The story of Daddy’s pregnancy - Ocassional Kwatriot Kwesi Yankah writes

Christmas breaks compel you to read a lot of trifles. The social media pages make things easier. With some time on your hands, this addictive internet forces on the old man ladies wearing what they call ‘Tundra,’ pointing rear headlights in your direction; as well as men in one-on-one lip encounters. Those days, you would have chased them with your walking stick.

But one story attracted me this morning, springing me to my feet to look for my pen. The Venerable Justice Sophia Akuffo was the news source, and that almost restrained me knowing the risks involved in writing rebuttals to Chief Justices past and present. The title of the story.

“I am yet to see a pregnant man who has been impregnated by a woman…” My fretful mind sped quickly to men with extra-long bellies, who worked on that for several years, and finally got their almighties to listen to their prayers. That pregnancy could certainly be a woman’s  conspiracy.

If Auntie Sophia will brush that aside, she should hear the real thing: what happened to me several years ago during my doctoral years at Indiana University, USA. My Book the Pen at Risk, unfortunately captures this unspeakable story which I am compelled to spill from my penultimate chapter entitled, Top Ten Nightmares. No 2.

Shared Pregnancy

“Never knew this could happen to me, but imagine what I went through over a period of one week. The location was Indiana University, 1985. It’s been a while but the memory is still vivid and clumsy.

One week of unease in the morning. I would toss and turn in bed, my body condition defying description: pain here, pain there, morning nausea, frequent spittle, loss of appetite, fondness for chewing gum, and other morning sensations. What was happening? I skipped classes for a week or so, and the situation got so serious we went to see a doctor at Bloomington hospital. 

A reliable diagnosis was hard to reach, and the doctor moved back and forth examining my eyeballs and checking my vitals. Not long after, he asked my wife to come over, replacing me on the patient seat. After a few questions, a puzzled doctor wrote on a prescription pad, and asked the poor lady to do one or two tests at the lab. What test was it?

A pregnancy test, he said, and we chuckled.  Within 30 minutes, the test result was ready. The outcome? My wife was pregnant, and I was carrying her symptoms! In other words, Daddy was also pregnant?

“Yes, it happens sometimes with a small percentage of marriages and pregnancies; the symptoms are transfered to the father,” the doctor rattled peering into the eyes of a pregnant me.

“So how long would it last,” I asked in trepidation. 
“It depends, some last a few weeks, and the woman gets it back. It normally should not last for more than four weeks.”

That means I probably had three more weeks to go of morning sickness? The morning blues continued on me while only a urine test showed positive on her. Call it a shared pregnancy condition.

I labored through the weeks ahead until at long last the terrible condition tapered off, and started manifesting on her. 

Eventually, my mornings were fully transferred to her. I heaved a sigh of relief having now resumed my role as father, after a three week vacation off duty. 

But that experience drew tremendous respect and sympathy out of me for mothers and wives, and compelled me after a nine-month term, to want to see her through labor and delivery at the university hospital at Indianapolis. If pregnancy symptoms have been shared why not the labor pains.

It was August 1985. A few other fathers like me joined their wives behind the screens, anxious to share vicariously the pain of labor and motherhood.

This we did after having been put through an hour’s orientation the previous day. On the D-day, we both pushed, and pushed and pushed to the doctor’s directives until the point of delivery.

I still can’t believe what happened to me as a father. Mothers indeed deserve the kinder words from fathers and children on Mothers Day, after all. Indeed if that is what pregnancy is all about, I am happy to be a father in a state of perpetual unpregnancy. Take it from me as having been once pregnant.

Now that I was unpregnant, I could then resume reading my morning newspapers. “

This story being confidential, please don’t share after reading. The Chief Justice may be checking. Hahahaha! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

kwyankah@yahoo.com