Fatherhood

By Ricardo Oliveira

When parents decide to tell their families and friends that they are expecting, they hear a lot of congratulations,
but we never learned at school or at home about the challenges and the amount of responsibility that comes along
with this new life. This book is about my experience and what I wish people would have told me before I joined this adventure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312289680

Book preview

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Introduction

Why write this book?

Welcome reader!

I love to read, I love to open a book, start reading it and think that the Author wrote the book thinking of me, that (s)he is talking to me. I also like to read an amazing history that makes the book un-put-down-able. In both cases, that same wish: to go to a corner and only leave after I have finished the book.

After 2 years being a dad, after talking to many couples that have kids in the same age (the alpha generation) I realized that NOBODY told us what really happens when a couple decides to have a baby. Everyone says: Congratulations, having a baby is a blessing!. Of course it is. Having a baby is the best thing that can happen to a person, the hard part is to benefit from this opportunity, to handle all the work and on top doing a good job as a father.

It is obvious that I was a son, but I can only recall things after I was 4 years old, so if nobody would tell me what happens in a house with a new born, how would I know?

Maybe it would be awkward hearing this from my parents. My mom telling my wife what she felt on my birth (that she had imagined angels playing beautiful songs and that it was not like that) was already weird, imagine if my parents decided to tell all the rest? But what about friends, cousins, that just went through the same? Why do they keep quiet, why not warn us?

Your life is going to change! No matter if you have a nice marriage, a nice relationship, you decided to have a baby, the pregnancy comes, your wife will be abducted, someone called mother of your child will replace her, not even she knows how she or what she will turn into, how you are going to react, there is no way to foresee. An example is the (ex-) husband of a friend, married for six years, they wanted a baby, they had to work hard to get pregnant and when the child was born he freaked out, left the house, file a divorce, abandoned the family ONE month after his daughter was born ….

Yes, they warn you that you won’t get much sleep, but nobody tells how hard sleep deprivation can be. Some lucky ones endure less torture, but in my case, there were four months of terrible nights. The baby breast fed for 45 minutes, slept 45 minutes, woke up crying, breast fed for 45 minutes, woke up after 45 minutes. No kidding. We slept an entire night (7 hours) after his first birthday. And only now, after 2 years, we have a stable sleep, excluding teeth, cold, etc.

Your mind does not know if you slept an entire night, if it is 11pm or 4 am, you wake up with the little creature wet, have to change the clothes, the mother is exhausted, so are you, all you want is that the torture stops and you can lay down again. With whom are you going to fight? With the only other adult in the room, not the baby.

Could be the most colorful marriage, after sleep deprivation, after one terrible night after the other, your shadow appears. And how do you deal with it and the shadow of the person next to you, will be decisive in the future of your relationship and the life of this child.

My first visit to the pediatrician, with a very exhausted face, was very important. A mother with her husband and 4 years old child looked at us and decided to enlighten me: When she was born, was very hard, my husband and I started to fight, I kicked my husband out of the house, but in less than one week I called him back, I saw that if it was hard with him, was harder without him…. but it gets better, have patience it gets better.

I do not know her name, but I remember with detail, husband looking down and the intensity of her look towards me, and this is why I write this book: have patience it gets better.

To know what can happen, raise some questions, talk with your partner before deciding to have a baby, during the pregnancy or after the little creature is already in this world can make life a little easier.

Good luck!

About this Paternal

There is no right or wrong. There is what is right for you at a certain moment. My opinion today can change tomorrow, what is good for me, might not be good for you and vice-versa.

I believe in a Higher Energy, whatever people might call it. I believe things happen for a reason and that children choose their parents, that parents are here to enable their children to perform a higher plan they agreed to, before they are born.

Whatever you believe in,