A Million, Billion, Trillion Tiny Feelings Pt. 20

Notes from a father's first pregnancy

January 1, 2018

We decided to head to a New Year’s Eve party last night, which is outside of our ordinary. The last day of the year normally finds Emily and me on the couch, hovering over plastic bowls of Chinese food, watching a movie and falling asleep by ten.

Seeing as this would be our last New Year’s without a child, we figured it might be in our best interest to celebrate as a duo.

We recently made friends with a chef and cookbook author who’d invited us over for her family’s New Year’s celebration. She and her partner live in a beautiful farmhouse at the border of Chapel Hill and Hillsborough and their party was a perfect blend of dark liquors, delicious meats, modern takes on Southern classics, and excellent conversation.

Emily and I ended up at the corner of the long dinner table for most of the night, chatting with a gay couple from Knoxville.

That they had no inkling to ask about the pregnancy, no unsolicited advice to offer from their experiences as parents and no concern for the plight of a pregnant woman was refreshing, as that’s seemingly the only conversation people have been able to muster around us in the last few weeks.