Clueless husbands?

PuppyLove84

I had a hilarious/surprising conversation with my husband last night.  He basically had no idea how babies are conceived.  Our plan is to start TTC next month, and he was looking at his calendar and wondering when he'd have to take time off next spring.  Like, he wanted to know dates.  After my initial confusion and a little questioning, I realized he thought that as soon as I went off the pill, we'd have sex, and I'd be pregnant, and a baby would be born exactly 9 months later.  I had to explain to him how ovulation works (he thought ovulation was your period), and how you can only get pregnant when you ovulate, and how even if we're healthy and have good timing, there's only a 20% chance of getting pregnant each month.  When I told him the average time to get pregnant was about 6 months, poor guy was shocked!  I guess all my baby fever has rubbed off on him more than I thought, and he wants this to happen asap.  Then I explained how some people choose to chart their temps to be sure when they've ovulating, and he got excited and said yes, of course we should do that!  He was so cute.  I was happy to hear that he was looking forward to this (I've been more enthusiastic about TTC than he has), but I was pretty surprised about how little he understood the process!  And let me just say, he's a very smart guy, PhD, in his 30s.... who knew?

Anyone else's husbands as clueless as mine?  Or did he just skip a few important classes in middle school or something?

Helenahhandbasket

Um, lots of women think exactly the same thing as your H, so not to worry!

 

Jags8

School is absolute crap in teaching youth how the body works. I will definitely be teaching all of my kids exactly how it works and what is happening. 

It is kind of cute how your H thought it worked though! If only!

Edit: spelling

MNgirl326

I was pretty clueless to be honest.  I learned most of what I know about TTC from here.

carabassa27

Agreed, in that our school district taught us nothing about the details of conception.

My husband has learned along with me, once I started temping with FF a few years ago. He thinks it's funny to refer to my "gluteal phase" and my "fa-lick-your-nose" phase.

lifeonthehill

I have learned a lot from being here. In school we were taught that you got pregnant almost every time you didn't use protection. Scare tactics that worked on me but left me uneducated.

H and I are planning to start TTC in December. He said that it would be perfect to have a fall baby before he would have coaching in the winter and I just laughed and told him it didn't work quite that way and explained that my body probably wont even regulate that quickly not to mention the slim chances of getting pregnant to begin with to not expect it. He was a bit surprised.

PuppyLove84

Glad to hear he's not the only one!  I didn't know anything about phases or charts or anything before coming on here, but I guess having friends who took a little while to get pregnant, I at least knew not to expect it right away!  And I remember learning about ovulation and periods in middle school, because I remember thinking how gross it all was!

TikiTurtle

My DH refers to temping as witchcraft.

Radiantly

My H didn't know what a Caesarian is. Or the very idea of an option that isn't the vagina. He asked my gyno why it's so difficult for women to give birth when animals like cows just drop it out. She was very patient and explained how we only have 2 legs (they have 4) and our hips are not shaped for easy baby dropping.

aggiebug

H wasn't too far ahead of you :-). He has really been interested in temping etc and what is going on withy body.

As odd as it sounds I think he is more interested since we stopped BCP before being ready to start a family. The thought that you can use FAM to avoid or help with conception blew his mind.

mm529

Mine has no clue how any of this works either. He doesn't really care to learn the ins and outs, but knows that I will be tryin to temp when we start TTC. I always tell him we have to be emotionally ready to get pregnant the first month but realistically it could take us up to a year. That's helped him get the gist.

I never realized how clueless people were about their bodies until I started teaching sex ed through a volunteer health education program.

nina&bill

DH and I have been reading TCOYF and have both come across things we didn't know.  I knew more than that, but we have friends who have been having trouble conceiving. 

To be fair, your husband is probably going by what was said in Health class... which for one of my friends that sucked!  She was a counselor in a HS and was constantly mediating meetings for a girl to tell her parents she got KTFU while having fertility issues and not being able to afford a lot of help.

themrs1020

My DH just does this...

jenny1500

My husband is a farmer so I get compared to cattle on a regular basis....fortunately I have a sense of humour!

PuppyLove84

LOL That's hilarious! 

For my grad degree I had to teach a college Health 101 class, but for sexual health we mainly focused on STDs.  Lots and lots of pictures of nasty junk.  Too bad there wasn't more in the curriculum about how women's bodies actually work!  Although I'm pretty sure a lot of those kids were too scarred to have sex for quite a while....

8411mommy

My dh was surprised that i was still unavailable on cd4.

Mcgowan29

My H is clueless as well, but is easing into gathering info in small amounts from me. I'm not sure yet how much he will retain, but he is so afraid of something being wrong with his "swimmers!" He originally wanted me to have my entire DNA tested before we started TTC. And I'm the nurse, not him. Anyway, FF app very helpful for me so far-- I've learned so much!

Kster508

If it was that easy, it wouldn't be called TRYING to conceive. It'd be called conceiving. haha too funny!