Eight Weeks To Go…
It’s eight weeks to go until our first child is due. Eight weeks, 56 days, 1,344 hours, 80,640 minutes or 4,838,400 seconds-ish.
Not that we’re counting.
As you can imagine, or may well know yourself, it’s a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions. First finding out was a weird mix of being crazily happy that we’re having a little human and a relief that everything worked down there. We’d only been trying for a couple of months but I guess there’s always that worry.
My fiance told me when we were just lying in bed one evening. She’s since told me she wanted to plan an elaborate reveal for me but she just couldn’t keep it in. Her parents were staying with us for the weekend. Obviously, we couldn’t tell them, everything still needed to be confirmed but I was so happy. That’s probably the best way to describe it, ridiculously happy. They must have known something was up in the morning when we both came down the morning after… either that or her dad thought we’d had a night of fun that he definitely doesn’t need to think about his daughter doing.
Since then it’s been excitement, nervousness, shitting it, happiness, anxiety, depression and sometimes a weird sense of calmness. In all honesty, my fiancé has been nothing other than a delight. No, really, she has. Considering the fact she’s had a little human growing in her and her body has been constantly changing since day dot, she has been amazing.
Going by the experiences of some of our friends and family, we’ve been what I would say is lucky. My partner didn’t really suffer any morning sickness, all has gone well in all the prodding, testing and scanning the midwife and the rest of the brilliant staff do at the hospital (fingers crossed I’ve not jinxed that!) and we’ve both really enjoyed the process of getting the house ready for the little one.
If I’m being honest, the most stressful part of it was telling parents and family. We had to juggle the whole “well, we can’t tell them until they know” thing. Putting a Facebook ban on the news worked well too, although do you need to be quite blunt with people on that.
A piece of advice for those of you with more conservative grandparents, one thing not to do is tell your Gran by giving her a picture of a baby scan and not explaining what is it. Her being confused because she’s never seen one before doesn’t help if she’s already not happy that you’re pregnant and not married.
Are we ready? We’re on track. We still have a few things to buy and there are a couple of things to do to get the house ready but we’ve got ante-natal classes to come and each thing off the Baby To-Do List that gets done makes it all feel a bit more real. But real in a good way.
Am I ready? I think so. I don’t have the little fella wriggling around inside of me so at the minute I’m just trying to do all I can to make my other half – and soon-to-be mother of my child – as comfortable as possible.
Mark Cassidy is a dad-to-be (his fiance’s due date is March 18). He tweets at Attempting to Dad.