Identity Transformations in the Course of Expectant Fatherhood

THERE IS A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP between man and wife during pregnancy because of what they have to accomplish during that period. United in their goal, they nevertheless have different biological tasks. These differences give rise to individual communication styles. The woman feels and expresses her bodily changes directly; the man expresses his experience indirectly through empathy and perceptions which vary from the conscious to the subliminal. It is in part the response to the body changes of pregnancy that early identifications emerge from repression, allowing for their reinstatement in consciousness. Once in consciousness, they can then be worked through.

The biological accomodations which women must make during pregnancy are meaningful to the extent that they experience themselves creating a new person conceived in love of the man and immortalizing themselves and that love through the birth and care of the child. It is the emotional goal of pregnancy to conclude it with the family of man—father-mother-child. In pursuit of this, however far she wanders, the woman must come home to the man, for she needs this relationship for her mothering to be mature. As has been amply documented, during their pregnancy women identify with their mothers in mothering, review their dependencies and try out a variety of roles of the child-mother type, play-acting in fantasy and reality the various possibilities of caring and being cared for.

In order to rehearse for her part, the woman must withdraw part of her care and concern from her husband. Yet, she must be able to depend on his presence as a protector, provider and intimate. Those pregnancies where there is no close emotional relationship