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A few months ago, my wife and I received
the best news ever — we're going to have our first
child. As a dad-in-waiting, I'm currently in that
stage of excitement mixed with giddiness and anticipation, all
wrapped around a little honest-to-goodness fear. OK, a
lot of honest-to-goodness fear. OK, to tell you the
truth, I'm scared out of my mind. But, come fall,
I'll be the father of a binky-sucking, boppy-sitting
bundle of beautiful babyness. Which is, of course, a
miracle.
The most amazing thing to me is that
although our baby is still incubating in the womb, he or she
has already opened my eyes to a wider world. And I have
stories to tell — good stories and funny stories and
"holy cow" stories that make up the prologue to a
precious new life.
For now, let's start with the OB/GYN
office stories. Not 100% convinced by the home test
result that said we were pregnant, my wife and I decided to get
an official ruling. Needless to say, it was my first visit to
the OB/GYN. Not the most comfortable place for a
30-year-old, nervously-awaiting-the-biggest-news-of-his-life
guy to hang out. Even though there were no other patients
in the waiting room, I tried to look occupied by flipping
through the magazines. Cosmo... Redbook... Woman's
Day... c'mon,
c'mon, gotta be something here... People! Jackpot!
Reading about Brad and Jen offered as much of a shred of
dignity as I could expect under the circumstances. Just
then, a woman blew through the door, not missing one syllable
of her talk-out-loud cell phone conversation. Looking
straight at me, she announced jubilantly into the phone,
"Yes! There's just one little guy in here and
I guess he's not going to see the doctor.
I'll be in and out in a jiffy." Welcome
to your OB/GYN days, little guy.
Since that first visit, we've
advanced to hearing heartbeats and tape-measuring my
wife's stomach. It's pretty cool stuff.
We've also had our sonogram. I really
didn't know how I'd react to watching the sonogram.
Would I defy my quiet personality and babble and ask questions
and make stupid jokes and break into baby talk ("you
can't see me, but I see youuuuuuu") and rub my
wife's neck and wipe the sweat off my forehead with my
tie? Worse yet, would I break down into a puddle of
tears? The only thing I had promised myself is that I
wouldn't repeat my older brother's performance of a
year ago. While watching his second child's
sonogram, my brother went bug-eyed, pointed to the monitor and
proudly proclaimed, "Sweet Alabama, look at that,
it's a boy!" To which the technician replied,
"uh, sir, that's the umbilical cord."
Turns out I was just plain mesmerized.
It's another world inside my wife's belly.
The technician flicked on the monitor, placed the sonar
device on my wife's mid-section, and it was as if we had
tuned in a NASA special on PBS. There was my baby, tucked
in there like a miniature Neil Armstrong — or Sally Ride
— spinning around weightless in the cockpit, journeying
through space, preparing to land and step out onto terra firma.
I didn't say anything at all; I simply thought to
myself, "the sky's the limit."
My wife and I are past the halfway point
in the pregnancy and I expect I've only just begun my
education. On that note, you're reading the debut
column of "The Newbie Dad." Each month,
I'll share my new discoveries as a father and tell your
stories as well. My goal is to provide an intelligent,
entertaining conversation with both new dads and veteran
fathers (moms are certainly invited to peak in, too). So,
if you've found yourself wandering into Babies-R-Us and
cooing at the onesies, analyzing the Consumer Reports safety
ratings on strollers (now called "travel systems"),
or picking up the latest copy of this publication (amazed that
there are so many activity options for kids around here), then
we have something in common. Let's have some laughs
and enjoy this amazing thing called "parenthood"
together!
Brian is the author of "The Newbie Dad," a monthly column appearing in
Western New York Family magazine (Buffalo, NY). The column has
also been read on National Public Radio's Morning Edition for
member station WBFO 88.7 FM in Buffalo and has been published in
regional parenting magazines in such cities as Charlotte, NC, Tulsa,
OK, Milwaukee, WI, and Rochester, NY. For more information or to
contact Brian visit his website.
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