To think that growing a baby IS a big deal?

[QueenofmyPrinces]

I was talking to my friend earlier who has got a 6 month old and we were talking about the difficulties of pregnancy/birth and the toll it can take on our bodies etc and she made a comment about how she wished it was something men could do instead so we wouldn’t have to deal with it all.

I laughed it off but she said she was being serious and asked why I wouldn’t want the same? I told her that although pregnancy can be crap it’s still an amazing thing that is sacred to women and that growing and nourishing a baby is pretty special and I liked that fact that it’s something men can’t do in what is already a “mans world”.

She sort of shrugged at me and said that it’s “just growing a baby” and that it’s “really no big deal who does it”.

AIBU to think that actually it is a big deal??!!

Last week there was a discussion about how soon to leave your baby with someone else. Turns out I'd have left mine while they were still in utero.

Gennz18, last year I was where you are. I wish you strength in the rest of your pregnancy.

Thanks Dione! I'm managing better than I did first time round when I had no clue about nausea meds so vomited every day, and no clue about SPD so thought hobbling round like a cripple was a normal part of pregnancy On the home stretch now!!

The plus side is the more hellish the pregnancy, the easier the new baby stage is in comparison...!

You are both right! It's a big deal, in that it is life changing, all consuming, body ruining and potentially life threatening. That is exactly the reason I would love to share the burden with DH, or preferably spare us both and grow the baby in a bag.

Apologies for the use of the word ‘sacred’ - I said on page 2 that the word privileged was what I should have used as that describes better what I meant.

I was thinking more on a global scale how amazing it is that women only can bear children as opposed to on an individual level and therefore it wasn’t my intention to upset/offend women that cannot conceive. There’s certainly no sacred or privileged women ‘club’, I just meant that I liked it that our body had the ability to do something so complex that a man’s body could never do.

My pregnancies were both complicated, a lot easier than a lot of other women’s but they weren’t plain sailing and enjoyable, however, I still like the concept that pregnancy is an experience only women can have.

Crowd - how is anyone using the NHS for anything not "taking money for their own selfish purposes"?

But if you think that infertility doesn't play hell with people's mental health, and often with their physical health too, you're either lucky to be so clueless or typing from under a bridge.

You don't have to apologise for using the term 'sacred'. It is the biggest theme of the main religion in this country; the mother and child and the wonders of creation - many of us have been taught that these are sacred from when we were very young so it's hardly surprising that it should be considered as such.

twatty makes the key point QueenofmyPrinces - it's a "man's world" precisely because women's bodily biology makes us vulnerable, and pregnancy and childbirth are not 100% of that but a massive chunk. If both men and women as sexes (not individuals) became pregnant and gave birth equally frequently most of the socially constructed discrimination against women would disappear.

I've never been pregnant but I've seen what friends have gone through, so I think growing a baby is a very big thing, physically and emotionally I assume.

If both men and women as sexes (not individuals) became pregnant and gave birth equally frequently most of the socially constructed the discrimination against women would disappear.

Bit which sex would choose to have the baby? If it was a choice would the man or woman choose to risk their career and potentially their health by being the one to carry the baby? I can’t imagine either would relish the idea.

And what about breast feeding? Would the male evolve to have breast to so they could lactate if they chose to undergo the pregnancy instead of the woman?

So many questions.....

That's the thing isn't it Queen it's impossible, therefore if a couple want a baby that is biologically theirs the woman has it, women are vulnerable to unplanned pregnancy which will always disproportionately impact women whether they go through with it or not, there will always need to be legislation against employers discriminating against women of childbearing age or who have taken maternity leave and so on.

Pregnancy and childbirth impact on women who don't have children too, because it's always a risk (personally and in the eyes of employers).

The biology of it all is a massive deal, whether an individual woman has children or not.

The fact men can't do it is the reason women are discriminated against for having the potential. Not because they're jealous or anything silly, but because it puts men at an overall advantage. If men had periods, were at risk of pregnancy and at risk of injury and death through childbirth, needed to recover from birth, had equal potential to breastfeed etc then it would be a general human thing, not a woman thing, and the discrimination would disappear.

Unless, as you hint, men remained physically stronger and bullied women into doing the childbearing in reality...

As it'll never happen that point is pretty much moot.