Description: Finally, a worthy companion to Operating Instructions has arrived. In his exceptionally witty and intelligent memoir, Gordon Churchwell chronicles the journey to fatherhood. "What's happening to me?" he asks. "It's 6:30 A.M. My wife is peeing on what looks like a scale model of the spaceship from 2001: A Space Odyssey . . ". So begins Churchwell's narrative, weaving together personal anecdotes, wry commentary, and interviews with doctors, midwives, scientists, and other men. Churchwell explores men's fears; their thoughts about sex (or the avoidance of it); the clash of childbirth ideologies ("Somewhere in here is a Vietnam metaphor: the natural birth cadres are winning the hearts and minds of pregnant women, but the doctors control the hospitals".); the nature and frequency of couvade -- or male pregnancy symptoms -- and comes up with his original theory of why it is actually men's behavior that makes women's ability to nurture and bond possible. In an amusing, engaging manner, Making Love to the Hindenburg gives us insight into what makes men tick and reveals how pregnancy can fulfill men's universal (albeit unexpressed) desire to be nurturers, too. Provocative in its questions -- "How did men become separated from their role in childbirth?" to "What will happen when my pregnant wife stops taking her Prozac?" -- Churchwell's highly original book will inspire, inform, and amuse both sexes.

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