies. Her partner may stand in the same position for a while, trying to waken.

2. With delicacy and enthusiasm, because this thing helps him feel happy, important, realized, mature.
If the woman is worried about their financial, marital, or locative situation, she gives the news like a reproach with the weight of a cannon ball, and he can reply with a zip of a guillotine: And what do you want me to do now? Why weren’t you careful? Delicacy and an enthusiastic attitude (even if the enthusiasm is moderate) are compulsory when the news is told. Either way HE will be having more problems than HER, HE has more anguishes to deal with than HER.

3. In private
No matter how happy the future mother is, the news shouldn’t be told everywhere before telling it to the future father. It is a matter of maximum intensity and of elementary common sense not to tell him and the whole city at the same time. After the joy has been completely tasted in the couple, it may be shared to the family, friends, etc.

Maybe it is not a bad idea that when children and pregnancy are being talked about in the couple (obviously before the event),the partners should also approach the way the news should be told. What happens after you find out you are going to be a daddy? What influences your reaction and your behavior? Those who don’t run when they find out the news start to get accustomed little by little with the idea that they are going to be fathers.

A woman who is pregnant for the first time is preoccupied by the life that grows inside her and she lives intensely and directly all the transformations in her body day by day: queasy, appetite for certain foods, the thickening of her waist, swallowing of her feet, the moves of the baby, etc. She feels happy and fulfilled even when she worries for the healthy of her baby, birth, post-birth leave, job, career, money, help, and house.

The man, being exterior to this organic experience which is pregnancy can only live it on a psychical level. Some future daddies are glad and are amazed at this miracle that they accept with a lot of calm and they caress tenderly the belly of the future mother, they go with her at the doctor’s and they can’t get enough of watching the picture of the baby. Others feel frustrated by the fact that it is something they can’t control and that the woman suddenly gets a lot of power over something that is not only hers, that is theirs as well.

They get frightened by the fact that their partners don’t need them anymore, especially if they follow their ordinary activities – this is valid for powerful women with money and with a career – as if they weren’t pregnant and they even put themselves to some real or imaginary risks. The pregnancy suddenly looks like a business in which partners, even if they invested equally, is run only of one of them who also has the power of taking it over completely and of having his own right on it. The anxiety, the worry, the curiosity, the anxiousness and the most various fears get all in a man’s heart who is a daddy for the first time.

A baby brings with it radical changes in the personal life as well as in the couple life. A man, even when he is happy about the fact that he is going to be a daddy worries more than the future mom. Some worries are immediate (how often and how they are going to have sex, how much the birth is going to cost, what doctor will assist her, how we decorate the room of the baby, etc), others on the long term (who is helping us with the baby, how we are going to handle the money while the mother is on maternity leave, how our weekends will look like, etc).

A man knows a baby is a great responsibility, that it is testing the love, trust, and the understanding in the couple, that it will bring restrictions, new needs and a redefining of the priority list, that it can determine a change of the life plans. The family from which the future daddy comes from and the education he has had, his attitude towards the partner and the family as an institution, the degree of maturity, his character and his personality, his desire to accept his new status and to assume his new responsibilities, understanding these responsibilities, they all influence the reaction and the behavior of the man who finds out for the first time that he is to become a daddy.

Not less, the attitude of the partner and her behavior can help him beat his fears, reorganize his life plans, assume the new attributions of material supporter, educator, and protector of his family. Or not… Also, for the men who have a career the moment when they find out they are going to be a father is very important.

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If the news comes in a period when personal affirmation is intense and it solicits him physically, intellectually and emotionally in a great measure (he has exams, mammoth-projects, he has been recently named in a leading position, he has recently changed his job, he has just started a new business etc) or if it comes in a period when his professional performances, his career and his incomes go through some rough times, there aren’t many chances for him to jump with joy at the thought that he is going to be a father. On the contrary, the news could put extra pressure on him, making him fail eventually.

The reaction of the man during pregnancy depends in many aspects of his relationship with his own mother during childhood, more precisely if this relationship is based on mutual trust, freedom of expressing and manifested affection. It is often said that men are big babies. The reaction of the future father can be like a baby’s towards his mother, concomitantly to that of an adult when he is confronting with the perspective of some certain and serious problems in a not so far away future.

The pregnancy connects the future parents like an invisible thread, but more powerful than anything. Sometimes the future father feels the acute need to live (for the last time, he promises himself) the experience of a free and worriless man. And this need may be concretized quite often in an adventure with another woman. Of course, the future mom cannot conceive a so abject betrayal and, when she doesn’t even know in what position to sleep in to rest, when she can barely breathe when she climbs the ladders and when her feet hurt, swallowed by so much walking, but she continues cooking in the kitchen, no one has the right to ask her to understand that, actually, the erotic adventure of her man is a sort of a psychological break from the present and future problems.

