Having a baby makes you more passionate

If there's one thing I've noted on our short pregnancy journey so far it's that people get very passionate about the 'right way' of doing things (that'd be their way), and 9 times out of 10 they're not shy of telling you what their way is and that not doing it is tantamount to abusing your child (unborn or otherwise). As the saying goes, opinions are like arseholes - everybody has one and some of them stink.


For a bit of a lighter post after the fun and games of finding out why SWMBO was bleeding and then finding out that she really did have a heart-filled blob growing inside her, I thought I'd run through some of the 'bigger' things that will cause pregnant (and not so pregnant) women to have a conniption if you don't agree with them.

In other news, The Pregnant Bloke is now on Twitter. Tweet! Tweet! Come say hello!

Drinking during pregnancy - This one is so big that whole countries argue over it. From what I can understand, Australia and New Zealand will accuse you of murdering your unborn child, the UK change their mind on a regular basis (currently they're part of the 'once in a while won't hurt' brigade) and the French, well they're just French. Personally I'm well and truly in the "one drink now and again can't do much harm" camp which is a pretty moot point as a) I don't drink, b) it's SWMBO that's pregnant (I do remember this now and again!) and c) she doesn't drink either.

Private vs Public - I think that public health services are absolutely fantastic. Having used the NHS (the UK's public health system) heavily in the past 35 years I can't speak highly enough for public health. If you choose public and you can afford to go private you're a bad, evil. horrible person who should be slaughtered. If you go private you're ignoring the public system. It's a lose, lose situation really! For the record, we're going private. I fully expect bubs to be delivered to SWMBO on a silver platter or I'm asking for our money back!


Going back to work -Again, you're well and truly onto a loser here. If mum stays at home to look after the new bundle of joy she's placing a strain on the rest of society and the world will come to an end blah blah blah wah wah wah whereas if she goes back to work to be a good little contributor to the ATO's coffers she's neglecting her child. In case you're interested, SWMBO will be milking every source of maternity leave and cash that she can for at least a year after bubs comes along. Keep paying taxes guys, we're going to need all you can give!

Announcing you're up the duff - It used to be the case that once your 12 weeks was up, you'd tell the world that you're pregnant and everything would be good. Nowadays there are a few milestones - there's the age old 12 week, end of the first trimester, then there's the 12 and a bit week nuchleal fold test, then there's the 20 week "morphology scan" (who comes up with these names?! Other than anonymous people on web forums (hello ladies of Bubhub!) the general trend at the moment seems to be to wait until after the 20 week scan to make general announcements although to be honest, it's pretty bloody obvious what state you're in by week 18 or so.

Names - Don't tell anybody what you're going to call your child. Ever. I suppose you'll have to once bubs is born, but by then it's too late and people can't tell you that you've made a crap choice. Well they can, but they'll usually keep quiet about names at that point as they'll be too busy ooing and aahing over your newborn (or telling you that their baby is more photogenic than yours so ner-nee-ner-nee-ner-ner!). And no, I'm not telling you our choice of names and that's not just because SWMBO and I are still arguing about this!

If you thought that this post was going to be about how many baby dances we're having in our house at the moment, I'm sorry you've been misled, but we don't give refunds!