The guy's guide to new fatherhood

An admission: I do not hoard great reservoirs of wisdom. I have no extraordinary expertise, no neatly typed, itemized answers from which you, the new father, might crib. On this day, I come to you as a lay father. I come to you as someone who did many things wrong and a few things right. And I come to you dressed in shirts that, to this day, bear traces of multiple protein stains. Take my hand. On second thought, don't. You'll need both free to change the hundreds of soiled diapers that, for the next year at least, will dominate your life. Shall we begin?

In the beginning, there was the preamble
During “our” pregnancy fatherhood was an abstraction, even though the reality was everywhere. For one, my formerly svelte girlfriend of almost 20 years, Indershini, was fast becoming as curvaceous as Stephen Harper. And our neat and sparsely decorated home was suddenly invaded by baby things, with their discomfiting bright colours and function-over-form esthetics. Some functions were less evident than others.

“What's this?” I asked, picking up a plastic do-dad.
“A baby rattle.”
“And we own this because…?”
“It makes a shaking noise.”
“So, let me get this straight: we like shaking noise?”
Usually, my girlfriend responded positively to my cynicism. But as her belly grew (and grew), she seemed to become less amenable to my, um, “outlook.” Where had she gone?

The final straw
She was becoming a full-fledged parent. This was understandable, since she'd been training for the gig for nine months. I, on the other hand, was in a state of denial. She did her best to jog me out of it, though. One week, we had to buy a stroller; the next, I had to pick out a crib. A fancy red chair was purchased expressly for breast-feeding ergonomics, the details of which I chose to ignore. And she was now demanding that I help decide on a name. Apparently all the kids have them these days.

The final straw occurred about a week before she was due. It was time, she decreed, to paint the baby's room. “Paint the room!” I whined. “Why? What's the baby going to do? Complain about earth tones? Maybe we should call our kid Benjamin Moore,” I muttered. “Or Pratt and Lambert, if we have twins.” This went over well.

Let me be clear, I was thrilled about the prospect of fatherhood, but at this point Baby was very much an abstraction. Whether unconsciously or by design, I avoided thinking about [NAME TBA] and how s/he might affect my life. But I was in for a rude awakening. It would happen Dec. 29, 2003, shortly after 9 p.m.

LESSON LEARNED: No matter how abstract parenthood is to you, it is anything but vague to your partner.
IF I HAD TO DO IT AGAIN: I'd shut up and just paint the room.

The blessed event
Six pounds, 10 ounces. Male. Name: TBA. I'll spare you the intimate details of his birth, but suffice to say, as a general rule, children are slippery. Immediately after [NAME TBA] was born there was a moment of panic when it was discovered that he wasn't breathing. The doors to the room burst open and some specialist came in with stat written all over his face, and for the first time it sunk in that, ohmygoid, we were in a hospital and my child -- my child -- was in distress. He was no longer an abstraction. He was real, and he was my son.

In no time, however, our baby was testing out his lungs, screaming as if he'd been forced to sleep in a bedroom that hadn't been painted in soothing Ralph Lauren colours.

Did I have paternal urges?
My girlfriend held him in her arms as if she'd been doing this forever. She had tears in her eyes. “Isn't he beautiful?” she asked rhetorically. I think I had the presence of mind to answer in the affirmative. But beauty was not the first word I thought of. His fingernails were a colour not normally found in nature, or Ralph Lauren. He was wrinkled and pallid and kind of squished -- which is, of course, pretty much what one expects from a newborn infant who has been cooped up in a womb for nine long months. But it did bring home a point. My girlfriend was overwhelmed; I, however, was not. Did I have paternal urges? Or was I an unfeeling cad, unsuited to life with NoName® baby?

We posed for pictures: by ourselves, with our family, with our wonderful obstetrician, Dr. Mark Rosengarten. Typical. Except that among the photos is a very different shot. In one of the first pictures taken of my son, on the first day of his life, he is…smiling.

LESSON LEARNED: This is all new to you; conflicted feelings and doubt are often part of the equation.
IF I HAD TO DO IT AGAIN: I'd at least have given him a name because during the next phase you'll barely begin to recall your own.

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