MY WIFE is due to give birth any day now to our first child (thank you, and yes, we are registered) and I would like to take this occasion to make a request of all fathers: Please don't give me any more advice about the first year of the baby's life.
I'm already so terrified by the counsel I've gotten that I have asked the obstetrician to give me an epidural so I won't have to think about all the daunting things I've been told about what comes after. Though, come to think of it, an epidural won't help, since it doesn't deaden the feeling in the brain, which is where the warnings have lodged themselves.
I've been told--again and again and again--that I won't get any sleep for months. I've been told that the baby won't stop crying and I won't know what to do about it. I've been told I will find every moment the baby draws breath will expand the well of my existential worries (Is she breathing? Is she unhappy?) near the breaking point.
I've been told that I will feel helpless because I won't be the primary caregiver or feeder, that hormones might transform my beloved wife into anything from a hateful harridan to a raging psychotic, and that there's nothing I can do about any of it except live through it.
I've been told to go to restaurants and movies and the theater and every other entertainment venue now before it's too late, because once there's a baby, we ...
