Well, shit

So, we're pregnant, and I couldn't be happier. You are officially boiling away in there, getting yourself ready to meet a couple of completely unready chancers who suddenly have a lot of shit to buy, and no clear holiday plans for the next five years. Thanks for that :)

I feel like a huge ball of warm, calming light is fighting to burst out of my chest and fill the room. I want to tell everybody, because I have a three-word comment in my locker that has astonishing power to halt all other conversations. We aren't telling anyone yet because we only found out yesterday afternoon. Sparing you some of the details, your Mum thought you were in there, and I had a feeling she might be right. Call it fatherly intuition if you like. It's not, but you can do so if you wish.

So, we went and bought some tests from the supermarket, for use at the weekend, to confirm what we both secretly suspected, but were having trouble telling eachother. An enormous, soon-to-be-true fact hovered over us like the spaceships from Arrival, but less scary. Or more scary, depending on your viewpoint.

"What? Oh, that? That's just a life-changing fact. You'll get used to it after a few minutes. It just sort of lurks there."

 Yesterday was Tuesday. The plan was to do the tests on Friday. We agreed this, primarily because I had a pile of work to do and several people shouting at me to get things done. I thought finding out I was a father could - and I'm sorry to say this now, but it's true - wait until the weekend. In a precedent that you're no doubt familiar with by now, your mother had other ideas.

There I was, typing away in my little room, a resplendantly childless 38 year-old married man with stable finances, a sensible wardrobe, some guitars and no clear idea of who, where or what I would be in two years' time, never mind five.Your mother let out a unique, scary and excited sound from the confines of the bathroom. She is no stranger to the unbidden emission of bizarre noises, but that notwithstanding, it is a unique amalgamation of fear, excitement, holy-fuck-overwhelmedness and mental adjustment that will stay with me to my dying day. It is now known as The Sound You Make When You Find Out You're Going To Have A Fucking Baby, or TSYMWYFOYGTHAFB. The branding people are working on something snappier as I type this.

On hearing it, I immediately thought: 'Hmm, that sounds portentous.' Right again, gentlemanly foresight! 2-0 man-intuition!

Your mother comes out of the bathroom, laugh-crying and holding her pregnancy indicator thingy. You know - the one mentioned three paragraphs ago, which we were going to use on Friday night. Pregnant, 2-3 weeks, it announced, somewhat coldly I thought, from its little life-defining LCD screen.

We are going to see a doctor about you later in the week, just to check you're actually there and everything, but I know you are, because of my intuition. Already and without realising it, the little peppercorn-sized bundle in there is changing our lives. Immediate benefits include a renewed interest in completing various DIY tasks around the house, but deeper and more meaningful consequences are also emerging. I already know how new parents feel re: work. That is to say, work don't mean shit to nobody no more. Work is for you, and your Mum. It pays the money to buy the things, as the Beatles once said (I've probably bored you to death about them by now). You and your mum are the most important things in life. End of.

I mean, the dog's quite important, but largely in a comic relief/decorative sense. But then, you know that all too well.

I wanted you to know that we wanted you to be made. We agonise over most things in our lives, and we agonised over you for longer than anything else, and quite rightly. We worried that we wouldn't know how to be parents properly, or how to cope with the realness of being parental. We worried that we'd miss out on things, but couldn't really say what those things were, because we spent ten years doing most of the things that new parents miss. But then we both wanted you to be in our lives, so we decided to just see if we could make you for a bit. Turns out we're pretty fucking A+ at conception, too, eh?

I knew, once my mum died, that one day I would probably have a child of my own. Ours is a small, keen but ultimately unready army, and we need the reinforcements. I expended many thousands of mental calories fretting about dull things like money and mortgages and how work would work, and your mum worried about what being a mum would mean to her sense of self - which is really common among mums and mums-to-be. She is, I would imagine, worrying about that on her way to work in London on the train, with this tiny, massive secret inside her which is more life-changing than any faint backache deserves to be. You and I both know she will be fine, though, and your arrival will change us both for the better.

I can't wait to tell everyone you're real. This is an amazing feeling, and if I could bottle the warming light-in-the-chest and sell it, I'd be rich enough for you to go to university. Imagine that!

I love you already, you glorious little speck of trouble.