What to Expect as an Expectant Father

3-8-99

First-time fathers face some of the most daunting-and exhilarating-times of their lives.
The simple truth is, most men are ill-prepared for the wild, emotional roller-coaster ride that is late-stage pregnancy and birth. In our own boyhoods we were secretly grateful to be spared exposure to the nuts and bolts of infant care. As a result, we're armed as grown men with only the vaguest notion of what to expect when our own offspring arrive.
As a bachelor you may have looked upon children as a minor nuisance, if you noticed them at all. In a restaurant, you may have asked to be seated away from the table with noisy kids. In a theater you may have impatiently shushed them. Or perhaps you were an older brother, expected to baby-sit on occasion, and you were experienced at watching over and keeping order among your younger siblings. Even so, it's unlikely you were ever eager to let your buddies see you playing nanny. Let's face it; in our culture, men are still the adventurers, the providers, the defenders. Women are the nurturers. But times have changed. Now you're expected to pitch in and help with the care, feeding and occasional burping of your infant, no matter your degree of prior training or experience. In spite of all those hours on the football practice field, you're expected to be gentle and sensitive, patient and calm. The good news is this: when it's your own child your burping, it feels like a reward.
It's one thing to envision tossing a football, or playing catch, with one's child. But it's another thing entirely to get to the point where such an idyllic, father/child moment is possible. Between the moment the pregnancy test hints that your life is about to change forever, and that golden day when you share your wisdom and leisure time with an eager, adoring child, there lies a shrouded continent of uncharted territory. It's shores are littered with dangers, from an emotional wife battered by hormonal storms, to the mysteries of feeding, burping and diapering your infant. You're likely to feel that you're navigating, by dark, through treacherous shoals without map or compass. You may be wracked by worries about your finances, your marriage, your adequacy as a father, or the mechanics of holding your newborn without harming her.
But fear not: fatherhood is well worth the struggle. The reward for your patience and perseverance is more precious than gold, and the payoff is instantaneous. It comes in the delivery room, and continues to deliver for the rest of your life.

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