The Hour

My girlfriend, Jan, and I have recently discovered we will become parents. She already has a four-year old son, but this is my first child.

It is only natural that I am full of thoughts and emotions about becoming a Dad for the first time, and want to share them with you during the course of entering into parenthood.

Visiting the doctor (about seven and a half weeks).

It has been a few weeks now since we first made the discovery that Jan was pregnant. Since then, we have talked about having a baby. We have talked about it a LOT! But for some reason it still doesn't seem real...

I am still half expecting to find out that it's all been some mistake, and that all three positive pregnancy tests were wrong. However, this is like a rollercoaster, and once the ride starts moving there is no getting off!

We have now spoken to the midwife at the GP surgery, and she gave us a preliminary date of May 1st that the baby is due.

I have to admit, I was expecting some highly technical way of confirming how far along my girlfriend was. Instead, the midwife asked when Jan had her last period (about seven and a half weeks), and then promptly declared that the baby was about seven and a half weeks old.

"Wow!", I thought... "I could've worked that out, without any medical training".

After being asked if we had any questions, (we didn't!), we were told that the midwife would contact us and we would get a scan date around about 12 weeks, where they will be able to determine how old the baby is with far more accuracy. Phew! I am glad there are more sophisticated ways of working these things out than relying on when Jan thinks she last had her period!

Meeting the Midwife (about 11 and a half weeks).

Jan and I were visited by the midwife a few weeks later. Lots of paperwork to fill out, blood taken from Jan, and we were asked if we had any questions... Why is it that when you are asked if you have any questions, you can't think of any?!

Although I have now taken to speaking to the baby, I am still finding it difficult to believe there really is anything other than last night's dinner in my girlfriend's stomach. Is this normal? Please leave your comments below!

The Scan (12 weeks and four days).

Finally! We have a date for the scan! At last, a chance to find out how old it is, when it's due and what it looks like!

On the morning of the scan, Jan was told she needed to drink two litres of water before she attended. I annoyed the living daylights out of her by topping up her cup with water.

We were called through to the waiting room, and I sat next to her on the bed, fixated on the screen. There was lots of blurred shapes and then suddenly! It appeared! A tiny shape of a baby! It was amazing! The nurse adjusted the settings so that the image was larger, and I could see the shape of the head, body and limbs! Wow! It was a wriggler! Plenty of life in my baby!

I will admit I shed a tear or two during this amazing experience. Suddenly it had sunk in that there was a baby in my girlfriend's womb! It was tiny, but seemed so full of life! And the biggest relief was there was only ONE baby!

It was confirmed the baby was 12 weeks and four days old, and the finalised due date was 6th May 2010.

Unfortunately, the scan at 12 weeks is unable to determine the sex of the baby. We will need to wait another eight weeks to find out if it is a girl or a boy, but I will keep you updated as I find out.