Fatherhood

As soon as I saw the little blue cross, I knew that my old life was over.

But first, denial. The vertical bar on the pregnancy test was bold and blue, but its horizontal counterpart was pale and striated. “What does that mean?” I asked Mandy, desperately. “Does that count?”

I knew that it did. And as the realisation sank in, my denial gave way to panic.

On the few occasions that I’ve been given a baby to hold, I’ve not known what to do with it. You can’t play World of Warcraft with a baby. You can’t have a conversation with it. If something's wrong, it can't tell you what it is. Unlike a cat, you can’t throw it outside when you want some peace. You have to deal with it. Would I be able to cope?

Then I began to think about the birth. I’m squeamish beyond belief. I once fainted watching a documentary on plastic surgery. How on earth was I going to avoid passing out in the delivery room?

More nightmarish scenarios began to present themselves. What if Mandy gives birth in the car on the way to the hospital and I have to deliver the baby? Worse, she’s due on September 29th, in the middle of hurricane season. What if she goes into labour in the middle of a storm, when the Causeway is shut and we can't get to the hospital?

As the panic subsided, gloom set in. This was it. The end of my life as I knew it (suddenly I couldn’t get that REM song out of my head). I’d have no more time for blogging. No more time for playing computer games. Mandy would start looking saggy and run-down. Fancy foreign holidays, romantic dinners and sleep would soon be a thing of the past. The irritable couple with the screaming baby on the airplane would be us.

But beneath my nostalgia and my fear there remained a calmer, more optimistic self. A self that reminded me that I have always wanted children. A self that reminded me that, at 34, it was high time I was getting on with it. Postponing parenthood was no longer an option.

My impending fatherhood may be the end of my life as I know it. But I feel just fine.

Becoming a dad for the first time is obviously a big deal for me, so I’m going to be blogging heavily about the experience. This should be cathartic for me and will help keep my family and friends outside Bermuda abreast of what’s going on. But hopefully it will also serve as an amusing and informative guide for other fathers-to-be, and a conduit for those who have already gone through the experience to offer their wisdom.

However, I appreciate that most of you could probably care less about my first tottering steps into the world of parenthood. So I’m going to be keeping my baby posts in a separate blog, A Baby In Bermuda. I look forward to seeing some of you over there.

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