At the start of this year Wifey mooted the idea of starting a family. I didn’t give it much thought and usually when I don’t give things much thought, my responses can be met with a defensive tone with a whiff of aloofness. This can sometimes give the impression that I am not bothered by the dialogue or topic at hand.
Truth is I wasn’t ready to just explore fatherhood even though many friends and peers over the years have told me I would make a great father. I guess just because someone tells you that doesn’t mean you immediately should sign up for the fatherhood life track, put on a t-shirt that indicates you are a dad and just wait for the opportunity to present itself.
No, I was not ready for fatherhood. I had just settled down into my “routine” of balancing life, work and my new marital life. I really wasn’t keen to be a dad. And then along the way, something happened. The wifey started changing her behaviour – it started becoming more erratic marred by baseless arguments and quarrels until one night I had enough of her. I just walked out of the house to go and pray and cool my head. The last thing I wanted to do was to continue hurling insults at my poor wife without really understanding what was going on.
Eventually, 2 days later I found my answer as to why my wife was exhibiting a certain atypical erratic behaviour – we found out she was pregnant and as a result her body was going through some hormonal changes. Wifey thought I would react negatively to the news but it turns out it was me who ended comforting her and assuring her that its all good – that this is the will of God.
Almost overnight I had to change my attitude – it wasn’t hard going from “not being ready to be a dad” to “lets have this baby!”. The following weeks and months were the buildup towards the arrival of our baby. Wifey suggested we choose to omit knowing the gender of our baby so as to prepare for our baby’s arrival in an extra special way. I gotta admit it didn’t sit well with me first but I started to reason that as long as the baby is healthy, that’s all that mattered. Ultimately, every child is a gift from God and I was just thankful to be part of the journey and to experience this whole pregnancy journey with my wife.
The months that lay ahead were marked with regular interval visits to the hospital where the wifey met up with her Gynae to assess the pregnancy’s progress. We would look forward to each appointment and I made sure I had cleared my work schedule so that we could go and see our child. Every visit was previous to us. To me, it was an opportunity to see cashew as close as possible since I didn’t have the sensations of feeling kicks or hiccups like how my wifey got to experience. So these moments were indeed precious to me.
Seeing Cashew for the first few weeks were amazing. You could make out his tiny skeleton and body from the ultrasound images. We would gleefully hear the commentary provided by the doctor especially when she said our child has a big head and long legs – a commentary theme that would continue well into his development – these were truly marvellous and unique insights and feelings to both of us. Seeing our child, listening to his or her heartbeat and towards the end, feeling him or her as the child moved in wifey’s tummy.
Throughout all these moments, whenever we were done with our checkup, I would spend some time with the wifey to just “take it all in” and just take a moment to be with my wife and savour that time. Our time together as I reflect on how our baby is growing. I would tell my wife how blessed we are and how she’s so fortunate to not even have a single nauseating day – so much so despite being given a MC from the clinic, my wife was still able and healthy to go. But really, in all of those “counting our blessings talk” , those moments were more for me ; to take a pause in life, to reflect and give thanks, and to marvel at how awesome God is and how good God has been to us.
