The helpless blog of a first time dad: Tears, fears and 28 stressed filled years ahead

YOU get some interesting reactions from people when you tell them your wife is pregnant.

The default response from my mates has been to say “Do you know who the father is?” We then all laugh raucously about their inference that my wife has committed adultery and go back to talking about what live games are on the telly that weekend. That’s men for you.

There were tears from my mum, which were to be expected from someone who weeps reading any birthday card you give her that expands beyond the words “Happy Birthday Mum.”

She then gave me one of those big hugs and wet kisses on the cheek that mums give their adult sons to embarrass them (do mothers have a saliva duct that releases specifically for this moment?) and ventured, somewhat bizarrely, that she thought we would have waited until after the Olympics.

Yes, attending Rio 2016 was on our radar in that my wife had given me the ok to look into how much tickets and accommodation would cost but we’d hardly put off having a child to be there. I’m not married to Jessica Ennis-Hill.

But the comeback which has stayed with me the most was from a friend of a friend who I hadn’t seen for about a decade.

The father of three grown up children he asked me how I was getting along and I said I was married now and had a little one on the way. To read previous blog posts from our helpless first time dad, click here! Not knowing me well enough to joke about my wife’s infidelity with the milkman, postman, window cleaner or any of the overtly-fertile professions which we men like to josh about with our close mates, he instead offered me his congratulations.

Then he tilted his head back and looked to the heavens in the way that people do when they’ve just received some bad news about their health or their partner has admitted to spilling tomato soup on the cream sofa.

“Of course, you do realise that’s it now,” he said sympathetically.

He then took me through the last 28 seemingly stress-filled years of his life in the space of 90 seconds.

“First you’ll worry that everything is going to be ok with the baby up until the day it’s born.

“Then, for the first six months, you’ll fret about cot death every night you put them to bed. Every time they look flushed in the cheeks you’ll think it’s meningitis or some other health scare.

“Then you’ll worry about them settling in at school, making friends, being bullied. Then they’ll start going out and you’ll worry about who they are with and why they aren’t home yet.

“Will they get into the university they want? Will they get a decent job? Then they’ll want to learn to drive. They’ll never be another day where you won’t have a worry.”

As a way of wiping the smile off my face it was up there with the last four minutes of Australia versus Scotland at the Rugby World Cup and my dad telling me the US cavalry no longer wore blue and yellow (I loved John Wayne films as a kid and wanted to join up so I could wear the uniform).

With all that pent up parental worry, it’s a wonder my over-emotional mum didn’t greet me with a hug and a kiss every time I made it down to breakfast each morning when I lived at home.

But the more I thought about it afterwards the more I realised the wisdom of what he’d said. Already, I’ve felt myself prioritising about what’s important in a different way to what I used to.

I’m not that interested what live games are on at the weekend, I’m certainly not bothered about missing out on a trip to Rio. And that tomato soup stain on our lovely cream sofa doesn’t worry me nearly as much as it used to.