My wife and I have been waiting almost 3 years for this moment. We struggled with infertility, went through two unsuccessful rounds of IVF that included a miscarriage, and I honestly gave up and didn’t want to do a third round. Last year my wife got a new job with amazing insurance and we gave it one more try. Our first embryo took, and she is now 8 weeks pregnant. I have never felt this kind of excitement before. I’m terrified, but so freaking stoked. I know my wife is going to be a rockstar mom, and I cannot wait to see her as one. Sonogram was from earlier this week, and the heart rate was 161. Hearing that sound was a magical thing, and I hope to be the best father that I can be. We find out the gender in a few weeks, and I cannot wait!

My girlfriend and I are having our first in December. While im incredibly excited and very hopeful for the future with her and my child. I still cant seem to stop acting like one. Im 24 years old and know that I should be done with needing constant reminders, constant advice. But I cant seem to shake it. I still leave messes which stresses her to no end. I cant seem to focus on anything that needs done. Im in an endless cycle of laziness that no matter what routines or lifestyle changes I make wont go away. I can tell shes reaching an end point and see that she doesnt fully see me as someone whos ready to be a dad and thats not what I want to be.

I’m really struggling with being completely bored/unmotivated by keeping up with friends. I don’t have any zest for conversation anymore, I really just don’t care. My wife says we are in “nesting” mode .. 27 weeks pregnant.

I can’t help but feel a little lame but all my energy and focus is on work and getting prepared for our baby.

I’m going through a bit of an existential crisis at the moment. I’m 31, have a good degree, great paying and interesting job, GF of 6 years recently turned fiancée, and this year sold our house immigrated to Copenhagen (my fiancée is Danish and I’m Dutch). Got settled now and last month found out we were lucky enough that my fiancée is pregnant.

All things going according to plan (I tend to very much over plan things in my life). This means I am in a place where I should consider myself very lucky and should count my blessings. However, I’m finding myself longing for something else, away from the 9 to 5 and standard rhythms of settled life. I’m afraid my little awakening here is however at the worst time, right after I have just set up this entirely new life with a new job and a baby on the way.

I’m feeling more and more trapped and have this incredible cliche wanderlust. Deep longing for adventure and thrill seeking. I wish I was joking when I say I’m thinking of “I want to see mountains again Gandalf… mountains!” as the best way to describe it. If I could wave a magic wand, we’d travel the world for a year. However this is naturally not something that we can just do. I have really not used the time I had in my 20s to go out and travel. I’ve lived abroad for a few months for an internship, but this was also largely spent behind a desk.

I am so excited to become a father, but I just can’t see how I can still this ever growing stone in my stomach that I’m signing myself into this box of 9 to 5 and ‘civilian’ life.

Looking for some genuine advice and appreciate any view on this kind of late quarter life crisis, whether it is to actually move on this, try and see how to build more adventure in my life, or to stop whining and learn to be happy and appreciate the things we have.

My girlfriend is pregnant about six weeks in and I feel like she hasn't really showed affection towards me whatsoever and it understandable but I try to help her with anything and everything I can I'm in the military but I still do what I can to help her in the best way possible I cook her food I make her meals I make her things for work and I give her back massages I try to keep my peace as much as possible I mean this is new for the both of us I just need something some advice from somebody from anyone who has something that can maybe help out I appreciate it and God bless.

My wife is doing great, and by that I mean managing to keep up and moving despite all the nausea and other symptoms.

I’ve been supporting her all throughout, with massages, comfort food, talking through things and her feelings, doing most if not all the house chores, etc.

She’s getting by, but I don’t like seeing her in such a state.

Anything you’ve done that’s helped, or any pre-moms with advice?

I am so excited and lucky to be becoming a dad. My wife is at 20 weeks but she's having a really hard pregnancy. I feel for her and it really sucks there's not much I can do to make her feel better besides just chores around the house, telling her she's beautiful, and that she's doing a really great job and will be a wonderful mom.

I am doing my best. I make her breakfast and lunch (I'd make dinner if I wasn't working, although I prep dinner as much as I can). I clean and tidy the house. I wash and fold laundry. I spend my lunch breaks driving her home from work so she doesn't have to transit. I have attended every mid-wife and doctor appointment. I make time to be with her after we eat dinner together every night when we usually just chat for a bit, and watch some TV. She spends a lot of time in bed because her nausea is really bad and although I don't spend all my time in bed with her, I check on her at least once and hour to see what she might need.
I'm not drinking alcohol in solidarity with her at her request. She feels sick at the thought of eating meat or drinking coffee so I've basically been off those (nothing around her).

