[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the podcast. This is Daddyo Podcast, a discussion of fatherhood from the perspective of two ceos myself. My name is Brad Bickerton. I'm a CEO of a small consulting practices where I coach ceos, and Rob Burnett, the CEO of Netcapital, an online crowdfunding equity source. And what we're talking about today is how we blend fatherhood and baby. And Rob's two days past his due date on first child. We thought we'd just record a short pod today, asking him how he feels, what's going on, what it's like, because this is such an integral time in his life, he'll never be here again, and it's so special. But what I remember about my time is I forget a lot of this. So this is our opportunity to capture lightning in a bottle. Rob, hi. How are you? What's going on?
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Hey, Brad. I am good, but very nervous and anxious and a little impatient.
So, like you said, it's Wednesday now. The baby was due on Monday, and we're just sitting here tapping our feet.
And so for anyone who's listening to the pod, I produced a little short, little bonus episode on the day, on the due date.
So you'll hear some of my sentiments repeated. But ultimately, yeah, it's an interesting experience. Just waiting for a baby is that.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Very famous quote, if you want to make God laugh, show him your plans.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Feels very much like that.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: As people who are typically in control, we like to have plans and margins of errors and contingencies. And how much in control do you feel right now?
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Very not in control.
And the most annoying piece of it all is know we're smart people. My wife Laura is an actual.
We know. We know that the due date is just an.
Like, the body doesn't work. Like know. Depending on how you measure our due date actually could be tomorrow based on certain factors. But it was Monday because of the way they measured the thing 28 weeks ago on a little ultrasound machine that's not perfect. So we know that the due date is just this best guess at the top of a bell curve of a two to three week window where the baby could be born. And yet it still seems to carry some pretty major significance psychologically for us. And now that it's passed, it's like.
And just to kind of hammer home the point, again, depending on one way to measure it, our due date could be tomorrow. So we know intellectually that if someone had decided something slightly different, like six months ago, we'd be waiting for tomorrow, for the due date. And we still feel like he's late, and we still feel like we're waiting around and our anxiety levels are kind of rising. And I think that's just like, there's only so much I can do to fight it with my rational brain.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: And some of it, you just ride that out, right? You know? You know, and it's not let it go, but let it be, maybe is a better way to say it. But as you're talking about this, I think so much about how we live within the calendar. Our finance people, they live within the calendar.
Our calendars live within the calendar. Our weeks live within the calendar. Hey, the big things in our lives, graduating, all these things, they always happened on a day. And you knew, and it was coming, it was getting closer, and it was getting closer. Hey, we're going to go on this big trip or we're going to come home from this thing. They always have a day. And when in life do you ever have a week? And every day is the same opportunity, and that's catastrophically tough. And just to balance on my side a little, I think I talked about this last week, but we were given an induction date because we were a little bit older, and we were given an induction date of July 5. And the morning of they said, hey, we have too many natural births coming. We're going to push you by a day. So we went from, we actually have a date where there's medical stuff going to happen to. It's not happening to. Then at dinner that night, they told us, hey, you can come in at ten. So we oscillated twice.
What are you doing to try and keep your time busy? Are you working? What's Laura doing?
What's the house feel like right now? Aside from this cringy anticipation? It's about to maybe not something, but what are you doing with yourselves?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. And the good news is, we're learning. So Laura's. A couple of things are happening, right? So, first of all, Laura had to start her maternity leave on her due date. So officially since Monday. So for the last three days, she's been on maternity leave. She took vacation the week before that. Very good.
And I think what we found is that one week of vacation was nice. Laura mentioned to me today, she's like, I actually not sure I like not working because I'm literally sitting around with nothing to do but wait for the baby. And so we're learning right now, in this moment, that a week off was probably pretty good. Let her wind down, wrap some stuff up. But as we go into week two, there's actually a little bit of boredom, and it's become unhelpful to.
It's become unhelpful to not be working. Now there's pros, and you can't replace.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: It with something else. Not like a sabbatical where you take a week to unwind, and then you've got three, four, five weeks to, hey, what was this thing I've always wanted to do? Train or read or write. And it's like, you can't do anything except for maybe start a Netflix series that you've always wanted to, which gets pretty old for somebody as high functioning as.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Well. She did start a Netflix series, which has been fun for. But. And the other thing that we find is, so, first of all, you're limited because you don't really want to get back into work. She's doing a phd right now for the most part. And as soon as you open that Pandora's box, it doesn't kind of close again, so you can't kind of reopen it or crack it open.
