What’s going on?

Your wife is pregnant. To put it in its simplest terms, she has a real live little person growing at a fantastic rate inside her body.

In the span of roughly nine months this baby will grow from the size of one little cell (really small) to around the size of a watermelon (really big when you think about it—although you might not want to mention that analogy to your wife). In between, hormones fire off, chemicals interact, and this little cell grows arms, legs, organs, and everything else a baby needs to be a living, breathing, little person that will be wrecking the car before you know it.

You’re probably thinking: “So, how does this affect me? After all, my wife’s the one who does all the work. I just have to sit around and hope the birth doesn’t conflict with my tee-off time.” But if the truth be known, you actually have the hardest job of all: you have to live with a pregnant person!

This means you’re living with your own personal Sybil. In other words: sometimes it’s as if you’re living with Sleeping Beauty, once in a while it will be like you’re living with a very horny Madonna, often it will be like you’re living with the incredible if-it’s-not-moving-eat-it woman, and all too often it will be like living with a scarier version of that girl from The Exorcist. You never know who your wife is going to be from one millisecond to another. All you can do is to be ready to apologize at a moment’s notice—and duck a lot.

How did this happen?

If you don’t know how this happened, consult a medical professional. Or a good lawyer.

What to expect:

The First Trimester

The first trimester is a strange time. Your wife may look pretty much like the same woman she was before your sperm and her ovum collided, but her body is going through changes even faster than you can change channels with a brand new remote. Hormones are firing away and all sorts of other chemicals are doing their stuff. The resulting side effects are varied, not only from woman to woman, but for each individual woman from hour to hour.

You can expect that your wife will be more tired than normal. This tiredness ranges from very little, to as if you are living with a female bear in deep hibernation. (A smart husband who plans ahead can also take advantage of this by timing the pregnancy so his wife is in the first trimester during the championships of his favorite sport.)

Another thing you can expect to some degree is morning sickness. The name is kind of general, and with good reason. This sickness can be anything from a little upset tummy to a full-blown, hold nothing back, tossing of one’s cookies. Most women fall somewhere in between. The sickness can also appear at any time or throughout the day. So remember, if you see your wife heading towards the bathroom, don’t stop her to ask her what’s for breakfast—and don’t get in her way.

Also, many women have to go to the bathroom more often during this trimester. This is another one of those perfectly normal but totally baffling chemical reactions. Once again, if you see your wife rushing quickly towards the bathroom, make sure you stay clear.

Finally, and most scary, you can expect pretty big mood changes. To use the remote control analogy again, she can change her mood faster than you can cycle through all the channels—even if you don’t have cable. These mood swings are often directed towards you, the husband, as you are usually the closest object to her, plus you were directly involved with the start of this whole process. Sometimes she’ll treat you like you’re Fabio or that guy who took his shirt off on that old Coke commercial. Other times she’ll treat you like you just gave Fabio a brush cut and made the guy on the Coke commercial put his shirt back on. Or, she may treat you as if you had just shot Fabio, that Coke guy, and her favorite hairdresser. You—being the man—are pretty much helpless here. All you can really do is enjoy the good moods, and batten down the hatches to weather the bad moods. Remember, this probably won’t last much longer than a few months.

The Second Trimester

The second trimester is kind of the temporary return to near normal. It’s the proverbial calm before the explosion. Your wife will begin to show that she is pregnant but she will act pretty much like a larger version of the woman you married. If there’s anything you and your wife ever wanted to do but haven’t had the chance, this is the time to do it. After this trimester, your wife is first going to be too pregnant to move a whole lot, and then you’re going to be married with child and you’ll both be too worn out to do a whole lot.

One cool thing does occur in the second trimester: you can actually feel your baby inside your wife. The baby makes its presence known through kicking—presumably in some form of Morse code that only babies can understand. While the kicking might be a slight annoyance to the mom, it will be the ultimate in coolness to you—sort of like the feeling you’d get if you could watch four football games and the Playboy channel at the same time. This will probably be the first time when you actually realize that, “Yes, there is a living, growing, little future Hall of Famer inside of there.” The only downside of kicking is that it usually occurs (or is more noticeable) at night, thus preventing your wife from sleeping. Which means that if you have an inconsiderate wife she may wake you up, figuring if she’s up then you’re up. Just think of this as practice for your child’s teenage years when he’ll really be keeping you up late at night.

The second trimester is also the time that many expecting mothers will undergo ultrasound. Ultrasound is taking pictures with sound waves. The procedure is totally painless for both the father and the mother—and the baby. It’s what doctors use in order to: determine the sex of the baby, make sure everything is progressing okay, and have something extra to charge you for. At the end of the procedure they will present you with the first picture (though you’ll have to pretty much take the word of the medical professionals that this really is your child) of your unborn child. If it still hasn’t sunk in yet, it will now—you’re going to be a father. Oh, at this stage don’t worry if the baby doesn’t look like you—because it won’t. This is nothing to be alarmed about and no reason to consult a lawyer. At this stage all babies look pretty much like small versions of those aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

To sum it all up: the second trimester is pretty cool.

The Third Trimester

You’ve heard the saying: Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. Well, that saying should be: Hell has no fury like a woman scorned who’s in her third trimester.

Remember the first trimester? The third trimester brings more of the same—only worse. Now you’ll be dealing with a bigger, more apprehensive, more easily riled version of your wife. (Though at times this woman will not seem at all like the woman you married.)

First off, sitting down will be an effort for her and something that is impossible to do gracefully. Never—ever—laugh, or even snicker at her while she is attempting to sit. If you do (despite the fact that standing up is even harder than sitting down) she’ll be on top of you faster than a hungry leopard on a blind, wounded deer. Your best plan of action here is to always keep a straight face (if you have trouble doing this, just remind yourself how much your hospital bill is going to be) and offer to help ease her down and help her up. This will not only help your standings with her, but it also builds your biceps and back muscles.

Second, by now the baby is sitting on her bladder. So, remember those sprints to the bathroom during the first trimester? Now they’re back, only more so—plus to make matters even worse, now it’s hard for your wife to do anything more than waddle. Still, it is amazing how fast a pregnant woman can waddle when nature calls, and calls—and calls. Once again, be prepared to get out of the way fast or you’ll end up as road kill.

Finally, all this adds up to one large and angry woman. Rabid attack dogs have been known to cower in fear of women in their third trimester. The slightest thing could set her off. Whatever you do, do not laugh at her waddle—especially if she’s on the way to the bathroom (in some states this is considered grounds for her to legally kill you). You should be on your best behavior or you’ll run a very serious risk of your child growing up without a father. Just pretend you’re one of those guys on the bomb squad deactivating a really sensitive, really deadly, explosive that will explode in your face if you even look at it funny. In order to survive you have to be as quiet and as cautious around it as possible.