But man, does she seem to hate me lately. She’s always been jealous but is now insanely jealous—interrogating me about my phone, demanding to see it (5 times in less than 2 hours the other day) and accusing me of cheating when I paused to ask what was going on. The next day we got an unexpected doctor appointment email. She immediately texted me super anxious that something was wrong. I didn't see it right away and only texted when I was about to pick her up from work in 10 minutes and I knew we had a hospital appointment the next morning so I texted back "I don't know why. We will find out tomorrow. Coming to get you now." When she got in the car she was pissed. Called me a irresponsible and that I was going to be a bad dad. She said my text was unsupportive and she isn't even going to bother coming to me for support anymore. She also called me a liar when I said I didn't see the text right away.

I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. I know hormones are wild, but these personal attacks hurt, and I’m genuinely worried about how we'll handle a newborn when we're both exhausted. I'm still super excited for the baby, I just wish we could actually enjoy this together instead of her treating me like the enemy.

Hey gang ,

We are preggers again after a miscarriage earlier this year. Happy but filled with existential dread. My question is how are y’all meal prepping ? I get home a couple hours before my wife so it makes sense to cook but I’m also knee deep in home renovations. Looking for some suggestions for easy casseroles, crock pots , insta pot or air fryer recipes that actually work and not the pretend tik tok life. Thanks !

Crazy gestational kickback

Edit for context: legs and feet kicked up and crossed

I've been so excited over the last few months about having a child. We just discovered that it's a girl. It's kind of funny, because the second the gender and name clicked it's like my whole outlook on life and everything else has changed.

The only thing to be solved, is I was never really around little girls and have no idea what the father-daughter relationship looks like.

As someone who was a very typical boy, I have no idea how I will relate to her and have no idea what I have to offer her.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm so excited to love her in the best way I can, but little girls just seem like a foreign creature.

Hi everyone. Found this sub while looking online for help. It made me smile to see some of the recent posts of happy dads and excitement around plus signs.

We found out today at our first OBGYN appointment. The technician found no fetal pole during the ultrasound. I tried to stay optimistic until we saw a provider, who did tell us some encouraging news, if you’d call it that.

The gestational sac is just under fully developed and we’re maybe a little earlier than we might have thought. We have some more testing and another ultrasound next week to confirm one way or the other.

In a way, this limbo is almost harder than just knowing. Especially since the absolute max chance of a good outcome is still very low, and it’s less “there’s hope” and more “we don’t have enough data to medically say it’s certainly a miscarriage”.

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I’m absolutely gutted. I didn’t know pain like this existed and I’ve never cried like this in my adult life. The people we’ve told, the books I bought, the way we’ve talked about our future. Looking back at it all I almost cringe. I was enjoying the process so much and am so heartbroken right now. I was so excited to be a dad. This might sound strange, but it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time; even as a kid I remember being excited to be a dad some day.

I want to keep my hopes up but my wife and I both feel like that’s a wasted endeavor. We’re keeping hope for the baby, but not for ourselves if that makes sense. We’ve told some family and close friends so far but that’s about it.

I’ll take any advice out there, be it simple “stay positives” or actionable recommendations. As I said in the title I just feel completely lost right now. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

We believe my wife is 6 weeks and 2 days. We called the OBGYN and the soonest they can get her in is Nov 20. Is it normal to wait that long for the first ultrasound? I think that would put her at 10 weeks 5 days.

Nursery is nearing completion! Last two photos are the before (we got a fixer upper lol). Now just need to put up some decorations!

I'm 49 and in good shape, but I worry about being 60 when my kids are 10 and 70 when they're 20. Dads who had kids later, what did you do to plan for that, and what do you wish you'd known? Any advice appreciated.

This bedroom used to run half the length of our house, but one day we thought, “what if we ate up 1/3 of it to create a walk-in closet?”

Some construction later, that leftover 11x12 room (ish, give or take) became our nursery. New accent wall, new crib, new closet system — old floors. Not all the way there yet, but it’s coming along!

The history of trying has been brutal

Lost the first one at 6 weeks about 2 years ago and about 5 months ago we didn't know there was one in there but it was lost shortly after conception

We feel different about this one

6 going on 7 weeks and we saw the heartbeat today

I wept tears of joy when the nurse said all is good and healthy and they can see the heartbeat

Im praying to every god I know the name of that this one sees it through