Michael Fowler

Yes Sir, a Man Can Have a Baby

I sat beside Esther on our sofa and said, “I should have been on birth control. I just peed on a stick and came up pregnant.”

“Oh, George,” she said, “you always see the dark side of things. It’s probably something you ate.” 

“I don’t know, babe. I think these stick results are pretty specific.”

“Well,” said Esther, “it’s possible, because I’ve been shooting you full of lady-fluid for a while now. You know, squirting from my womb and stuff the way a lot of women do.”

“I think I shot a wad into myself, maybe last week when we drank all those beers and tried that new position,” I said. “I don’t know what I was pointing at, and I think somehow my own bugs knocked me up. It’s complicated.” 

“It sure is. I’ve been avoiding pregnancy like the plague. I’m sorry it’s happened to you. I guess you should have taken birth control and worn a condom, too.”

“I kind of suspected I was preggers. I feel bloated and sick, my feet are swollen, and my ta-tas are tender.” 

“Tender ta-tas is one of the worst parts, I hear,” said Esther. 

“Also I’m beginning to show. My sack is swollen along with my feet. I think the fetus is in my sack, or somewhere down below my belt. Probably not in my feet, though.”

“No, not your feet,” said Esther. “A foot-baby would be really strange. Tell you what, I’ll give you the number of my gynecologist and you can have her examine you. Then you’ll know for sure what’s going on.”

The gyno doctor put me in stirrups and told me I was about three months gone. I asked her if my situation, a man being pregnant, was unusual. “Not so much these days,” she said. “It’s amazing what the human body is capable of.”  

“A man like me can handle it, huh?” I said.

“Yes, a man like you,” she agreed. “One thing to keep in mind, though, is that you’ll need a Cesarean delivery. Although you managed to get pregnant, there’s no natural way for the baby to leave your body when you give birth. So we’ll plan accordingly. Meanwhile the nurse will give you some pamphlets on diet and exercising and what to expect from the surgery.”

“I guess this will ruin my figure, won’t it? Still, I’m so excited!”

Esther didn’t go with me to the first sonogram. In fact she took a funny attitude. “Tell me it’s mine and not some other woman’s or man’s,” she said, “or I’m not going through with this.”

“Of course it’s yours,” I said. “I haven’t been with anyone else.” 

She knew that was a lie, and so the tech oiled up my nads or whatever without Esther being present. “Do you want to know the sex?” the tech asked me, rubbing the wand over my expectant parts.

“Let me tell you something,” I said, chuckling. “When I go to the store to buy corn, I never buy the exposed kind where I can see what the kernels look like, but I always buy unshucked ears still wrapped up in their green husks. That’s because I like surprises. So no, don’t tell me the sex.” 

“I won’t,” she said, “but you’ll need to decide about a circumcision.”

Esther didn’t show for the C-section either, when the time rolled around. By then I hadn’t seen or heard from her in six months, and it had occurred to me that parenting wasn’t her style. But I knew I could do this myself. After all, I was the mother and father both, as I saw things.   

I was still in the recovery room when the lactation tech came by to show me how to use the electric breast pump. My nips got a workout but it wasn’t too painful, and I was glad to see how much I gushed. Even though my leakage looked purplish like Grape Nehi, the tech assured me it was loaded with nutrients. That made me proud. 

Before long I filled several bottles, so no formula for Little Buster. We were going natural, yay! That Esther didn’t know what she was missing.