The other thing we've noticed is, know, in general, this has actually been minus a very rough first trimester. Laura's had a pretty steady go of it through second and third trimester, especially kind of emotionally. And I know kind of the trope is that there's a lot of cravings, there's a lot of emotional swings during pregnancy. And Laura's done a pretty good job either handling that or just she's been lucky and not having to handle it. She's done really well.
But one thing we've noticed is definitely emotions are high right now over the last ten days or so, which makes total sense.
But things like books and movies that aren't very happy have an outsized effect, and so we have to really pay attention. Like, there was a book that Laura's reading, and she picked it up in the middle of the night a night or two ago because she couldn't sleep, because she had to pee all the time because the baby's heavy.
And a character in the book was pregnant, and that character went to jail, and all of a sudden, and, of course, it's not even that bad, but at two in the morning when you can't sleep and you're waiting for your baby, and all of a sudden, the character in the book you're reading goes to jail and pregnant, it set her off a little bit.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Understandable.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: And it was like, yeah, totally. Rightly so. Right. Nothing. Not her fault. And she just stumbled into it, trying to take care of herself, and all of a sudden, there's this big emotional thing that any other day, any other time would have just been totally fine. And so when we pick Netflix or we do these things, I'm very much, like, on. And I saw this on an Instagram. Basically, comedies only, like Schitt's Creek Dairy girls are our two go to series. We're just rewatching that stuff. And Laura's doing some reality shows, but that's a minefield I was not anticipating having to walk through is you actually have to be careful about what you're reading, watching, listening, kind of.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: I'll put that into a dad fail that I had back then. But what Sarah Beth and I did during times like this, and her emotional ups and downs were different, but she would watch a show that I can't stand, but I love that exists, which is below deck, and there's, like, four different versions and 16 seasons, I don't know what.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: And she got me into it. I will admit that I really enjoyed it.
Against my better judgment, it's cringeworthy for.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Me, but Sarah Beth is so hypervisual, and she's an artist, so she really enjoyed. I would play the new Zelda, which is beautiful, and it's these little puzzles, and she. She's on. She's on the side of the table of the couch, and she's watching it on an iPad, and her dog's with her. And then I'm playing this, and it's beautiful visually for. But that's what we ended up finding because there was no real construct in either of them. Right. Zelda doesn't have any bad guys that hurt or scary or anything. And below deck doesn't have anything worth that because my dad failed was a movie I really love is called Hunt for the Wilder people. And it's a comedy.
It's set in New Zealand. It's hilarious. But the causing action of it is the mom who adopted the boy passes away overnight in the first third of the movie. And that's what causes all this thing. And it's a comedy. It's hilarious. I love it. Oh, my goodness. Did I not even catch in there at all that as soon as the mom dies, that was not the right movie for us. Even though it's light and it's fun and it's fluffy and it's good. It's like, just mom's dying. Not in the picture.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
No matter how funny or light it is, it's just not the time for it just not the time.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: And this is without context changing. Right. We talk about this with business, too, but this thing that used to be fine. Her reading that a year ago or her reading that six months from now, probably, okay. But in this context of now, and this is why we're recording today, you need to be aware. I needed to be aware. This is a very different time in life, and we have to be very careful and specific about how we engage in it. And also, going back to just entertainment, generally, a lot of entertainment is based off of a really bad thing happening, and then how do people deal with it? And so that's an interesting. Like, you got to stay away from normal storylines. Okay. But I was asking you a different question. I was asking you what you're doing with your time. And you talked about Laura and got some feedback from a father who listened to this the other time. And know, I like two white guys talking about women's biological issues because it's that right amount of uncomfortable. But it's good because how else will we ever hear it? That said, the thrust of this story should be us, right, and what it is to be a dad. And so are you working right now? What's your staff thinking? What are you doing to keep your time busy? Are you sleeping?
Of every time she rolls over and sneezes? Do you think, oh, God, baby. I know that was question stacking, but how's Rob?
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Yeah, so Rob's pretty good. And especially in week 41 of pregnancy, adjusted terms, Rob's great.
I'm having an easy armchair ride compared to my wife. And generally, life's pretty good, all things considered. So here's what I'm doing. I set it up so that week 39 of pregnancy, I let everybody in. I send an email to staff, everyone. I was like, hey, everyone, here's the deal, right? You're all getting a preview of the Daddy O podcast. Week 39, I got, like, a 50% chance of Laura going into labor. Now, you all know I got a lot of young people who work for me who have never dealt with a pregnancy before. I'm giving them life lessons. So I'm being pretty upfront about, hey, guys, this is week 39. I'm still around. My plan has always been, I'm around basically until Laura goes into labor. Then I'm off for four weeks.
