My wife’s official due date is in five days. The imminent arrival of our first child reminds me of that cheesy Michael Bay explosion-fest “Armageddon.” The way I see it, my wife and I are Earth. At peace, with everyone quietly going about their business. And the baby? That’s the asteroid hurtling towards us at 47,000mph.

Even so, it’s not arriving fast enough, because we’re anxious to put this pregnancy behind us. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been blessed with a relatively difficulty/pain-free 9+ months. But the mini-heatwave that hit NYC this past week really took its toll. My wife’s ready, but the baby isn’t quite.

It’s amazing that it takes the better part of a year to bake these human babies. And we were recently told the baby might go well past our due date, which my wife simply isn’t hearing.

Everyone’s telling us to appreciate the silence and the sleep that we’re getting now. Telling us that the kid needs a few more days/weeks to fully develop. But for us, it’s just like the lead-up to Christmas: we can see there’s a huge gift waiting for us, but we just can’t open it.

I guess it’s quite different from the plot of “Armageddon.” Because we actually can’t wait for the asteroid to crash into our world.

How’d you handle the remaining days before delivery? Did your kid come early or late?

A friend, Scott Hart, sent the following in an email congratulating me on my first-born (which is due all-too-soon). I felt it was worth sharing, and he was cool with it. With writing like this, I hope Scott becomes a more frequent, and witting, contributor.

Having my first child was an event for which I was totally unprepared. My wife and I went to birthing classes together. Her belly grew to the size of a small planet. We had a crib, we had ultrasounds, we had a name, and we had a due date. Yet, with all of these leading indicators, I was helplessly, and simply unprepared.

When the time did come, my wife was in labor for so long, that my back hurt from standing next to her bed for the better part of 24 hours. I asked the nurse for a pain killer, which was a request I regret—don’t do that. I also walked across the street to get a burger, which I really needed, and don’t regret.

Even with induction, and various crude, seemingly 19^th century tactics, our baby would not come. Too late for a cesarean, the doctor needed forceps to deliver. It worked, and he announced: “It’s a boy!”

Only then did I know I was a dad. When I saw this boy, my heart grew to a capacity I had never conceived of—just like the scene in The Grinch when his heart breaks the ‘Suessical cardiogram’.

So, I have a friend who is an atheist. Not agnostic, but an atheist. This approach to life used to scare me, because I didn’t want to believe that we’re on this Earth with no more purpose than doing our day-to-day thing. I think Darwin is a smart cat—and I like to watch the science channel on occasion like every other XY carrying dude—but I won’t believe we’re nothing but a pair of ragged claws. Before fatherhood, this was my hope. But this child, this boy, enlightened me at that moment: I know (not hope) that being a Dad is an eternal assignment. And as such, how can there be no God, if I will always, always be this boy’s father?

In the ensuing year or so my best friend (a bachelor) asked me about the pressure and responsibility of being a Dad. With my wife staying at home, having a mortgage, and in his words “having someone so utterly dependent on me.” I laughed when he asked me this, as these things never occurred to me. These responsibilities are real, and have grown with the addition of his sister and brother, and will grow further with outside influence and distraction. However, this charge is no burden. To be sure, it’s a privilege.