Daddy to be

So for the past few months, J has been working the night shift. It’s not as bad as some might think. He basically leaves the house an hour or two before I go to bed. He comes home in time to wake me up in the morning, stays up for an hour or two and then heads to bed himself. In the evening when I get home, I’m normally exhausted as it is. I snuggle into bed with a nice warm sleepy body and take a nap for an hour or so. Then we wake up together. The only tough part is weekends. Most of the time we work with each other’s shift in schedule. I’ll stay up later and he’ll sleep earlier so we can manage to go to bed together. All in all, we make it work.

Something every mother goes through I think, is the feeling that there’s no way the father can really understand the depth of feeling you can have for your unborn child. How, especially with the first movement, he’s already your baby and your child. Not some elusive dream to look forward to. You cradle him so deeply and tightly inside your womb. Your hand goes to the bulge in your middle because that’s the only way you can give affection back after he’s wiggled around for a bit. You’re conscious of the fact that every time you talk, he’s listening to you. Every time you sing, he’s soothed by you. You literally have fantasies about his birth and holding him closely to your chest. You want to caress his soft head with your lips.

Personally, I feel badly that I can’t share more of it with J. He’s such a loving heart. You should see how pathetic he is over our cats even. They literally beg him to carry them (and if you know cats, that’s not very common). It’s so easy for me to see him in my mind’s eye holding our baby. He’s not going to be scared of holding him, even as a newborn. In fact, he’ll love holding him. And the baby will love to be held by his Daddy’s strong arms. J has a personality that surrounds you in comfort and calm. The baby won’t be able to help but respond to that. But though I know this about J and the baby. Though I can feel it deep inside. It makes me sad to think he can’t see it yet. He can’t “feel” it yet.

Yesterday, I came home from work and fell fast asleep in minutes. I’m getting my butt kicked by daylight savings. Even the baby seemed lazy yesterday. He moved around a bit but there wasn’t nearly the acrobatics he normally does. During wake up time, Josh and I lay in bed and talked about our respective day/night. I told him how the baby has been lazy all day. He curled around me with his hand on my belly tapping it and saying “Wake up in there sleepyhead.” All of a sudden, there was a kick. Then another. Hard kicks. I asked J, “did you feel that?” He’s replied, “How could I not, he was kicking my hand!” Just the look on his face. The tone of his voice. Not only did he get to feel a kick, but his son responded to him for the very first time.

I’ve said this before and I really do mean it. As excited as I am to be a mother, I’m just as excited to see J become a father.