Looking back on when my wife first got pregnant and everything we went through, it seemed like it was filled with a lot of drama and tense moments, but in the end it was really quite a natural pregnancy with few complications. So this alone should tell you exactly how stressful even a normal pregnancy can be for most people. My wife and I learned quite a few things along the way, and the most important thing was that we had to take whatever curveballs were thrown at us, as you pretty much have no choice but to go with the flow. This is the kind of approach that you have to take whatever you experience your first pregnancy, and I can tell you with all assurity that worrying will not change anything.

You pretty much learn on the go whenever you find out that you are expecting a child for the first time, and just like any other couple, my wife and I read just about anything we could get our hands on. We also received a lot of advice from friends and family, but there is simply no way you can read or be told everything that you're going to need to know while expecting. We didn't know about such things as a low-lying placenta, which my wife ended up having. We didn't know about the diabetes test that my wife had to be retested for, because her blood sugar just happened to be too high that day. We spent all this time that worrying about all of these what ifs, and in every case they never come to pass. As an example, my wife was extremely worried about her blood sugar test, and she was afraid she'd have to test her blood sugar levels several times a day. It took almost a week before we could go back for her to be retested, and there was a lot of sleepless nights in between then before we found out it was a false positive

In the end, these are just a couple examples of problems that we encountered, and we got through them, just like every other couple ends up doing. The only thing that you can really control is how you approach things, and you have to not worry about a situation until it is actually time to do so. This definitely paid off whenever my wife was in labor, and our child had to be taken out with forceps. Because of learning how to deal with all of the other worries during the pregnancy, I was able to keep my cool while this was happening, and to help my wife focus on her breathing and pushing. You could say that the nine months of stress you have to deal with leading up to labor is a preparation process, that helps get you ready for the big day.