Standing in front of our imposing hospital ready to go in for our first ante-natal appointment, my anxiety level was running high. Jac turned and fondly gave me a reassuring peck on the cheek.

Have you ever held a cat which, when you pick it up, stiffens its legs? Although it doesn't fight to free itself, it will squirm and never quite let you hold it comfortably. That was how Jac described my reaction whenever she tried to show me any physical affection anywhere outside of our non-matrimonial bed. On cue, and appealing to her peculiar sense of humour, that was exactly how I reacted. Chortling, she imitated my stiff-legged cat as I earnestly ushered her on.

I wasn't aware of the actual leg stiffening, but I was aware that I constantly felt a pressure to be somewhere else, be doing something else or generally be getting on with the next thing on my list. Today, although half an hour early for our appointment, I was set on getting in there, registering our arrival and then, presumably, fidgeting until we were called in.

This awkward trait could easily have been a huge stumbling block if seen as a gauge of the health our relationship. Luckily, she took it with a remarkable, though impish, good grace. Her cat psychiatrist outlook was that "one day I would realise that it was much nicer to let my soft and vulnerable under-belly be caressed." What's more, if she was going to put in the hours getting me over it, she was jolly well going to be there when I rolled over. In the meantime, it was as good a way as any to take the edge off an otherwise tense situation.

Having trained and worked as a doctor, you wouldn't have been chastised for assuming that I might have felt comfortable within the walls of a hospital. As a nurse approached with a glass of water and asked if I would like to lie down, it was fairly evident that this wasn't the case at all.

We had been told it was only a preliminary hospital visit, "Essentially just to say hello — really, nothing to worry about." I wasn't anxious about the public revelation of our pregnancy which ought to have followed this appointment. Dispensing with the unwritten pregnancy etiquette of secrecy, we had told everyone almost immediately about our news. We reckoned that if something did go wrong in the first stages, we would want the support of our friends and family.

As expectant parents of eight weeks, there were very few differences from the carefree couple of three years that we had just been. There were a few obvious behavioural changes you make for the benefit of mummy and baby. No more all-night partying and binge drinking. Force feeding bushels of iron-rich spinach and vitamin-rich fruit. But there was no bump, no comedy getting out of chair movements, not even any funny food cravings. We knew that Jac was pregnant and had talked extensively about it but somehow it was exactly that — all talk.

But today, visiting a hospital and opening an official manila file with your name on it brought it right up into the unavoidable here and now. I was becoming very aware that this, Jac's first ante-natal visit was my first gestational milestone. We were now officially in the system and officially really pregnant. Reality is a truly frightening creature.

I sipped the nurse's water, and the generic hospital chemical taste brought back uncomfortable memories from my four-month stint of obstetrics and gynaecology at medical school. My first haunting memory was that as a man, it was a deeply disturbing and embarrassing thing to do. Furthermore, any male doctor who chose to do it as full-time job had to be viewed with suspicion. But more vivid and disturbing was the memory that midwives weren't like zoo-keepers or gardeners, who did the job because they loved it. They were, in fact, vicious sadists who not only took delight in making my student life as miserable as possible but weren't particularly nice to the mothers either.

By the time our turn came, I was beside myself with fear and memories. Our midwife's friendly and caring disposition didn't take me in for a moment. Filling in some form or other, she asked us what our jobs were. I didn't hesitate for a moment before proudly telling her that I was a doctor — a surgeon, in fact. Unfazed and unimpressed, she filled in the box and asked about religious denomination. Jac looked at me, shocked.

Everything over with and back in the car park, I hurried us home with my usual urgency. Feeling an unease, I probed ("I thought that went quite well — don't you...?"), trying to find out what this hideous woman had done to upset Jac.

"Yes, she did seem like a caring, job-loving, zoo-keeper type; and yes, it was going swimmingly right up until you decided to lie and said that you were a doctor. At that point it stopped being about us and suddenly about me and a person that you weren't. And maybe if you still don't feel comfortable being simply the father of our child and happier being the man who was driven to distraction in a job he hated you'd better not come in next time."

She had nothing to do and couldn't be bothered to be rushed around, so went off to the bus stop leaving me feeling phoney and uncomfortable.

I looked skyward for answers. Instead I saw the rather imposing Victorian Gothic façade of our hospital and the inscription across its front. This informed me that it actually started life as a work-house for the poor. The Victorians had it sussed, I thought: hide it all with a good solid front and the truth behind doesn't need to be worried about.

In its shadow, in the cold light of day, I wasn't a million miles away from this ugly monolith designed so it didn't upset the emotionally-denied constitutions of passers by a hundred years ago. My stiff-legged cat and suddenly becoming a doctor quickly erecting shields to hide behind, shields which meant that I conveniently didn't have to face up to any emotional realities. The same emotional realities Jac obviously felt comfortable with and wanted to address.

Stopping in the newsagents for an emotionally-sensitive Curly Wurly and a photography journal, I compared the male and female sections of the magazine rack. It was more proof of the gulf that has arisen between men and women in the last hundred years. Jac and other women had come such a long way and we've actually gone nowhere and are firmly stuck on the trivial, superficial and titties pile. A spot where we've been quite comfortable for several centuries, thank you.

Women, even if they started off with more instinctive basic personalities, have had to fight hard for their emotionally realised position. It's a completely different fight to the social liberation fight that's been flaming since the Sixties, but I'm sure one as fierce and met with similar bigotry.

But where did that leave me? Unfortunately, it wasn't difficult to work out. I wasn't in love with Jac because she was the shrinking-violet submissive type. I lapped up her emotional freedom and unashamed desire to express it and basically let it feed my ego. My problem was in not realising that this wasn't a one way street with an inexhaustible supply of traffic.

Sneaking a copy of Cosmopolitan and a Marie Claire inside my Practical Photography, I realised that I had some work to do in giving it up and giving it out.

In the raw light of day, I did feel inspired, as though I'd taken up a baton and perhaps may one day be famed as a herald of a new generation of sensitive men. Perhaps even get one of those blue plaques on the front of my house. Here lived the original emotional male suffragette.

Well, no one said I had to get rid of my ego as well. There have to be some differences between men and women.