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To the guy behind the Whole Foods Market gelato counter, it must have looked like a hold-up.

Just as my pregnant wife approached, a second, equally pregnant customer happened to step forward as well. The frightened guy slowly raised his hands and froze.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he said calmly. “Just tell me what you what, and I’ll get it for you. Whatever you need.”

My wife spoke first. She asked for a pint—“for my husband.”

The man shifted nervously. “Ma’am, here’s the thing. We’re all out of pint containers. But I can put it in a larger one—can I do that for you?”

“Sure,” she said. “But could you make it half strawberry and half cookies and cream?”

This woman just didn’t grasp his abject compliance, he must have thought. “Lady, I told you. You can have whatever you want. I don’t want any trouble.”

This was a wise man. He knew not to get between a pregnant woman and dessert—and especially not two of them.

I know from his actions that he’s been to the place every father-to-be has: the dangerous Gestational Vortex. It’s a swirling blur of impulse and rage that brings head-snapping jolts from elation to despair and back.

I, too, am a Vortex survivor. It happened on a recent trip to Houston. We were meandering through Ikea, the cheap-mod furniture mecca, looking for a few very specific, small items for the house. With our 4-year-old blissfully playing in Ikea’s amazing, free child-care area, everything seemed right with the world. How could I have known a fresh torrent of maternal hormones had just pulsed into my wife’s bloodstream?

“I know!” I said with otter-like enthusiasm. “We can buy lots of stuff! We’ll just put it on the credit card. I mean, this place is great—they have all kinds of—”

Oh, how the Vortex swirled.

“We are not going to spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need!” she sneered under her breath, quite clearly oblivious to the cunning Scandinavian seduction going on around us. “We’re here to get what we need, and that’s it!”

So we browsed in silence for a few minutes. But her attention eventually wandered to a pair of lamps, then she saw some nice sheets, then a pink comforter.

She clutched it to her cheek, closed her eyes and, with little-girl enthusiasm, said, “Awww! It’s so soft!”

By the time we checked out, our shopping basket was overflowing. And the soft comforter? We bought two.