The moment that you feel a bit relieved after the big news, lots of things need to be taken care off. In my case, my wife had almost depleted Google with searching all kind of stuff which might seem irrelevant to you at first, but hey, it’s your wife and she is pregnant, so you better not say anything about it if you want to avoid getting hit on the head. In your opinion 9 months is a long time, before the little guy/girls shows their head (both figuratively as well as literally). I got spammed with all kinds of stuff like day care, baby bedrooms, nursing pillows, diaper discounts, etc. You cannot name or my wife had found information about it somewhere.
The first thing I thought of was: when is the first ultrasound. All these peripheral stuff is nice, but in the end, you first want to see the little sprout, although it’s on a small screen. But ok, how is this normally done: who do I have to call, when can we make an appointment, is there some kind of an interview before you have the first real appoint or is there already a first ultrasound at the first appointment? These and a lot of other questions pop up in your head.
All right, first let’s call the midwife and see what this is all about. At that moment she tells you that there is no need to rush, first you will come by for a first appointment: a sort of interview to see what the current situation is. No sooner said than done, we went to the midwife. When we arrived we received lots of new information and we were asked to think about some tests which could be done to check if the baby is in good health etc. She also told us that the first ultrasound is not taking place until my wife was 8/9 weeks pregnant, because that’s the first time that they can check if the heart is working ok; we still have a number of tense weeks to wait before we know if everything is ok.
The moment you walk out of the door at the midwife you are a bit confused: you actually still don’t know anything about the wellbeing of the baby and you have received a lot of new information/questions. The most important question you have at that moment is: When are we going to inform our family about the baby? We decided to go by our parents immediately after the first appointment with the midwife; I know it sounds early at 3-4 weeks pregnancy, but what stops you from telling them? If everything is going fine, during the pregnancy, you want to have them involved as soon as possible, and if, for whatever reason, something goes wrong, you also want to have them involved to share and find comfort with your family. In our case, all the parents were surprise but very happy that they were becoming grandparents. There were a lot of laughs shared that day and also some tears of happiness.
And then there is the big moment you are looking forward to as a dad to be: the first ultrasound. Your wife is feeling really pregnant for a couple of weeks already, but let’s be honest: as a future dad you only believe that you’re really becoming a dad when you see it with your own eyes. Your body filled with a lot of (healthy) tension, you go to the midwife. Once the ultrasound starts and you see the heart of your little boy/girl beating for the first time you have an immense feeling of joy and happiness throughout your body. Besides the ultrasound, also some kind of microphone was put on my wife’s belly and you could hear the heart beating: “it sounds like a good strong heart”, the midwife told us.
Walking out the door after this appoint, an intense feeling of happiness took over my body and then it really strikes you: you are actually already a dad, whatever happens during the rest of the pregnancy.
Next blog topic: Nursery, baby clothing, Google-ban and the ultrasounds at 20 weeks of pregnancy