Forums - read all about it

I'm no stranger to forums. Before we became pregnant I was regularly irritating my better half by coming in from my work (I am a cop) and reading through a couple of Police forums.

They're like a topical newsletter, written and maintained by people who understand my world, and full of useful snippets of information, hints, tips, etc. There are also sections for prospective officers, and chart all aspects of the recruitment process.

It's no surprise then that when we discovered our little one was on the way, we sought out a similar type forum for pregnancy. For the most part, the forums we discovered are largely inhabited by mums and mums to be, but they all seem to have a Dads Only Zone, where prospective dads can chill out, away from the maelstrom of raging feminine hormones.

It appears though that my fondness for forums, where like minded individuals can relax, chat etc, is reserved for a different type to pregnancy though. Since signing up I have seen something quite worrying, which appears to be a reliance on the forum for everything pregnancy related, and a penchant for only acknowledging tragedy.

It's hit close to home too. With our scare last week we logged on looking for some reassurance about bleeding. What we found were scare stories about foetuses (foeti?) ceasing to develop at every stage, worries being posted in answer to other worries, and almost an online version of chinese whispers. Nowhere to be found was a calm, reassuring voice, and nowhere was there a common-sensical "Get thee to the bloody Midwife!"

When we posted our good news we didn't get many replies, which was sad. It seemed that the stressed out, fraught posts attracted all the attention. Maybe it's because we all thrive a wee bit on drama, especially when we perceive that we can add some sage comment, or show we've had worse ourselves.

The dads' zone seems to be populated in the majority by women whose own other halves are against the pregnancy, totally uninterested and ambivalent, not showing any paternal desires and generally being meanie-bots (It's definitely NOT good to be a meanie-bot - ask my wife). They appear to be asking the sane, pleasant enthusiatic dads-to-be for their advice, although if you take as gospel the amount of disaffected women out there, you'd be hard pushed to find a decent bloke, especially seeming as all these posts are answered by other women!

I did consider starting my own forum and running it, but we've got 6 months to go, and then franky I'll be way too deep in nappies, rusks (can't wait, I loved them as a kid and now I get them again!), Johnsons lotion and baby sick to even give it a second thought.

So, I am going to ask the midwife if anything concerns us, keep good news for friends and here, and read with interest but a healthy dose of cynicism the forums.

Any thought on whether Sir Ian should stay or go?