Nothing can make her accept that her belly doesn’t make her repulsive in his eyes and that he is afraid to have sex with her not to hurt her (or the baby). We find ourselves facing a dilemma: is the future daddy to blame? The woman inside me screams that he is, and so are my sisters, trying to cover the specialists’ choir who say that he isn’t. Is the future mum justified in her reaction? Here is a very well-grounded reason which feeds the useless war between sexes, when it would be best for the partners to try to find an answer to their anguishes and to ask the advice of a specialist before doing something stupid which risks ruining the state of the pregnancy, the relationship, and even their life.

A lot of the future daddies, after they pass the first 2-3 months, they start to get bored next to their partners. A lot too attentive at her needs and her baby’s, a lot to preoccupied about the pregnancy and the changes it brings, the future mother doesn’t see in her partner a man next to who she lives, but just a butler with whom she has nothing else to talk than oh, I feel like eating an apple pie or my back hurts, massage me. If it is all reduced to her needs and her problems, the pregnancy has already transformed her from a woman into a harpy.

The reaction of the future daddy will soon get from the initial happiness to anguish and revolt, and from revolt to boredom. Soon, he will start spending more time at work, to find things to do at his friends and neighbors or to spend a lot of time at the computer. Such an attitude from his partner confirm him his darkest fears – his life will never be the same and it will lose its quality, just like his couple life has been spoiled by the pregnancy.

Instead of helping the man live his life and enjoy paternity, the woman separates him from her and from the future baby and she reduces him to the job of bringing food, supporter, which, gentlemen, you are right, is unfair and profoundly offending and he will understand and I approve, even if I risk facing the blame of my sisters. Because a man has, as a father, much more to live and to offer and it is a huge mistake for the partner and an irreparable lost for the baby for all this dowry to be unvalued.

What about the sex life?
Most pregnant women suffer a lot of physiologic transformations and their libido is lower. But this can’t be said about the future daddies. As a result of this wrong timing, the couple relationship can be hurt. And so is the woman’s health and the development of the future baby. Some men find their pregnant partners more attractive than before. Others, on the contrary, feel uncomfortable having sexual relationships with them, especially after they see the baby moving.

Sex, like caressing and tender words, is a form of communicating our love for the partner and it is necessary in building a harmonious couple. Sex is necessary during the pregnancy, but it is not compulsory, being in some situations unadvisable. It all depends of the health of the mother and the baby, of the atmosphere in the family, of their psychical state, of the disposition of their partners and of many other factors which are specific to each couple. The important thing is that both partners try to be careful to each other’s needs, to communicate as openly as they can and to find a manner through which they can bring sexual satisfaction to one another.

It is understood that the love making style will suffer some changes, which it takes much more attention, patience and tenderness, but this can only intensify the feelings in the affective plan and to give a new quality to the relationship.

Protect your partner!
1. Show her constant care and attention.
Small gestures, like a cushion that you put at her back, in the armchair or under her feet, will make her feel loved and protected. Bring things handy and don’t let her carry heavy bags to cook for you. Don’t ask for delicacies that require from her to stand a lot in the kitchen. Tie her shoelaces, zip her boots and pick from the floor what she has slipped from her hands in order for her not to bend.

2. Create a journal in which you both to write daily the states, the emotions, the dispositions, and the fears, etc.
Start with you. It will help you communicate better and to solve more from the worries you make, rightfully or not.

3. A photo album of the belly would be fun for both of you and, later, for the baby too.
You can decorate her belly with lipstick/ watercolors/ cream/ mayonnaise/ bath moose, etc. photograph her from different angles, in different moments.

4. Breakfast in bed.
This is a true spoiling, especially on Sundays and Saturdays. In this way you may keep her longer in bed if she is a true perpetuum mobile and you make her feel good for the rest of the day.

5. Redecorate the house, arrange the baby’s room
Take her opinions and her suggestions into consideration. She will be happy to see you so preoccupied of what she has in mind.

6. Take her out for a walk in the park.
Walking outside makes her feel good. Take her somewhere she likes, choose your bench. Some decades later you will have a place where to relive some of your most beautiful memories! 7. Give her a gift from time to time.
It doesn’t have to be expensive, it has to show that you care for her. A book, a soft pair of slippers, a fluffy bathrobe, a hand and body cream, a lipstick recently appeared on the market, or even a toy, are all beautiful nothings.

8. Prepare her perfumed baths, with candles and foam
Make sure that the non-skidding carpet is on the bathtub.

9. Give her a relaxation massage at her feet, neck and shoulders, with perfumed oils.
Release the physical and psychical tensions and you will have a much more pleasant partner who is less touchy. If you know what you are doing and if you are patient, you will soon get to sex.

10. Prepare her fruit juices, teas and hot chocolate, right after she gets home from work.
She needs to drink fluids and to relax easily.

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