Men experience what pregnancy is really like. Spoiler alert: They cannot deal.

Ever wished your partner could understand what pregnancy really feels like? You might want to show him this.

Last night my husband was complaining about having to sit on an uncomfortable chair while I reclined into our one and only comfortable Ikea armchair. It was the perfect opportunity for me to launch into a 34-week pregnancy tirade. It went something like this:

Him: “Why do I always get the uncomfortable chair?”

Me: “Oh, you’d like to trade places would you?”

Him: “…..”  (He could already sense this wasn’t going to end well.)

Me: “So, you’d like to be the one that gets to lug this big gut around? You’d like to be carrying an extra 10 kilos and comical-sized boobs? You’d like to push this *emphatically points to gut* out of your pea-sized hole?”

Him: Silence. No words. Nothing. He knows better than to keep provoking a tired, emotional and highly-hormonal pregnant woman.

Read more: A man who changed women’s lives has died. Thank you, kind sir.

So it was much to my glee when I came across the 3 Pregnant Dads this morning; three men who are honouring their mums for Mother’s Day by ‘being pregnant’ for a month. It started as a dare, and now there’s no going back.

The dads are up to day eight of their experiment, going everywhere, including work and catching public transport while wearing a 15kg (the average weight gain a woman will experience during pregnancy) suit complete with breasts and belly.

The suits are specifically designed to create the following awesome pregnancy side effects: abdominal distention, pelvic tilt, shift in posture causing waddling gair, abdominal aches, lower back stress, inability to get comfortable, pressure on bladder, stomach and lungs, shortness of breath, difficulty rising from chair or bed, increased breast size, rise in body temperature, increased  blood pressure and pulse, fetal movement, tiredness. You know, just to name a few.

Maybe they ought to read this: 10 things about pregnancy nobody tells you (and  weren’t in the brochure). 

Dad-of-one Steve, 46, is currently experiencing how “everyday things like putting on your socks becomes a monumental task” and just how difficult it is to get a good night’s sleep when you have a watermelon strapped to your front.

His diary entry for day three reads: “Not a wink. What an awful night, I just couldn’t get settled. Tried to make a small city out of pillows around my bump.”

Steve’s video diary: Day 3 (post continues after video)

“What were at first quite a pleasurable novelty, my boobs, soon became about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. They were way too warm and hung on my arm sending it to sleep, and waking me at the same time.”

Welcome to our world Steve, welcome to our world.

Jason, 44, has just found out what it’s like to be judged in public: “The waitress in the local café where we frequent seems to be taking our pregnancy very seriously now and told me off for having a glass of wine.”

“I informed her that I was born in 1970 and at that time my mother was certainly not worried about having a drink or two during her pregnancy so I was following her lead.”

He then mentions something about knowing where he wants to stick the cork, but he’s weekly? Daily? indulgence comes guilt-free. Something expectant mothers do not have the luxury of.  

And has a complete stranger ever tried to touch his expanding stomach? As a pregnant man is not a common sight, he’s probably getting a wide berth on that one. Lucky guy.  

Forty-five year old father-of-two, Jonny thought the trial would be more embarrassing than physically tough. Oh, how wrong he was.

“That was an hour ago, before trying the pregnancy suit on. I’m now having second thoughts. Life will not continue as normal.  It may never be the same again,” says Jonny.

“It’s not so much the 15kg of weight but how it’s distributed: right on your bladder and groin. To make matters worse, something moves inside the belly. A weird alien-like lump of solid resin swings like a embryonic pendulum with each move you make. It’s freaky. Wrong. This whole ordeal is definitely not made for a man.”

Newsflash Jonny: we’re not having the best time either. And your experience doesn’t even include the added fun of cankles, nightly leg cramps, sharp and shooting ligament pain, haemorrhoids and heartburn. Or say, NOT BEING ABLE TO DRINK WINE FOR NINE MONTHS.

But at only eight days in, the experiment is already working. Each of the men have a newfound respect for the mother’s of their children and their own mother’s. As Steve says: “’Huge respect goes to all you pregnant mums out there. Every single one of you.”

Now, how can we make men understand the pain of childbirth?

How do you think your partner would deal with pregnancy?