The Beginning

I'm going to start this post by saying, ironically my son was born on boxing day and we are over the moon and full of stories. There has been ups and downs, trials and tribulations and he's only 4 days old. I'm going to be talking all about the birth and the days following in next weeks blog, I wanted todays blog to focus on the discovery of pregnancy and the months leading up to labour.

We first found out we were having a baby toward the end of April. It was never planned and at the time we were playing it safe, but its one of those things... It happens. My girlfriend walked into the room with tears streaming down her face and a pregnancy test in her hand. She didn't need words at this point it was obvious what she wanted to say.

At this moment in time a lot of feelings and thoughts and emotions started racing through my mind. Angry at myself for not being more careful, worrying about if I am responsible enough, am I able to cope, can I provide? At the time the only answer that kept rushing in my mind was simply... No.

I did the first thing any bloke would do... I rang my best friend and took a trip to the pub to confide in someone. This isn't as selfish as it first sounds, we had both spoke briefly before I left and we had also spoken to my parents about it too (as we currently live with them). We all agreed we needed a little time to think, maybe talk to someone not directly involved, clear out heads a little bit.

So I went pub with my best friend and my girlfriend rang up her best friend and her mother to tell them the news and get their thoughts and advice. We spoke more over the coming days and basically had it down to one question. Abortion? Now off the cuff we are both very, very against abortion, so for us it was a no brainer. Our main worry is are we going to be able to bring up a child and keep him happy. The more we thought about it all and the more we talked about it, the more we started to change how we felt, worry became excitement and fear became anxiety. I think in a way this change of mindset helped us a lot along the road of pregnancy.

I can say without question the pregnancy has brought us a lot closer together, at points it has nearly ripped us apart, but on the whole we are now stronger because of this situation. Don't get me wrong this isn't the case for every pregnancy, I've known people who have ended up hating there partner and in some cases going to court just to see there child because of what the pregnancy has done to their relationship. I guess we were one of the lucky couples.

I know people joke and make fun of the 'hormones' in a tongue and cheek way, but it does play a major part in the pregnancy. She does get very angry at silly things and sometimes nothing at all, then the next moment she can be crying and apologetic. As a dad my advice is be very tolerable understand that there's a lot going on with her body that she may or may not have done before, despite that every pregnancy is different and should be so.

The 9 months flew by for us, it literally seems like yesterday she walked in with that test. Except for the last 2-3 weeks, when we reached the point where his arrival was imminent the minutes turned to hours and everything started to drag, every time I saw her flinch in any sort of pain I jumped up asking if it was labour.

Amazing to think what we saw in the 2D scans, the 4D scans, the heartbeat we've listened to at every midwife appointment has just literally been in my arms feeding from his bottle.

Thank you for reading this, any questions, thoughts, stories or even advice for me or others, please do comment and help me build this community. One thing I think we all need to remember is regardless of whether its your first child or your sixth, we are all on a journey and we are all always learning.

Until next week. Thank you.

1st Time Dad

My name is Joe, I'm 21 and in sometime at the end of march beginning of April my girlfriend became pregnant and we had a son on the way. He is due any day now and during the past 9 months we have had many ups and downs and admittedly been scared.

Because of this we have often turned to the internet for help and advice from others. One of the main problems I've had is that all the help and advice out there is mainly targeted at single mums or the woman of the relationship, we found very little if any help for the dads or dads-to-be at all.

My intention of starting this blog and these posts is to hopefully help some of the men out there who find themselves in the same or similar situation. I don't want this to be aimed at single dads or young dads, I want it to be somewhere men can come comment as me questions ask each other questions and maybe we can all help is each other. Maybe even women reading it might be able to help them better understand the dads mindset.

I want to almost be able to build a community of people offering each other their own stories and advice. To talk about the good times as well as the bad. We are all always learning and beginning this journey I know I have a long hard road of knowledge ahead of me. I will be writing a new post every friday, taking you from the moment we found out, right up until now, and everything I see and learn in the future.

As I've said before if anyone feels the need or want to comment or talk about their stories problems or just want to say what you think of this idea then I would love to hear from you and you can help me build this community.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this and I will be writing my first proper blog and sharing the beginning to my journey next friday.

Joe