They say guys are man-childs until they have kids.
If that’s true then I’m about to finally grow up. Recently, I found out my wife is pregnant and we’re going to have our first child.
I’m over the moon. The excitement is greater than anything I’ve ever experienced. Finding out you’re going to be a father is better than getting a free house or winning $10M.
It’s also scary as hell.
Can I be a good father?
I don’t know.
Some days I can barely dress myself. Other days I feel like the inner-teacher inside of me is getting stronger.
I don’t think it matters whether you’re prepared. I think it matters whether you’re ready to put in the effort. Whenever I think about a goal my mindset is “choose your hard.”
Having a kid is hard. But so is every goal that’ll make you proud looking back. These days I lean into hard. I know if a goal is hard then I’m going to experience compounding happiness in the years to come.
All I can do is prepare and hope for the best.
It’s hard to get pregnant
My wife and I always planned to have a family, I just can’t believe how quickly it happened. Once you start trying you expect it to take a while.
Not for us. It happened almost straight away. Part of me feels guilty. Many of my 30-something-year-old friends have found it incredibly difficult to get pregnant. A close friend has been trying for six months. And still nothing.
With so much disappointment he’s starting to lose hope. He wants it so bad.
We got lucky and for that I’m grateful.
(Must be all those green smoothies! Just kidding.)
The scary tests
Once the good news arrives what follows is an introduction to the dark underbelly of the medical side of pregnancy.
It starts with a scan. Everything is happy. You see a blob that’s the future of your family. We got lucky. The man who did the baby scan also loves his job.
The whole time he is as joyous about the occasion as we are.
The words he uses to describe what’s happening to our child are more moving than a Martin Luther King Speech. So much so I recorded him speaking with my phone to show our future child one day. But after that first scan we had to have the chromosome tests. The doctor says…
“We’ll decide after the test whether to proceed or abort.”
The idea of aborting this miracle seems impossible to me. So, all you can do is hope that the test is great and not think about worst-case scenarios.
Image of my baby (supplied by author)
The Genius Turner Effect
Genius Turner is a writer I love reading. He thinks about the universe in mathematical terms. Everything in daily life can be tied back to math.
Well, our baby is due 11/11/22.
11 + 11 = 22
To get such lucky numbers feels incredible. Something tells me this baby is going to be special and do amazing things in life.
Naturally, I want he/her to change the course of history. But that’s just an amateur parent talking who has no clue about these things.
One can dream though, can’t they?
The future of online writing
A few friends have already joked that my first child is going to be the future of online writing.
Will he/she become a writer like me?
I have no clue.
I don’t think kids should get forced to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Often, that leads parents to dictate the actions of their children so they can fulfill their selfish dreams, instead of letting the kid pick their own destiny.
If he or she does choose to write online, of course, I’ll be proud. I’ll teach them the ways of the force. I’ll teach them how to be nice to strangers and not turn into a moron that writes daily about the end of America.
There’s enough fear in the world without adding to the dumpster fire.
Goodbye self-help life
Looks like waking up at 4 AM won’t be possible anymore. Joking. Waking up at 1 AM might be possible…seeing as infants sleep when they want!
Life is going to change for sure. My old habits will have to get replaced by habits that can fit around a screaming baby with poop in its diaper and vomit on its face. I’m okay with that.
I’m not going to give up on improving myself. I’ll simply have to become more ruthless about where I spend my time so I can have loads of time left to watch my kid grow up.
Takeaway
I’m looking forward to the birth of my first child. No matter what happens, I’ll be proud of them.
It’s scary to imagine this new life. Scary equals good. It’s going to break all those boring patterns that replay in my mind every day.
Think of having a kid like scratching a vinyl record with a knife. The soundtrack to my life will never sound the same again. That’s a good thing.
What’s the lesson in all of this for you?
Do more of what scares you. At the end of your life, you’ll be grateful for what you tried to do — and pissed off about all the things you didn’t do because fear got in the way.
Finally, feel free to send pregnancy and parenting tips my way. I’m building a massive database of them to help educate myself — and reduce the fear.
