I too found it very erotic to be impregnated by my husband at his will and he too became even more into me when I became pregnant with his child. He would whisper in my ear when he was making love to me, how much he loved me and how excited he was to have impregnated me and to have made me have his baby. He also turned me on by whispering that I would give birth without pain relief. When it happened he was the one demanding that they give me pain relief – he went white as a sheet! It made me feel so loved and taken care of that he was ordering the doctors and nurses around to make sure his wife was well taken care of. And when he saw our baby for the first time, there were tears in his eyes. Ah… good memories… We are so blessed.

Carolina,

I agree that for some men pregnancy can be very erotic. I know it was an incredible time for both Mike and I, we were not even in a Taken In Hand relationship at the time. Mike was in complete awe of my body and its ability to grow our child. He found it both sexy, and an awesome responsibility. He felt very loving and protective of me. He was right there through both of my pregnancies. He came to every mid-wife appointment, and was there holding my hand through every test I had to take. He wanted to be involved in anyway he could. He was with me as we researched the childbirth options, and we too decided that a birth without medications would be best for us. We got through natural childbirth twice. We were prepared for emergencies too and had decided when we would say yes to medications, c-sections etc. We were aware that not everything goes according to plan, sometimes childbirth can lead to real emergencies. Also we felt it was something very natural so we wanted it to be as natural as possible under any circumstances.

It was very erotic for me to have such a devoted husband beside me, helping me, supporting me, and loving both me and our child from the start. I felt connected to him so much knowing his children were growing in me. In all it pregnancy was a powerful experience for us.

I applaud your decision to breastfeed your child. My husband was breastfed and he wanted me to breastfeed our children too. After I found out all the benefits of breastfeeding for both my child and myself I was convinced. A suggestion I have is to have handy the number for your local La Leche League, they are an international breastfeeding support organisation. You can find them on the web at http://www.lalecheleague.org/. They helped me a lot in my decision to breastfeed when I had difficulties, especially in the early months. I doubt I could have done it without them. My husband found my ability to breastfeed his children erotic also.

Maybe some men find mothers of their children erotic. I know I found my husband's fathering a turn on, so why should he not find my mothering erotic also?

Anyway good luck. I hope everything works out well for you. If you feel like it let us know how it went!

Take care,
Tevemer

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. -Dandemis

Reading Carolina's comment on pregnancy and desire only makes me, as a young woman, desire a husband one day that will love me, possess me, one with whom to make beautiful babies with... as a new member to this forum, I am slowly being introduced to Taken In Hand ideas. These ideas that are being discussed here ring true to me... I think I have found a secret treasure. Hopefully in the future I will meet the right man who can make this real. I look forward to the day that I will be impregnated by the man I love, to being 'his' and sharing in a beautiful relationship based on ideals of respect, obedience, love and desire.

I should be revising for important exams but keep coming back to this website.... damnit! I am posting for the first time as feel compelled to respond to this amazing piece.

Caroline, you are lucky to have a switched on man to guide you to the natural route. I would like to offer you one piece of advice (I just went through the miracle and trauma of childbirth - and it is both - so feel I want to help you in whatever way I can. Women need women at this time).

Buy two books - Birthing From Within (can't remember author), and Birth and Breastfeeding by Michel Odent. Ooh, and Water birth by Janet Balaskas.

I can honestly say that giving birth naturally and not clouding your clever body with drugs is a really good way to do it. There are immense, and tangible benefits to you and your baby by doing this. And you can do it, your body knows what to do, THIS is the normal path, not the wacky alternative. The drugs merely interrupt the very effective endorphin pathway and stop the push-stretch-push reflex. We have all forgotten in recent years that it only became fashionable to have a drugged birth since post-war America sold the concept to women as being more 'glam' and high-net worth individuals flocked to do it, the rest followed...

Breathe in through your nose, blow out through your mouth, count the outbreaths as you go, count backwards from 20 and I guarantee the contraction stops long before you get to 1. You don't have to do the WHOLE labour at once - childbirth is one contraction at a time, just breathe through that one... then rest again.

Giving birth with a strong dominant man beside you... now that is a piece of magic that will stay with you forever. I had my husband to lean on, used his physical strength to hang from, he kept me upright forward and open all the time and stayed strong when I was tired. I had an entirely normal natural birth at home in a birthing pool (which he jumped into fully clothed when we held our baby for the first time) and I can tell you from hearing my friends' co-erced, intervention-ridden and clinical production line experiences - this was definitely the better way to do it.

Yes be aware that you might have to change plan if things go wrong, but they won't. They do only rarely. People are so quick to say 'Ooh but what if something goes WRONG'. Imagine if everytime you said 'I'm just driving to the shops' someone said 'OOOHHHH but what if you CRASH???? I know someone who CRASHED' Sigh. Yes, you might, but let's not focus on it shall we!! Labour is one of the few times when the medics can see a dangerous situation coming in plenty of time to do something about it. It's not like a heart attack with a tiny window to make good. Focussing on what goes wrong is tantamount to expecting it. Trust your body. It knows what to do.

Anyway, there is gold dust in these books to tell you everything you need to naturally welcome his baby into the world. There is a chapter for him to read on being a birth Guardian which fits well with the Taken In Hand mentality too - well worth a read.

Right, I have blathered enough, I wish you all the very best and remember - it hurts, it's hard work, and you can do it. That's all you need.

LKT

Maybe we don't think "Ooh, I might crash on the way to the shops" but we do buckle up and we do ensure that we drive modern cars with airbags. Grand inventions which have drastically reduced deaths on the roads. Same with midwives and doctors. Without them our maternal mortality rate would be that of the historical norm of 1 in every 100 women.

Natural childbirth is wonderful and much to be recommended for those for whom it works. But you were lucky LTK. Not everyone is. You can't extrapolate from your own experience to those of others. Nor can you expect that your own future births will mirror that of your first. We are all unique and our bodies respond in different ways to life's traumas. And childbirth is a trauma. I know you mean to be encouraging - but I don't think you appreciate the hugely negative impact of your conviction of the "rightness" of natural birth on women who feel miserable for months after childbirth because they didn't manage to do it on their own. I know many women like that who feel miserable and low at a particularly vulnerable time of their lives. Why do they feel miserable? Because of posts like yours which suggest that all you have to do is go to the right classes, read the right books and breathe the right way. Wrong. They didn't fail to give birth naturally because they didn't breathe properly or because their husbands didn't read the right books - but for perfectly good reasons to do with the health and wellbeing of themselves or their child.

Please encourage natural childbirth. I would too. But please don't suggest that this is something that everyone can have. They can't and if they try against the advice of their doctor or midwife they may well risk the health and even life of themselves or their child. At the end of the day it is the baby in your arms that matters, not how it arrived there.

[Please now ensure that any further posts on this thread are on-topic for the site. Thanks, everyone. - Editor]

When it comes to giving birth I believe passionately in hospitals, doctors, painkillers, and in husbands not being allowed to interfere at all with any of this. The doctors and nurses may not love you, but they don't have to, they're not there to love you, just to get on with their job. Love won't do you any good at all if something goes wrong and medical intervention is needed.

And on a site where 'traditional' marriages are much extolled, I would point out that the 'traditonal' role for a husband to take while his wife is giving birth is not to be anywhere near her. He's supposed to be outside, pacing up and down, and handing out cigars when the baby is born. Husbands should not be honoured in the birth process, they have nothing whatever to do with it.

Louise