Before “the birth” there are approximately 9 months from the conception that leads to this extraordinary experience. Fathers want the skills to deal with pregnancy! All of you men who have already gone through pregnancy know how dynamic it is. “The birth” is just a compressed time frame compared to pregnancy. But where to start?
Until recently women didn’t know they were pregnant for weeks and perhaps months. Now women can know almost immediately after conception. This means your knowledge of pregnancy follows the whole pregnancy and not just once a woman ‘shows’.
The roles of women and men change constantly within modern societies pretty much from one generation to another. In traditional cultures often the roles remain the same through the generations. But we’re talking to dads-to-be who live in modern societies around the world. This means most men don’t have a clue what to do once they have impregnated a woman!
From the moment you impregnate a woman she is pregnant and that means you are too! Your baby’s cells are dividing left, right and center. This rapid growth of your baby impacts the woman’s emotions, mind, body, and spirit. Whether this is a planned pregnancy or not, pregnancy drags everyone along. Thankfully pregnancy lasts 9 months for most people and your baby isn’t born 24 hours after conception! Think about how rapidly you’d have to grow if that happened.
Most women are totally overwhelmed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Because they are out of control of their body. Women soon learn that this ‘other’ person is actually very powerful. You can imagine something growing inside you and doing its own thing but making its presence felt at every single moment of your life. Come on, guys. We’re about to help you grow alongside your baby and partner.
The Skills
So here is the list of skills you’re going to develop throughout pregnancy. You’re going to learn how to grow and exhibit all these skills to yourself, your partner, and your baby. In other words, you are going to become a competent and enriched human being who nurtures himself and is, thus, able to give to others. By the way, women don’t understand this concept of taking care of yourself first so you have the energy to nurture others. This is one reason pregnant women can become so needy yet never satisfied. Hopefully, your pregnant partner will grow these skills consciously as well but she might have more on her plate to consciously do this. You don’t have the added something-is-growing-inside-me thing.
Once these skills become stronger in you over the next few months, they will deepen over the years.
- Kindness
- Patience
- Awareness
- Attention to detail
- Being able to see what needs to be done
- Growing a second set of arms (I’ll explain later)
- Growing two more sets of eyes (I’ll explain later)
- Humor
- Delight
- Clarity
While your partner is going through physical, emotional and mental changes to become a mother, you get to develop those qualities of fatherhood. These are human qualities of course. However, your growth isn’t going to be physical, your behavior and skills have to mature too.
Your bottom line
There may be no cultural norm for you to follow, however, when you grow these human qualities, you’ll develop skills that will enrich your family.
Men are not stupid. They have a full range of emotions. Women do not automatically or instinctively know how to navigate pregnancy and “the birth”. As women and men (mothers and fathers) we must learn and grow together.
Once you get to 24 weeks then you need to learn very practical skills to prepare for “the birth” as well as birth-coaching skills. We want you to know where we’re headed.
Here is a wonderful example of a father who is using so many of the above qualities. The result? Being fascinated with your newborn and not afraid!
Birthing Better skills are housed in Common Knowledge Trust, available to you via online birth classes and were developed by hundreds of moms and dads and used in all types of births.
Go to Udemy for the Fathers-to-be Pregnancy Academy courses that show you how to use the above 10 skills through the distinct 5 Phases of Pregnancy.
Then from 24 weeks of pregnancy, come back here and gain birth preparation skills as well as birthing skills for moms and dads for every type of birth.