I think my wife might be pregnant

First off, if she is, this is fantastic news. We have been trying for a few months now, and it is a bit unexpected that it happened so quickly but its great. :smiley:

*If *she is pregnant.

That’s the thing, we don’t know yet. We strongly suspect, but it’s too early to know for sure and the not knowing is freakin’ killing me. She has symptoms a plenty though. She is unusually fatigued, the last three days she has been unusually nauseous in the mornings (but not throwing up), she has become hyper sensitive to smells, her breasts have gotten a tiny bit bigger, etc. So, we think it is likely, but we can also think of a half dozen explinations for the symptoms if she isn’t pregnant.

If she is pregnant she couldn’t be more than 2 weeks along (possibly 16 days) and even the earliest home pregnacy test we can find says she has to wait until Sunday to get anything like an accurate result…and so I try not to think about it.

For health reasons though, untill we know for sure, we are going on the working assumption that she is pregnant. Fortunatly we both quit smoking back in December, and when she quit smoking her taste for alcohol went right out the window. She switched to decaf yesterday and, other than that I think we live fairly healthy lives so from that standpoint we should be set, I hope.

We also spent about three hours yesterday talking about baby names. :slight_smile:

I am excited and frightened all at the same time.

Finacially this is an uncertain time. My office had layoffs last week, and while my job was kept, I am now the only person in my office with my position. Which means that it’s possible that they will decide my position isn’t needed at all. Of course it’s also possible that they will decide that I am invaluable and I can’t ever be let go. She works for Wells Fargo, and while Wells is doing better than most banks…it’s still a bank. There is uncertainty here, no doubt. The timing isn’t perferct, but we both have good jobs right now and make decent money with really good career prospects.

Neither of us have kids yet, we are relatively young (mid to late twenties) which is both good and bad I suppose. The idea of being a Dad is too huge for me to think about in a single chunk. I have always wanted a family, but now that the prospect seems real it’s damn frightening. I have to kind of edge up on the thought. But I keep thinking back on another thread I read recently that said if you aren’t scared you are too stupid to have children. So, I am trying to find comfort in the fear.

The excitement is there too, but it’s a little harder to quantify. But I am excited. :smiley: It’s not all fear, in fact it’s more excitement than fear, and I will be crushed if it turns out that she isn’t pregnant.

And just as all this starts racing through my head I have to remind myself that we don’t actually know anything and couldn’t possibly know anything for certain for almost a week and even then it won’t be certain, and I am sitting here in my office quietly going nuts every time I start to think about it.

Sorry, I don’t mean this to be bloggish, but I don’t want to talk to any of my friends or family about it in case she isn’t, but the not knowing is driving me nuts and I needed to tell someone.

First off - its great your excited, and I’m sure your wife is extremely nervous. It’s great to be happy, but its so nervewracking at the same time because you keeping thinking you are - but then try to come up with legitimate reasons you might not, but you keep going back to but maybe I am? Our second pregnancy was kind of a surprise, but I knew I felt differently (unusually tired, and lightheaded) and was nervous even to take a test because you want to be sure you’re doing all the right things from the beginning. I think I tested a few days before my time was due and it came up positive, but I didn’t want to be disappointed in case it wasn’t because it was early.

If you both are with child a book my hubby found helpful (you can buy it as a set with some other stages of your child) is ‘The Expectant Father.’ (The New Father, Fathering your Toddler)

If for some reason it’s not the time this month, just be there for each other and enjoy your time together :slight_smile: Give each other a hug!

My wife is due in 6 weeks with our first child.

I know exactly how you are feeling. Don’t worry, 9 months is a long time to get used to the idea of being a father. I was terrified when we found out for sure that she was pregnant.

We were trying to conceive, and we are as ready as possible to start a family, but I was still pretty scared of the prospect of becoming a father.

Here it is, 7.5 months later, and most of the fear is gone. I’m just looking forward to it.
Good luck, I hope it’s good news for you when you do find out.

First off, congratulations and fingers crossed for you! I got my positive pregnancy test 10 days after conception, so you certainly can take a test to check now. Most pregnancy tests come in 2-3 packs anyway, so if you get a negative you’ll have a back up to check again in a few days.

I second the recommendation of The Expectant Father book. My husband read it while I was pregnant and loved it. He also read The New Father and is now going back to it month by month as our baby grows up. In his words “Preparation reduces panic.” Knowing what you’re getting into can relieve some of your fears.

I hope it all works out for you, if not this month then soon.

Thanks for the well wishes. I will get the expectant father book, it sounds good. I will probably get the follow up books too. Even if she isn’t pregnant this time, we are hoping to have one soon. It never hurts to have this stuff ready in advance.

This sounds exactly like what my wife is going through. The am I am I not back and forth, and I am sure it must be horribly nervwracking for her. She is sending me emails every couple of hours with either a new reason to think that she is or a new reason why she probably isn’t. I am doing my best to be there for her, but much of the frustration for me is not really knowing exactly what to do to help her. Maybe I will talk to her about taking one of the pregnancy tests tonight. If it comes up positive then we know something, and if not we can still wait till Sunday.

And congrats brewha, I didn’t know you were expecting. It’s good to keep hearing that the fear is normal and that it will go away over the course of the nine months.

Wow, big news. Here’s hoping it turns out as you wish!

