Chapter 1Week 1It Begins
I know what you’re thinking: I don’t see anything. During this week, your little nugget isn’t actually conceived yet. The lining of the uterus is thickening and preparing for guests. Your wife’s uterus is like a bed-and-breakfast that’s open only once a month. Even if nobody shows up, they still make the beds, wash the towels, and clean the waffle iron. And if the guests show up on the wrong date, they get sent packing. Sorry, buddy—closed for renovations. But your little dude knew that and won’t be checking in till next week. He’s just chilling out, waiting for construction to be complete. Baby made reservations. That’s how hardcore your baby is. Sound like broccoli to you? Didn’t think so.
So over these forty weeks, you’re going to need to learn a lot about the female body and all the fantastic things it can do. Hey—if she can carry a baby and go into labor, is it too much to ask you to do a little homework? To give you a jump start on your gestation education, here are some important pregnancy words you need to know, dude-splained:
Chromosomes: Remember the mosquitoes in Jurassic Park that were encapsulated in the tree sap and carried the dino DNA? Basically that.
Ovaries: Think of these as gumball machines inside a woman that release one gumball (egg) a month into the hopper (fallopian tubes).
Embryo: For the first eight weeks, your fertilized egg doesn’t have a name, so they came up with this one. But seriously. Who would want to be called Embryo? Imagine Embryo on the playground (cue the soundtrack of a Pixar film). Embryo is sliding down the fallopian tube, picking up all these cells before she enters the uterus.
Amniotic sac: This is the sac of fluid that your baby lives in inside the womb. It’s like a Jacuzzi that is set to the perfect baby-growing temp, and your baby just chills in it for nine months.
Placenta: This is the organ that connects to the uterus and gives your growing baby everything he needs. Picture a personal chef next to your baby’s hot tub who provides baby with the perfect nutrition plan throughout pregnancy.
Lamaze: A martial art practiced by ninjas in the mountains of Japan a thousand years ago.
Hyperemesis: Think of the worst hangover ever. But this kind of morning sickness comes from being pregnant and not from the case of Milwaukee’s Best you had last night.
Booty bombs: This is just a warning that your wife is going to be farting. A lot.
Week 2Sperm
Now is the time to enjoy lots of sex with your partner, so go for it—as often as you like.
—Pregnancy Day by Day
I second that.
—Taylor Calmus
This Is Sparta!
When you and your lady get to it, you release about 250 million sperm. This is like a freaking army of little white soldiers playing a game of Capture the Egg. Which is totally relevant because a vagina is basically a war zone filled with land mines and booby traps that kill off a ton of the sperm. This stuff is straight-up medieval. It’s survival of the fittest, and most soldiers won’t make it. Sometimes it ends in a literal bloodbath, aka the period. (Come on, man—don’t get grossed out now. If you’re going to make it as a dad, you’re going to need a stronger stomach.)
In the movie 300, King Leonidas leads three hundred Spartans in battle against Xerxes and his army. In your epic movie, only about two hundred of 250 million sperm arrive at the site of the egg. Despite all the odds, your strongest little soldier breaks through the castle walls and conquers the egg.
Boom.
Sparks. Magic. Pixie dust.
CONCEPTION.
So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance
Did you know sperm have less than a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of making it to the place of fertilization? That is insane odds. You’re more likely to be killed by flesh-eating bacteria than a sperm is to reach fertilization. In fact, here’s a list of ridiculous things that are more likely to happen.
You have a 1 in 662,000 chance of winning an Olympic gold medal.
You have a 1 in 11,500 chance of winning an Academy Award.
You have a 1 in 250,000 chance of getting killed by a meteorite.
You have a 1 in 500 chance of being born with eleven fingers or toes.
And you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of being injured by a toilet.
The good news is that you don’t have just one sperm to bet on. You’re at the horse races, and you’ve got a good feeling about Western Showdown, but you’re also going to throw down a bet on about 250 million other horses as well. All you need is one horse to win.
Let’s call him Lucky Strike.
Ovulation 101
Let’s talk about the mystery of the female body: Ovulation.
Ovulation occurs once a month when an egg moves from one of the ovaries down the fallopian tube and into the uterus. It’s there that it waits for twelve to twenty-four hours to be fertilized by sperm. If it’s not fertilized, it passes out through menstruation.
So you might be thinking, As long as we don’t have intercourse during ovulation, she can’t get pregnant.
False.
Let me explain by metaphor.
Imagine that your wife’s uterus is Best Buy and this Best Buy is open only one day a month. They have a sale item, something that everybody wants: a PS5 (or whatever version they’re selling when you’re reading this book). So people don’t show up just on the day of the sale. Sometimes they’ll show up three or five days in advance and they’ll just wait around, like in a tent or with a sandwich, or maybe they’ll peruse a magazine, or maybe they’ll make friends with another person and decide to go in together.
Most of the sperm are like your slacker friends from college who give up waiting for the PS5 and go home early. But finally ovulation starts and the remaining sperm bull-rush into the Best Buy, looking for the PS5. It’s like those crazy videos you see online of Black Friday free-for-alls. Some of them just get lost in the TV and home theater department. They’re like, Look at that . . . Is that a seventy-five-inch screen? That’s pretty slick. Then the lucky ones will find the PS5. Fertilization starts, a baby is conceived, and the pregnancy begins.
Week 3Hair Follicle
Have you ever shaved early in the morning and then spent all day out and about interacting with people only to get home and realize that you missed a very obvious little patch of facial hair and have looked like a moron all day? Well, you’re not a moron. You’re just . . . busy. But your baby is currently the size of one of those hair follicles, and like that lone follicle, your baby is undetected. You and your lady have just been living like normal, not knowing that your baby exists.
You probably also don’t know that your baby already has forty-six chromosomes that determine his or her hair color, eye color, body type, and ability to grow and forget about things like facial hair. Out of those forty-six chromosomes, one from you and one from your wife determine the sex of your baby. During this period, your developing baby will reach the uterus, and magical things will begin to happen. He or she is going to be one of a kind with details like no other.
At this point you don’t even know that your little biscuit is now his own unique piece of art with his own set of fingerprints. Those fingerprints will someday be on everything he touches that defines who he is and the impact he’ll have on the world. Maybe your kid will wield an ice pick while scaling Mt. Everest, or maybe he’ll sit at a computer, hacking the mainframe of North Korea to prevent a nuclear attack. One place those fingerprints will definitely be is on the sliding glass door in your house . . . right next to all the slobber marks and smears. Regardless, the adventure is just beginning—and you don’t even know you’re on one!
What’s the Story, Morning Glory?
From one dude to another, here’s something you need to know right away: Morning sickness is a lie. Mama’s nausea is gonna come anytime it wants. In the middle of the day or night. And even if you think you can’t do a thing about it, think again. There are lots of things you can do to help with this not-so-fun part of being pregnant:
1. Be sensitive. Most guys aren’t the best with this particular trait, but if you’re reading this book, chances are you’re different. This leads to my second suggestion . . .
2. Don’t make jokes. Okay, I know—that’s what I do for a living. But when your lady is clinging to the toilet bowl for dear life, it’s no time to be doing your best Jim Gaffigan bit.
3. Eliminate odors. This is definitely hard since you’re a dude. But think before you douse yourself with Axe body spray. Don’t put Limburger cheese on your burger. Keep your stanky socks away from her.
4. Give her encouragement, not exhortation. I doubt you’re a doctor, and that’s okay because neither am I. Tell her she’s doing great, and when you can’t think of anything good to say, try number 5.
5. Stay silent. Sometimes it’s good to just zip it up.
Copyright © 2022 by Taylor Calmus. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
