First Scan

thump thump thump thump thump...

Hearing the heartbeat of something that is 3 millimetres big is quite an experience. Even saw you on the monitor. A tiny white smudge within the blackness of the womb (I'm pretty sure you look just like me). Doctor says so far so good.

Pleased to meet you kid

Your dad

29th July 2014

And so it begins

New Life!  Quite literally

I got the call from your mother yesterday around lunch time while daydreaming in the office. What it was that she said to me exactly I can’t remember now but it was some smartass remark, you know what she’s like. Bottom line, well in fact, the bottom line was that there was a bottom line. Faint, but definitely there. Google* says, faint or not, it is a positive, no doubt about it.

I’m not sure how I felt at that moment. Don’t get me wrong, it was mostly excitement mixed with joy all with a hint of sheer terror. An emotional overload but disappointment, I promise you, was not part of the cocktail. I calculated your estimated birthday but later realized I had got it wrong by a month or so. I couldn’t even add ‘9’ to July.

Forty minutes later we are in the car, in the mid-summer’s midday heat heading to the clinic for verification. Not that I needed it by that point but it seemed an important milestone to be completed, a sort of officiality to it. A simple blood test the results of which would come 3-4 hours later, not instantly as we thought/hoped.

Six in the evening I am back at home staring at your mum staring at the phone. Three hours pass, four hours pass, the phone ringing a few times in between and anxiety is rising exponentially. I am smoking and drinking cold rose wine. I am trying to convince your mum to have a small glass -surely she would have joined me if we hadn’t found out today- but no. No way. Five hours pass and it is now time to act. Your mother has just obtained the doctor’s mobile, a desperate text, a reply that he will shortly be in touch, another hour’s wait, smoking, drinking, ordering Chinese takeaway and then the call comes through. Brief and to the point:

You’re on your way kid and things are about to get interesting

Your dad
15 July 2014

(ETA 8,5 months)

 

* a popular internet search engine we use in 2014. Google it, or whatever the equivalent is these days