So I'm still around. And then everyone knows this week. So this is now week 40 headed into week 41. Everyone knows that this is kind of last chance saloon because we're going to get induced this coming Monday. If nothing else. So after this Friday, which is two days from now, I won't come back, and everyone knows that. So this week has been relatively light for me because I did a huge amount of work to try to put things in place and get stuff done, presuming kind of the due date was dday. And so this week I'm just kind of keeping up with stuff, knocking out a couple of extra things off my plate, things like that. So I'm taking a little bit of your advice, which is try to wind down, but also keep myself busy on the work front. So that's where I am on the work front.
The other things we've been doing to keep sounds. I've kind of made the rule that Laura is not allowed too far out of my sight. That's to deal with my anxiety, not because Laura isn't perfectly capable, just like I don't like it going for a six mile jog. Well, yeah, she's not jogging anyway, she's doing great, keeping herself fit, but oh yeah, I'm not.
And I don't want her kind of going off doing things just because we have one car. If she takes the car somewhere, God forbid, I don't know, I just don't like it. It doesn't work for me. So she's been very kind in letting me kind of stick around, but we're trying to do a couple of things. So one is my parents are now in town and her parents have come back and forth, and so we've been spending some time with the parents in laws, usually kind of getting a lunch or spending a little time.
We're doing that in doses because we know there's a high anticipation and so we don't want to stress Laura out, but also it's nice to kind of get distracted, go out for lunch, things like that.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: It's hard because no one likes to be the center of attention just because you are the center of attention. If you're up on stage giving a speech, you might like it, you might not. But nobody likes being the center of attention because you've got a broken leg and everyone has to accommodate to you to get into the thing. And that's what she's walking with. And so it's good having family who you can feel comfortable with, but at the same time making sure not everyone's like leering at her.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Well, and you can't help but kind of like stare at the bump, be.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Like, is it coming?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Is it going to happen?
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I just thought, what if she comes into this podcast right now and taps you on the shoulder. That's what everyone's thinking every second right now.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: I would love to see her walking over, being like, it's time. The great podcast, number one. Call it come on.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Come on, baby. But the other thing is just a phrase that we learned later in the first month or so, baby. When we were having visitors, I started using the phrase you're invited for a drive by, which people kind of figured out pretty quick. It's like 90 minutes is long, is what I think a drive by means. But just giving people that authority to say, we would love to have you. We don't know if it's going to be five and a half minutes or 90 minutes. You get to choose, but you've got a car. And then I will usher you out when it is time. And I will not be gentle about it, though. I will be kind. But you're invited for a drive by. So if that phrasing is useful for you, please take it.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good stuff. And everyone's been very good about, like, it's all about her. It's awesome.
So, yeah, we've been spending some time with parents, and then we've been trying to just relax. Like, I read to her at night, which is something we've done in our relationship anyway, but that seems to work really well because kind of reading to her and the baby, which we like to do, and then the final thing we've really tried, I keep saying we, right? Because it's hard. What I will say is to everyone who wants to hear, my experience is I feel like I am very attached to her these last couple of weeks. Like, I don't do much for myself by myself. It's what are we doing together to kind of be a pair during this? I mean, we're really not separated other than when I come here to do a little work. But even then, she's just kind of sitting on the couch reading and things like that.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Is that a slow transition or was that one day you woke up and realized that was true, that it was no longer so? Sometimes in relationships, it's the you, me, and we, and right now it's all we. There's no you. The rob does rob thing gone?
I'm sure it was a slow transition, but was there a moment, or was it even just saying the phrase just now? When did that click?
[00:16:18] Speaker B: No, I think it was a relatively slow ramp up, and it probably changed about. I think it was the weekend going into week 39, because I did in the last couple of weeks kind of after the new year, after I had Covid, after we were kind of, the baby was past 37 weeks term, we kind of knew we had to be on edge. We packed our bags for the hospital, things like that. But if Laura wanted to go to the gym on her own, I would just be like, stay in touch. I did a couple of bike rides on my own where I was out for three or 4 hours because we knew those are going to be few and far between. And Laura was kind enough to let me go and I went out.
But as soon as we hit kind of week 39, I kind of made the decision that I didn't really feel comfortable being too far away. I wasn't going to go be 20 miles away on my bike down the road, fine, things like that.
But it was a conscious thing where Laura and I are already pretty close. We do a lot together, and so this doesn't feel super unnatural, but there's definitely a switch as kind of birth is imminent, where I feel a lot of kind of protect the cave energy, where I don't want to be far away.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: I love that phrase. I hadn't heard that before. Provide and protect is something that a lot of people talk about. It's natural male feelings and emotions. But protect the cave, I think, is a better way to say it. And it's maybe the reverse of nesting or the opposite. The harmonious opposite of it.
