The writer well remembers the deep impression made upon his mind in an interview with a physician who was the first to present this phase of the subject to our consideration. The statement was so unusual that it made a lasting impression upon us. But why may it not be so? After a period of preparation why should not the intending parents unite at the throne of grace for God's blessing upon them in the act in which they are about to engage, and in the fulfillment of their desire for an heir who shall be possessed of the very best physical, intellectual and moral endowments?
There are certain signs of fruitful conjunction which are often recognized by women who are already mothers, but which may serve as no guide to a young wife who has never had any experience. With some women the act of conception is attended with great emotion, a sense of unusual pleasure, and even of a tremor, in which all parts of the body may participate. Sometimes it is followed by a sense of weakness. In ancient times the swelling of the neck was regarded as a sign of conception, and some modern authorities incline to the same theory. There are instances also in which the morning sickness begins immediately after conception.
It would be unsafe, however, to rely upon either the presence or absence of these indications. In most instances the cessation of the menses and the appearance of the morning sickness are the first reliable indications that conception has taken place.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EXPECTANT MOTHER.
A husband, whether young or old, should treat his wife with great consideration at all times, but if at any time she deserves more thoughtful consideration and more tender ministry than at any other, it is during the period of her pregnancy. The young husband should remember that oftentimes the mother-nature of the young wife is not yet aroused, but is measurably dormant. God has intended that wifehood should precede motherhood. Where the longing for children is present, the young wife intelligent, and where she has been physically fitted for the office of motherhood upon which she has now entered, her equipment is exceptional, her mind complacent, and she may reasonably be expected to go forward in a spirit which will secure for her in the coming months the largest blessing and reward.
But with most young wives it is not so. The knowledge which would have been most important for them has been withheld by silent mothers. They may have received a liberal education, but in the study of physiology, the special parts, concerning which she needed most to know, have been excluded from the text-books, and she knows no more concerning her own special physiology than she does about the physiology of the male. Books which would have rendered her intelligent have been studiously kept out of her sight, and perhaps during her girlhood she has been encouraged in compressing her waist, displacing the vital organs which God has placed in the abdomen, and through a period of years gone on, ignorantly or wilfully, unfitting herself for the main duties of maternity. Perhaps she has entered upon marriage, as so many do, with an undefined dread of some impending evil attending conception and childbearing, which she has desired and hoped to escape in some inscrutable manner. The discovery of the fact that she is to become a mother fills her mind with dread and alarm. In her ignorance she gropes her way in darkness, not knowing whither to turn and with no one to guide her to the light. She naturally turns to married women and to mothers, and instead of receiving encouragement and the proper kind of sympathy, they most likely exclaim: "I am sorry for you! Now your trouble begins. If I were in your place I should feel like jumping into the river." In nine cases out of ten, with the darkness intensified and her mind more alarmed than ever, apprehension turns to fear, and fear into alarm and dread. The young husband should remember that this is about the usual experience of most young wives, and intelligently arrange to correct the evil.
If you are acquainted with some intelligent, sympathetic and judicious woman, who will know how to take your young wife into her arms, allay her fears, comfort and instruct her, you will be most fortunate. She should be able to point out to the troubled wife the fact that intelligence and care will greatly mitigate, and indeed enable her largely to avoid all physical suffering; to explain to her how, as the months go by, the mother-love will spring up in her heart as the time approaches for the happiest hour in her life, when for the first time her own infant child shall lie in her arms or by her side; to picture the joy of her husband and the gladness which will come into the hearts of all who know her and who will come to rejoice over her newborn child; to picture what her home will be as contrasted with those who, dejected and lonely, sit in desolate homes where no little prattler breaks the stillness of the hours and no footfalls are heard in the hallway. This judicious friend will need to know how to impress upon her that her mental condition during the period which precedes the advent of the little stranger will mold and fashion its character, and how, if she desires a loving child, she must herself love the child before it is born; if she desires in her child a quiet and happy disposition she must herself determine that result by her own even temper, and be warned that her worry and repining will render her child nervous and fretful; if she desires her child to be cheery and bright and happy she should enact in her own thought and life what she desires her child to be; that now for a brief period she is molding not simply its physical frame, but its character and disposition, and giving bent and expression to the entire future of the human life that is being formed within her.