So last night we went on the official hospital tour with our pregnant friend Catherine. She's a soon-to-be single mother and we're helping. She lives right down the hall so it's only natural that we're the ones to step in.
Not having any children of my own (that I know of), this is a very interesting experience. In a way, we feel like we're getting some hands on experience that many parents aren't fortunate enough to get before they're shot from that proverbial cannon into the big, open sky of parenthood. We get to live vicariously through Catherine while she endures all the actual stress and pain of pregnancy and childbirth. But we get to watch! I'm being sarcastic, but we have been chosen to be in the room when she actually gives birth. So that'll be pretty cool and mostly terrifying. For me. Or not. I won't know until we're there. But being in the room last night made it all a bit more real.
And we got to see real live babies.
In a way, I feel like I'm cheating. I get to live through all this and not actually be a father. Last night, when the tour-lady kept addressing "the dads" she kept making eye contact with me. I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story in the scene where Ms. Shields was trying trying to find out who put Schwartz up to sticking his tongue to the flag pole. "Wasn't me," is what my face probably looked like as I looked around the room to the other, actual dads.
Next week, we're taking a baby care class. How they're going to fill three hours on the art of changing a poopy diaper is beyond me.
No comments:
Post a Comment