I'm going to be a father! A dad; daddy cool. Pops, pa, papa. Or, when my child is older, an embarrassment. But until then, I'm going to be a dad. Easily the most exciting, and terrifying, moment of my life.
How did we find out? Pee on a stick. I find it somewhat strange that the most magical thing that can happen in a couple's liftime, the one thing that will ensure my wife and I are connected for the rest of our lives (I could, and have, get divorced - I will always be this child's father and she will always be the mother), tends to be discovered by weeing on a plastic wand. And was it convincing? Did we get a nice thick, bold pink line on our spatula of love? Nope. We got a faint, washed out tracing that was barely discernible to the naked eye. But I will always remember that faint line - it was the first time I knew a child could be on its (at only five weeks, it's barely a tadpole - I've got no idea what the gender is! Wife thinks boy; mother-in-law thinks girl; I'm hoping baby) way.
Cue panic.
We're having a baby! Probably. It's so faint. Does that mean yes? Or is this a cruel imagining? Quick - to the Google machine! A faint line does mean pregnancy! (Probably. Be aware of the cruel deception of chemical pregnancies.) A rapid dialling of numbers and we have an appointment to see the GP. There may be those of you who have been through this and are thinking "silly sods". I'll admit, I was thinking the same. I'm a professional, I'm in my thirties, yet I was giddy with nerves and possibilities and needed somebody to tell me it would be ok. And the very nice doctor said "congratulations, I'll make an appointment with the midwife, but there's nothing more I can really do at this stage". He was lovely, but there really was nothing more he could do. Apart from advise us to take another test, just to rule out the chemical risk.
A second slightly darker line. Still what you would likely class as pale. Where's my thick, convincing statement of virility?! No matter - this urine bat stayed in my pocket (with the plastic cap on, I'm not a tramp) for the next couple of days as we told the precious few that have been let into the secret so far. We are waiting for the midwife appointment before we announce the news publicly.
The final confirmation arrived, or, more appropriately didn't arrive, in an absence of menstruation. The test of millennia past. We really are pregnant. We're going to have a baby. I've got a taxi driver for the next eight months!
(Don't let this be the first thing you say on discovery of this news. I just cannot see it being a great start.)
So on these pages I will be charting my journey through pregnancy - highlighting the things I find out, the mistakes I make, and, where relevant, pointing readers in the direction of useful references or amusing diversions. I want this to serve as a journal for what happens so that I can look back in the future and recapture these moments, but also to help others who are travelling on the same journey.
I'm going to be a daddy. :-)
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