Father to be

12/10/2012

I suppose I should have really started this earlier but better late than never I suppose!
It was around 8 months ago that our whole world was turned upside down when this happened :-

Even though it was planned it was still a massive shock.  I can vividly remember the moment because I was sat at my computer playing ‘Batman Arkam Asylum’
Minding my own business just focusing on guiding Batman through the mean streets of Gotham City when Vicki leaned around door and exclaimed “im pregnant”
I would rate the reaction to those words as similar to taking a football into your front bottom!
Of course I was happy but there are many other emotions thrown into that as well, such as fear of the unknown, the massive lifestyle change, loss of freedom.  Really as life changes go they dont get much bigger than this.  The strange thing is that it never quite feels real, even 8 months on I still cant quite accept that im going to be a dad very soon.  I think for Vicki it is very real and has been from the start, I mean the changes her body experiences as well as the emotional connection with a baby growing inside her is a connection that I just wont be able to obtain until I can hold the little thing in my arms.
Also as a man I think we are more used to dealing things when they are right in front of us.
That being said I am doing my best to prepare for the coming onslaught 🙂

Rewinding back to the first three month scan is worthy of note.  Its a stressful period really  because you frequently hear about getting to the mile stone of three months and that miscarriages are very common up to this time.  Also the secrecy is hard work although really your close friends dont need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out that something is a foot! My advice over this is to not drunkenly make a joke about a friend being pregnant in front of a room of people who probably had no idea, as I did with one of Vicki’s friends! Sorry about that.

So anyway getting to the hospital and getting the news that your baby is fit and healthy is  an amazing feeling.  And of course seeing what will eventually be your child is a pretty incredible moment in your life.  The wonderment of an ultrasound scan is difficult to explain until you see it for yourself :-

The general concern for your babies health starts here and will probably never end even when they are the ones taking you out for dinner because you are too old to look after yourself.
The results from this scan are used to tell you of your risk of certain syndrome’s the main one being Downs syndrome.  Our result returned as 1 in 290 which is considered to be low risk however it was a bit too close for comfort to the result that is considered high risk.  For those of you that dont know the number is calculated based upon a number of tests, the main one being the length of the nuchal fold