As Olly Mann and family prepare for a new arrival, he ponders whether anything can ever live up to the glory of early fatherhood.
I'm about to become a father again. All being well, by the time you read this, I will be—we’re expecting our second son in three weeks. Except, of course, it’s not really me who’s the "expectant" one. My fat, tired, emotional (strong, heroic, might-read-this) wife is "expecting". I have merely attended a couple of scans, dug out the cot from the loft, and initiated some premature conversations about baby-names ("Alvin" was my favourite, but then we got a kitten and I can’t now suggest our son should have the same name as the cat.)
I don’t feel remotely prepared. I didn’t the first time round, either— as I articulated in the first of these columns, back in January 2016. My anxieties then, apparently, concerned how to support my wife through labour (now I know: just be there, pretend everything’s fine, don’t faint) and what to buy to help us through sleepless nights (now I know: a white noise app, a Netflix subscription, and a wine box).
Esta historia es de la edición Reader's Digest September 2019 de Reader's Digest UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición Reader's Digest September 2019 de Reader's Digest UK.
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