First things first: I hate babies.
Okay, I don't really hate them, but I've never felt comfortable around them. I also never thought they were cute. I mean, no cuter than a puppy, really. Sure, if one was sleeping and their mother or father said "Hey, can you hold my child while I _________?" I would, reluctantly, say "okay" but be fine with it otherwise. But once the little bugger initiated the blaring sounds that, to me, could make a police siren sound like a meowing kitty, I would sort of panic and try to hand the baby to the nearest responsible adult (usually my mom). This never really went away.
So, needless to say, when my girlfriend came to me and told me she was pregnant, it hit me so hard my heart stopped ( I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it literally did). In hindsight, I'm glad I skipped my Ethics class that morning because that happened to have me placed at home with my girlfriend when she found out and we were able to go through the shock together.
That day was stressful, and seemed to go on forever, so slow that molasses would beat it in a race. And the next few weeks felt absolutely hopeless. I remember coming home from a good day working as a sever at a restaurant in a small town right outside my city one night, (I had a good day, mind you), and when I got home, I locked myself in my room, closed the door, and cried in my bed for at least an hour, just repeating in my head that I didn't want this, and that I wasn't ready.
And guys (I'm sort of writing this blog for y'all), that's perfectly fine during the pregnancy. If you weren't planning on, or wanting to have kids, this news is emotionally traumatic. It's scary, it's confusing, and it's scary. And yes, I intentionally added "it's scary" twice in that last sentence, because it is pretty frightening. But you can't let the fear paralyze you. A little fear is good but letting the fear paralyze you is the worst you can do. Speaking from experience, you gotta push through it all.
As scared as I was the day we found out, I knew that whatever my girlfriend's decision in regards to whether or not to keep the child was, I was going to go along with it. She chose to keep the baby, and even though I was terrified, I knew what I was doing when we were intimate, and so I knew I had to man-up.
And i'm glad I did, because the sheer joy of seeing my daughter move in my girlfriend's belly, feeling her wiggle over to whatever side of my girlfriend's belly my face was resting on when I spoke, seeing her in the sonograms made it all well worth it. It was amazing, seeing how much the belly bump moved when we played Sinatra or Tom Lehrer, feeling that little hand move all over mine, and SO much more. It's amazing in a way you can't describe. I always hated that cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason - it's just simple truth.
I condensed about 8 months of the pregnancy into a few paragraphs because this blog is going to be about fatherhood during the first year, not the pregnancy. I'll try to update this weekly, if not bi-monthly (not sure if that's supposed to be hyphenated or not), probably on Thursdays. Do Thursdays sound good to y'all? Yeah, Thursday sounds good.
This is for my sister, who is out of the country right now: I want her to be able to keep up with my daughter's life while she's away. This is for my daughter, so she can see, in detail, both what the first year of parenthood is like, and so she can see what our life was when she came, obviously she won't be reading it until much later. This is for my girlfriend and I to read later, and for our friends' entertainment, and to maybe offer insight into parenthood when they want/have children of their own. And lastly, this is for anyone who wants a guy's perspective on fatherhood without all the cheesiness you usually get, especially since the literature on the subject from a male's perspective is kind of limited.
Lastly, I have a very tough time committing to long writing projects, so keeping up with this for a year could be pretty difficult. So, to my sweet heart, my sister, my parents, and friends, if I end up going two weeks without updating this, please yell at me (not literally), blow up my phone (also not literally), and harass me (also also not literally), and very strongly remind me to, and insist that I update this (literally).
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