Disclosure: This post reflects my own opinions based upon my recent experience. My opinions may differ from yours.
As soon as we found out that we were expecting, I called and scheduled an appointment to confirm the pregnancy. My husband went with me to the OB/GYN, since it was the first time using this clinic and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want him to miss anything exciting. Of course, the first appointment wasn’t very exciting, the doctor just did the typical pregnancy lab work ups to confirm that I was in fact pregnant.
About two weeks later, we went back to the doctor together for our first sonogram. Seeing our tiny, growing baby on the ultrasound screen was an amazing feeling. According to the sonogram, I was 10 weeks along and the baby was growing beautifully. I remember my husband grinning ear to ear with excitement and he couldn’t wait to share the news with everyone that we were expecting. We wanted to wait until we heard the heartbeat to share the news that we were expecting with everyone.
Try to involve your husband or significant other throughout your pregnancy so that he feels special and knows how the baby is doing. I used to share weekly posts about the baby’s growth progress and had him come to my appointments when he was able to go. If he wasn’t able to go to my doctor’s appointments, I always shared the information that the doctor told me with him. In fact, I used to send him a text message to let him know what the heart rate was and how far along I was measuring. I wanted to make sure that I kept him up to date on the babies growth and development so that he felt connected to the baby as well.
I remember having a dream about finding out that my baby was a boy a few days before my 20th week sonogram. I told my husband about the dream and the day of the sonogram we found out that we were expecting a little boy. I remember my husband taking a photo of the sonogram machine that revealed the baby’s gender. We had fun sharing the news with our family and friend’s that we were expecting a baby boy.
Things were going smoothly until I hit 35 weeks and I began having painful Braxton Hicks contractions. They were fairly strong and were 3 to 5 minutes apart. Of course, this happened during the middle of the night and we got to make our first hospital trail run only to find out it was just a false labor run. This continued until my due date, with all of the Braxton Hicks contractions I never thought I would even make it to my due date. On the day of my official due date, I went off to the doctor by myself because my husband was unable to attend. I was devastated when I had an ultrasound and it revealed that my son decided to turn breech.
I knew that the news meant that I was going to have to have a C-Section. The doctor schedule my c-section and I was off to go get pre-op lab work done before going home.
When I got home my husband comforted me and assured me that everything would be okay. I am thankful that he remained calm and comforted my fears. He told me that he would make sure that I was in good hands and that everything was done properly.
We set off for the hospital on delivery day, he remained with me while they prepped me for delivery. As they wheeled me into the OR, I was in there for alone for a few minutes while they gave me the anesthesia and prepped me for surgery. It seemed like it took forever before my husband could join me. As soon as he got into the room, he held my hand and I knew everything was going to be okay.
After the baby was born, he immediately went over to the warmer to see our new baby boy. I remember looking over at the warmer and watching my husband peer at his new son. It was love at first site.
Summary:
It is important to involve dad as much as possible during the course of your pregnancy, so that he can feel the special too. Try these tips to help involve dad as much as possible:
- Have dad attend appointments.
- Discuss how you feel and share information about the baby’s development.
- Take dad shopping for baby gear.
- Allow dad to help register for baby items.
- Attend child birth classes together.
- Let dad feel the baby’s movements.
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How did you involve your spouse or significant other during your pregnancy?