Forms for the father

If you thought there were a lot of forms when your ex-girlfriend was sectioned to the psychiatric ward, wait until you're involved with a pregnancy (hopefully not hers). There are forms upon forms filled with charts, graphs, signatures, blood results, medical history, family medical history, sonar results, cranium measurements, womb measurements, and a number of unmentionables. Midwives, obstetricians, gynecologists, midshipmen, pediatricians, general practitioners and plumbers all scan their enlightened eyes up and down the forms, turning them over occasionally in hopes of an exciting double-sided print, then turn those eyes (and instruments) toward your pregnant partner, girlfriend, womblender, wife, neighbor, etc. Your pregnant companion then sagaciously nods back and delves into debatable issues from the appendixes of radical feminist pregnancy texts. You hold on to your chair.

As far as I can make out, there is nothing for us men to do in these situations. Our partners want us there for support, but this seems to consist only of filling glasses of water, pitching poorly timed jokes, and asking naive questions, the answers to which your partner has explained to you a dozen times already.

There is a solution to all this, so please don't fret. All fathers-to-be should diligently prepare a fatherhood file. Binder, accordion file, briefcase, metal sniper case, whatever it takes. It should be something you can ostentatiously pull out and flip through, preferably with a pince-nez perched at the end of your nose, à la Lester Freamon. Included amongst the papers, magazines and centerfolds of your choice should be a lunar calendar, preferably laminated and slightly worn. This should be extracted at the climax of each discussion point and loudly pondered over. Pregnancy practitioners and participators, no matter how forward thinking, all heed the omnipotence of our planet's great glowing satellite. It's a bizarre fact. And bizarre facts are to be taken advantage of at all opportunities. Consider it one of the fine arts of fatherhood.

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