My Baby's Heartbeat Does 158

There's this scene in the surprisingly not terrible movie "Marley And Me" where they are at the doctor's for the ultrasound and it turns out there's no baby there. I dunno, I wasn't paying that much attention. I'm not sure if she was never pregnant, or if something had gone wrong. I just know it was bad. Given how bizarre it is to think your very own offspring is being grown in your wife's stomach, I don't think it's all that unnatural to worry it could happen to you.

So it was somewhat comforting, very exciting, and a little weird to hear that tiny heart beating away. Probably only heard it for maybe five seconds as the strangely clinical midwife wrote down '158' and moved on to the next item on her list. I don't see why she couldn't just leave the apparatus going for the duration of our session. I could have held it there. I would have not grown weary.

And besides, it would have given me something to do. I didn't have a lot of responsibilities during the session with the midwife. In fact, I was left alone in the room for about 15 or 20 minutes while Rachel was being examined elsewhere. As I sat staring at the walls, I wondered if it was now okay to use my iPhone. I had been expressly forbidden from interacting with it in anyway while we were there (fiddling with the thing is basically like a nervous habit at this point), but surely that didn't apply to time spent alone in a windowless room. Even beyond spousal instructions, though, I wondered what was appropriate. What 'should' I be doing right now, as an expectant father, left alone in a room in a somewhat progressive midwife clinic (you can tell it's progressive cause you have to take your shoes off). Maybe some prayer or meditation? Write a song? Paint something? I surely do not know, but I am fairly certain it does not involve my iPhone (although there must be an app for that). But as I checked my stocks, my email, the baseball scores, the weather in Shanghai (it really is a technological marvel), I continued to muse over what it was I really should be doing. I never got close to an answer, but I sure as shootin' (that's a saying, you can look it up) came to realize how much I didn't like not knowing.

Cause the thing is, when you find out you're gonna be a dad, of course you're thrilled and excited and overjoyed and whatnot, but there's also that whole scared shitless thing going on, it kind of keeps things grounded a little bit. I know it's perfectly normal to feel this way, incidentally. I read about it in a book. That's why I phrased it in the casual second person manner, by the way, even though I was talking about myself. Cause it's perfectly normal.

It's mainly a vague feeling, this worry. Sure it can crystallize into some specific thoughts, like "what if I run out of cash?" Or the more crude, but still valid, "what if dirty diapers make me gag?" But at the midwife clinic today I realized it all boils down to this: "what if I don't know what to do?"

The obvious answer is, well, I'll learn. That parenting is necessarily a learn as you go proposition and all new parents feel doubt. But, frankly, that's cold comfort.

Anything else in life, it’s not that you don’t want to be great, but at the end of the day you can accept varying degrees of aptitude/achievement. Like, I know I’m really just an okay musician. But it’s worked out okay for me. And I’m fine with it. And I don’t even really aspire to being a great poker player. I just want to be a profitable one. But a dad? Come on.

There is no alternative. I have to be a great dad. When my kid is fully (or partially, for that matter) grown, I don’t want to be able to look at any issue, any shortcoming, and realize it’s cause I missed that part of my dadhood responsibilities. Part of me knows this is ridiculous. You can’t be perfect, you are inevitably going to fail your kid in some way or another. But another part of me, the main part in fact, says fuck that. I need to be a great dad.

I know I won’t lack for motivation. I know I can shelve a lifetime of selfishness. I have little doubt that I’m going to be crazy about my offspring and up for whatever sacrifice. But what freaks me out is maybe it won’t be entirely up to my will. Maybe I’ll find the spirit willing but the flesh weak, as it were. More specifically, maybe I won’t have the resources. Or maybe sometimes, maybe often, I just won’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

It’s a scary, scary thought. Right now it’s never far from the front of my brain.. And I’m damn sure there’s no app for it.