Don't panic.

Up until the last couple of weeks I've found the pregnancy/impending parenthood combo surprisingly ineffective in the face of my calm, dignified and frankly quite enviably self-assured persona. "Easy for you to say, man," reply, doubtlessly, any mothers or feminists reading. Probably all of the women, actually. And the more reasonable men.

And you're quite right. If there's one cliche which the experience thus far has confirmed - and I hope my musings have reflected this, even though I am fairly confident that they haven't - it's that it's all much easier for nearly-Dad than it is for nearly-Mum.

But so heavy now is the burden on my wife, that even my cracks are beginning to show, so to speak. The last week or so has seen her fluid content increase dramatically, resulting in hands, ankles and feet that look a little bit more like those of the humans in Wall-E than they used to. I'm allowed to use that comparison because my wife came up with it.

Also, her midwife this week revealed some minor anomalies in her protein levels. I'm still resistant to panic, but it seems that she is now only a nasty headache away from pre-eclampsia. For those who don't know, pre-eclampsia can lead to eclampsia, which can be as terminally serious as it gets. I should stress that everybody else is quite relaxed about this possibility, precisely because it is a very small one, but I found myself in the unusual position of being the one who allowed paranoia take hold of my sense of reason for a day or two.

I have now been convinced that your wife's midwife mentioning the name of a condition is not the same as your wife having the condition. Sensible serenity has been restored. But I think the doubt will linger in the corner, occasionally waving frantically in my peripheral vision, until our daughter is born and I can tell it that it is no longer needed, thank you.

Strangely, I was a bit disappointed at remaining much calmer than I would have expected when, this morning, my wife believes she had her first braxton hicks contraction (a false alarm contraction, basically). The first I knew of it was when she interrupted QI (which we had recorded the night before because you go to bed very early when your wife is 33 weeks pregnant) by saying "I think I just had a braxton hicks contraction" in the same tone of voice as she would usually use to tell me what she wanted for lunch, for example.

I suppose my calmness was a reflection of hers. But I'm quite retrospectively excited about it now. To my simple man-mind (a phrase which hopefully will get the feminists back on side), this represents the precursor to the beginning of the beginning of the end which immediately precedes the actual beginning. Which, when you think about it, is really very important.