Garrett--

Congratulations to you both! I hope you both experience a trouble-free, happy, healthy pregnancy, and end up with just what you wanted--a normal, healthy baby!

There's much you'll need, and much you'll learn, but I'll only offer 2 bits of advice for now.

First, if at all possible, go to the doctor's appointments with her, including the ultrasounds. Chances are, she'll greatly appreciate your being there. Plus, there's nothing like hearing your baby's heartbeat for the first time, or seeing him or her on the ultrasound.

Second, when you go to the hospital, be sure to bring a normal kit, including multi-tool. When my son was born, I had to use my Leatherman to fix the faucet of the sink in our hospital room. While I don't remember exactly what was wrong, I do know that we'd asked repeatedly that it be fixed, pronto. Hospital maintenance was less than responsive, so, being the self-reliant individual my wife married, I fixed it with the tools from my bag. I threatened to send the hospital a bill for my services... <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh, yeah, one other thing: Take some food (for you especially) with you. Though our hospital had meal boxes made up daily just for the fathers, no one thought to tell me about it until about 1:30AM.

We'd started labor the previous AM about 7:30. The Dr. finally decided on a C-section about 7:00PM, & we finally settled down with my son around 1:00 or 1:30AM that night/next morning. One of the night nurses thought to ask if I'd eaten, & pointed me to the refrigerator where the box lunches were kept. I was quite glad to see that ham sandwich!

Good luck, & congratulations again!

David