Hopefully Congrats and hopefully you will soon join the club known as fatherhood. Fatherhood is pretty wonderful. Mine are 11 and 8 now but I still vividly remember the first time I held my daughter and all the care we took to get ready for her birth.

We went to classes for the Bradley Methodand followed it closely. My wife had our extremely healthy daughter without drugs. We were both diligent about the high protein diet and preparing the house. I think I had every safety device you could imagine in place a month before her birth.

BTW: The first kid is life changing but you can still get ready fairly quick to go out and do things. It wasn’t until the second child that things got difficult.

Best of luck and I hope you get a positive result. Keep us posted.

Jim

Didn’t you guys just get married the last time we played Mafia together? How crazy and exciting!

I really hope she is, now that you guys have gone and gotten all excited about it. What names were you talking about?

Don’t worry… we’ll find the scoundrel responsible for this and thrash him soundly!

(Sorry, that’s the standard response I give my friends. Just kidding. Congratulations!!)

When you give dates in your OP, what day are you counting from? Last menstrual period, or suspected ovulation date? If you suspect she ovulated 14 days ago, now’s a good time to test. If she had her last period 14 days ago, then you need to wait a little longer.

Either way, fingers crossed!!

Oh, I understand that excitement! Like What Exit, my hubby and I studied the Bradley method for our first (and took a refresher course for our second!), although for very valid reasons, all three of our children had to be C-section.

She can absolutely take a test now! (well, tomorrow morning; morning urine is best!). If she is pregnant, you could get a false-negative, but if you get a positive, she is pregnant. The test detects a hormone that simply isn’t there if you’re not pregnant. If she is pregnant and it comes up negative, it’s just that there’s not enough of the hormone yet to show up. Also, with a first baby, a doc can tell pretty quickly, as the uterus enlarges and softens pretty soon (doesn’t work with subsequent babies, as the uterus never re-gains it’s ‘girlish figure’, lol!)

If she really is (and it sounds a lot like it, to me!), congratulations to both of you! Yes, it’s scary. But it’s so very exciting.

There’s nothing in the world quite like being a parent. Nothing so difficult, and nothing so rewarding. And fortunately for all of us, babies, as a whole, are very resilient! You will make mistakes, the baby will likely survive them. :wink:

I even found the books useful, because sometimes the traditional books for women had me going ‘what?!!’ Jenny McCarthy has some funny books good, as well as the ‘Girlfriends Guide to…’ *yay for pregnancy brains, shoulda mentioned we’re due here with #2 at the end of the month. Good luck!

Then why are you telling us? :mad:

Good on ya man, you’re much more responsible than I can imagine myself being in the next five years!

Yeah, we are still newlywedish, we just had our six month wedding anniversary (It will be 5 years total together in July, 3 of living together.) We didn’t expect to conceive within the first weeks of actually trying to get pregnant. We said we would quit smoking and then actually try once that had taken. So, I had my last cigarette on January 4th she had hers in December. It’s been about 14 days since her last cycle ended so… You know, everyone else we know tried for at least six months. We figured it would take a little longer. :smiley:

I know. I am trying like heck to not be excited. I keep thinking of reasons why it might be nothing to keep me from being too crushed if she isn’t.

We like Max for a box and Nancy for a girl. Nancy is after her mother who passed away right before we met, and Max we just like. We are having a harder time coming up with middle names that sound good with either Max or Nancy though.

Thanks, I will. And thank you for the rest of the post too, I will look into the Bradley Method.

It’s 16 days since her cycle ended, I think. I suspect that conception would have happened about 8 days ago or so.

This is probably the most reassuring thing anyone has said so far. Thanks.

Well I didn’t send you a PM did I? :stuck_out_tongue:

Yay. Now you can use Mafia threads to teach the child how to read. :slight_smile: You know you want their first words to be “Vote Storyteller”.

What did I say?

Hesitant “Congratulations!” to ya’ll. Welcome to the the most insane holding pattern in your life.

Well, lemme tell ya a little story. . .kid number one was a “surprise” baby. As in: “Surprise! You were using birth control but got a baby anyway!” When kid number one got to be about 3, I thought I’d like another baby, so I went to my hubby and said “Honey, I think we should have another baby” and he said “Fine”. I went off birth control pills and we used alternative contraceptives for three months (to be on the safe side, you know). After we pulled all the goalies off the ice, so to speak, it took us about two or three weeks to conceive! That’s it! Two to three weeks. It happened that fast!

Baby three took us longer, but I figure that was a combination of: I was in my mid-30’s (conception gets harder as you get older) and my hubby worked out of town a lot.

Even though you planned on it taking six months, it doesn’t always!

Oh, and congratulations on both of you quitting smoking! I’ve heard it’s very difficult, but it really is best for the baby! (Not to mention for both of you!)

Hey! Fingers crossed for you guys.

Don’t worry about the finances too much – it’ll all come out in the wash. Remember that plenty of folk get by with less resources (and from the sound of it, native intelligence) than you have at your disposal. You’ll be fine.

We just had our first last week. The whole thing is quite a trip. Enjoy!

:dubious: And you didn’t ask us? Just go with “Maximilian” for the first name, shorten to “Max” and you’ve got lots more choices. Like, say…
Maximilian Aloysius

And for Nancy…
Nancy Arabella

And I’m sure people can come up with even more cool ones. :wink: