I wish my husband could get pregnant and give birth

I wish my husband could get pregnant and give birth.

Not because I don’t want to do it. Not because I want him to know the exhaustion of morning sickness and peeing endlessly. Not because I want him to experience contractions for hours that make your hardest work out feel like a walk in the park (or maybe like a nap in the park?) Not because I want him to realize the “ring of fire” when your baby’s head is crowning is an understatement. Not because I want him to be faced with a forever changed body.

I wish my husband could get pregnant and give birth so he could know how wonderful and amazing and beautiful it is.

37 weeks pregnant with my second daughter

I wish he could feel tiny kicks and rolls inside his belly. That he would know the secret joy of baby kicking you, when you two are the only ones who know what’s happening in that moment. I wish him the chance to understand the intimacy that comes with carrying a child inside of you, constantly touching, for 9 months. I wish he could understand the honor and priviledge that comes with being pregnant. I wish that he could labor and push out a baby so he would feel the same “mountain top moment, tarzan swinging through the trees, every Avengers hero wrapped into one, greek goddess in an African field” feeling after. I wish he could be brought into the arms and secret place of God like how only being pregnant and giving birth can do.

You see, there’s been a video circulating on my facebook about 2 dads who “experience” what labor is like. And women are loving it. They want sympathy. They want to show women are better. They want men to know just how horrible it is, that a man could never handle it. Sure, I can appreciate that some of it is in good humor, but I have 2 problems with this. Number one, it’s impossible for a man to truly experience labor. There’s no baby in there, and so far, I’ve never met a man with a uterus. Number two, it’s not this horrible awful burden that we as women carry!

Pregnancy is a blessing, not a burden.

Giving birth is an honor, not a punishment.

I have been pregnant and given birth twice now. Both pregnancies I worked with midwives intending a home birth. Both babies came many days after my due date. I labored naturally to 10 centimeters dilated with my first only to end up with a cesarean due to breech presentation. My second was a successful water birth at home in my bedroom. I would never ever want to trade these experiences. Those pregnancies were some of the most precious moments of my life. The births of my two sweet girls made me into the woman, the mother, that I am today. And I’m a really good one.

Women, can we stop wishing away something that God so beautifully and specifically designed for us to do? Can we change our mindset from seeing it as a punishment and burden, to a blessing and an honor? Because I don’t want my daughters to fear the day they give birth. I want them to excitedly long for it. I don’t want men that look pitifully on women as they birth. I want to see men who look on in awe (and maybe even righteous envy?) of the strength and beauty of a birthing woman.

Yes, I wish my husband could get pregnant and give birth. I wish everyone could. And I’m forever grateful and thankful that I get to do it.