He-nesting while I wait for my son's birth

The past 9 months have already been an ebb and flow of anticipation. Waiting to see my son on the ultrasound, hearing his heartbeat once a month, tracking the growth of the baby bump, finding out we were having a boy and waiting to finally be able to feel him move. Now we wait for the main event.

For the father, playing the waiting game is hard in a much different way than it is for the mother. Ashby has a Zen-ness about her, while I am frantically he-nesting. I have completely redone the baby’s room (twice), built furniture, re-organized the closet and dresser (many times), washed all of the baby clothes, stayed up until midnight putting together a crib, and assisted my wife in loading anything edible within reach into the freezer, along with any other essentials that happen to come up day to day (the oven reeeally needed to be cleaned at 9 o’clock last night). This has been great for my wife – she has done most of her nesting vicariously through me, resting on the coach with some seltzer and a book, like she should be.

Routines have become very important to fill my time. Free-time is killer. If I have free time I can think of all of the things that need to be done – like coming up with an anthology of all of the greatest songs released from 1986-1996 so my son doesn’t miss out on anything. If I have a routine, I don’t have to think about waiting and how close we really are. I am not in denial, I just don’t wait well, I get a bit overwhelmed (refer to above list of holiday reactions). If I go through my list and then go to bed we are one day closer. And I can go to sleep once I am in bed, because I am male and while I can, I will.

When it comes to sleep I am lucky, my wife cannot sleep more than 3 hours at a time and wakes up at 4:30 every morning. As a result I often wake-up to eyes staring at me and a very cheery, “I have been thinking….” Not being a morning person this can be a scary thing, often times I have no idea what I am uh-huhing to, but the I have been thinkings are no where as worrisome as the what do you think abouts. I know she is sharpening my groggy wake-up mind, she is the Mr. Miyagi of baby prep.

While I am busy all day doing all of these things it is easy to pass the time until our bambino joins us. This lets me have an extra big smile and skip to my step this holiday season as I picture years to come where Miles will be the one smashing windows and puking all over the place. From here life will never be the same, I now have a frantic calmness that I think becoming a father brings. Now I am off to arrange the closet so the shirts are in order of color.

About Jesse Bartke:

When I wrote this a few weeks ago, I was an almost-first-time Dad living and working in Maine with my wife, our two big dogs, and a very ready, very empty nursery. I teach Special Ed and coach track.