Welcome Dads
My name is Tyler and I'm a soon to be stay at home Dad. I have to come right out and say, it scares me to death. I mean really the first few weeks and even months won't be so bad, constant visitors consisting of family and friends but, I assume the "glamour" of it all will eventually wear off and it'll just be me and the little tyke. Yes, it is going to be a boy and he is going to be a professional baseball player drafted by the Red Sox in the first round of the 2028 draft. Now that I have my dreams for him out of the way I will go on to say that I will be proud of him no matter what he chooses to do, the box seats to every Sox game would still be pretty nice though.
My wife came home from work one evening about eight months or so ago with a present for me. It was a small box wrapped in tissue paper and tied with ribbon. I opened it to find that it was a pen box, a cheap little box of Paper Mate pens "WOW!" Went through my head but, then I thought, "hey dumbass, look inside its probably something else". In I went and what did I pull out? A pregnancy test. First thought, honest to God was that I would have taken the pens. Once again I realized that this meant something more and I examined the positive sign and looked up at her beautiful smiling face. There are few moments in life in which you photograph into your mind and that was one of them. She was glowing and it wasn't the from the Cosmo that I made her ten minutes before and watched her down in one, maybe two quick gulps (yes it was her last hurrah if you will).
Fast forward to today.
Over the past eight months we have done what most couples do when expecting their first child. Everyday, like a cult ritual, we say to ourselves, "oh my God we are having a baby", take some pre-natals, do some breathing exercises(he he) and read the baby books. Of course we do those life things as well, like work and shop and such but where's the fun in that? Speaking of baby books, dads I gotta tell you there really isn't much out there. If you do pick one up though grab The Expectant Father by Armin Brott and Jenifer Ash. I love it because its an easy read with a ton of good information including the real facts without the sugar coating.
As I sit here sipping on my Sam Adams light(wives idea) I can't help but worry about her. You see today we went in for our Thirty-Five week check up and found her blood pressure to be about as high as Bobby Knight's back in his chair throwing years at Indiana. This obviously was not good as she could develop Preeclampsia which not only harms her but baby as well. Check out http://www.preeclampsia.org/about.asp for some good information. I will tell you although it can be scary for us Dads the best thing we can do for our lovely wives is stay calm and portray a feeling of relaxation. I learned this quickly tonight as we were sitting in the hospital and Mom was being hooked up and monitored by man and machine. Stress is a big factor for this and if we look or act worried she will not have a good time of it. A fetal heart monitor was set up and her blood pressure checked every ten minutes. In the end all was well, her blood pressure came down and we were able to go home. She was however told to go home and lay in bed for the next two days, resting and relaxing until she is checked out again on Friday. I don't know about your wives but telling mine to lay in bed and do nothing is just plain old difficult. Once again its time to step up to the plate and hit one out of the park for her sake, they need our help and need it often during pregnancy and certainly beyond. We may have no clue what we are doing in the beginning but neither did the Titans when they pulled off the music city miracle a few years back. We just have to go with the flow, listen and remember its all in a days work.
