Pre- and Postpartum

That it is unlikely does not make it untrue. Apparently there is a shortage of sperm donors in Britain. Donations cannot be made anonymously in the UK and there is (anecdotally) a fear among potential virtual partners of being stuck with a bill for a meal they did not eat (so to speak).

It is a problem, even if not one that gets too much sympathy.

Also not getting much sympathy — and rarely considered except as a source of humor — are the "problems of the 'pregnant dad'." Perhaps the reason why there is so little sympathy offered is because while girls often talk about babys from an early age each father seems to think he discovered pregnancy himself. Women knows what's coming. Should the men?

Maybe they should, but they don't.

Almost every man imagines that nobody prior to him has gone through nine months with a difficult, pregnant woman. (At least it seems that way if you look at the number of books about fatherhood during pregnancy that you probably have never heard of.) The most recent gent to tackle the problem — perhaps as part of the postpartum depression [Earlier: Scary Visions] that comes with newborns — is Harlan Cohen, wordsmithie of the concept of dads as "pregnancy pioneers," and author of the just-released "Dad's Pregnant Too!"

Anyone sympathetic yet?