Life of a “New Father” starts
much before the birth date of your baby. It actually starts from the day when a
couple decides to have a baby and start a family of their own. Its funny with
commencement of this new phase of life how something that used to be fun &
exciting becomes a mission of your life
(yes I am talking about sex) and after a point negative result of your wife’s
pregnancy test start hitting your false “Male Ego”.
Next phase begins when your wife tells
you the good news and you in your mind feel “Yess…Mission accomplished”. In
this phase as a husband (still of your wife’s not the new mother), you want to do
every think possible to comfort your partner who is going through all the
pregnancy troubles for you. You want to find out a solution for every trouble and
make her feel comfortable. Of course for most of the pregnancy troubles there
are no solutions and you end up sitting outside of the bathroom feeling
helpless when your wife is struggling throwing up (You can’t even keep count of
this). But the good news is, every effort you make to pamper your partner in this phase goes a long way and is much appreciated.
Let’s just fast forward to the
day in the labor room. This day you see your wife experience immense pain,
something as a man you have never seen or imagined before. This experience in
labor room gives you as a man totally new and different perspective of every
woman in your life. With every push of yours wife’s, you want to give her a
bear hug and say “Thank you for doing this for me and I can never pay you back
for what you are doing”. Finally, after all this pain and struggle comes the
moment of your life which all of the sudden becomes the most precious moment of
your life. This is the moment when you see your baby’s head coming out,
(retrospectively when I think about it, it’s so ironical that the mother goes
through all the pain and trouble for 9 months and dad gets to experience the
moment of joy first) and you don’t know when you started crying until you feel
few drops falling on your hand. From this moment on your life as a “husband of
the New Mother” begins.
As a new mother your wife shows
you a side of hers which you had never seen before or even thought of before.
This is the side when all of the sudden your casual, bubbly wife becomes most
responsible, caring and protective mother. She no longer wants to sleep more
or laze around. All she is thinking round the clock is what she needs to do
next for the well being of your baby. It takes time to get used to this new
woman in your life but when you realize what she is doing you can’t stop
yourself from feeling lucky for having her as the mother of your little one.
Final phase of the “Life of a New
Father” begins when you hold your baby for the first time in your hands and walk next to her
basinet to the nursery (I am so glad that this phase has no end date). You want
to do everything for your baby from changing her 1st diaper to making sure you
have arranged for best possible resources for the comfort of your bundle of
joy.
Once you come to terms with all
the joy and happiness that has come to your life, you realize then that dude;
you are also “the husband of the New Mother”. Mother who is having endless
sleepless nights, mother who is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure
everything related to her baby is taken care of, mother who with heavy heart is
going back to work leaving back her piece of heart and feels guilty about that
every day, mother who is spending so many hours a day expressing milk for your
baby counting every ounce just to make sure your baby is well fed. How can you
not take care of this wonderful mother?
Life as a new father is a real
blessing. You feel lucky every time you see your little one sleeping peacefully
resting on your chest. You feel blessed when one smile of your baby takes away all
your tiredness. Your best award is the moment when your little daddy’s girl
pounces on to you no matter what she is doing or in whose lap she is sitting
the moment she see you after a long working day (this is moment you also feel
little bad for your wife :) )
I cannot thank god enough for
giving me this new phase of life with these two wonderful people. Life without
them would have been so boring and meaning less.