Yeah, that I get a lot. Sorry, I'm just chewing on it.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: No, it's okay. Well, and I think the one other thing that's important to point out, so what I've been focused on for me, and again, this, because it helps Laura as well, is I've been focused on fitness, actually, for the last couple, two weeks or so, been either being here and riding my bike indoors, but riding pretty hard and doing some structured workouts and trying to really kind of, actually kind of do a little bit of like a boost in fitness before the baby comes, because I just don't know what the know the first month or two is going to hold with the baby, and I want to stay fit. And then we're really noticing Laura's been really good about staying fit. I've mentioned this a couple of times on the podcast, staying fit throughout the pregnancy, and we're realizing now, we kind of thought that maybe now it wouldn't matter so much, but we're actually realizing that it's super important right now for her to work out. So on Monday, on the due date, because of our trip, to which I mentioned in the bonus episode, our trip to the maternity assessment unit, which took a couple of hours and then things like that. We didn't work out that day and the day after, well, the night after, Laura didn't sleep very well and got a lot more anxious. And so since then we've been really focused on, like, yesterday we went to the gym for a couple of hours and I went there for a little bit, and then I worked from the gym while she just did her thing. And I could kind of be in the building, but let her go do her thing. This morning we got up and we rode bikes inside together before we went to our sweep appointment. I think I talked about sweeps in a previous episode. And so we've kind of doubled down and learned the fact that Laura's, for her, it's really important to work out every day or do something to move, and it's hard to know causality. But the one day we've missed moving around over the last two weeks, the night after that, and the day after that were kind of much. The level of anxiety and lack of sleep went noticeably up. And so we don't know if that's exactly caused by the fact that she didn't work out or just the cycle of hormones or whatever's going on, but we've decided that, okay, we're going to learn from that and we're going to keep trying to stay active every day, even right up to labor.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Do you like the word active more than working out at this stage? And you and I talked about this a couple of three weeks ago on the pod was that you were losing you coming into this period and then first period with baby, you're not going to structure any activities, any workouts for yourself that you're trying to achieve a goal. The goal is to do stuff. And to me, that's more activity than working out. And staying active is super vital. And what I love about this is you're starting to jog my memory about what that last week was like for me. But I honestly don't remember a ton of it because there was so much, but also, in some ways, so little going on. But then the chaos that happens over the next month kind of just overrides the memories.
And so I'm trying to think back.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Know.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: I knew that we went on walks and we had at the time, a six month old puppy who needed exercise every day. Day, every, every day, every day, every. I also, I sleep an hour and a half, 2 hours less than Sarah Beth, especially during pregnancy. So I'd get up in the morning and I'd take the puppy to an off leash place to run and that's where I'd get my head space back. And then I'd come in and I knew that my job was to be of service, but I like to protect the cave as well as being of service and the of service for me. I've talked about this as well. It was about three weeks before induction date. Sarah Beth struggled to close the car door. We went grocery shopping. She's sitting and she got it done. But I knew in that moment there'd be a time where she just couldn't. She needed support and help. She wasn't broken, she wasn't deficient. She's not wrong, she's not sick, but she does need help and I'm capable of that. I have two arms, two legs and a brain can do. But I also needed to take care of myself and the puppy. And so that was one of the activities I did. But it also gave Sarah Beth a chance to have some alone time with her thoughts. And she's in the middle of writing her second book and it was a beautiful time. Even that last week coming up to it, even with she was sometimes having trouble remembering how pieces came together and sometimes she drift into mommy land or not. But having some morning time with a quiet house, just her and her old dog was really sacred thing for her and I tried to provide that for her at the same time, never being more than 10 minutes away from the house.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: That's really good. And we found Lord. She definitely wants a little bit of alone time, but actually a lot less for her and that's just her personal thing. I think having someone here, she likes having me around. Maybe not anyone else probably speaks to our relationship and things like that, but that seems to work well. One thing I'm going to note it here that we should talk about in another podcast is one thing that I think is, I don't know if it's unique to our relationship, but I think we really nailed totally by accident in this pregnancy is Laura and I try to serve each other 50 50 and that ebbs and flows and things like that.
But one thing to Laura's immense credit is that during this pregnancy, the shift has gone to like 90 ten. But Laura has not 100% stopped trying to serve me.
And that sounds really weird, but kind of work with me here. She'll just do little things that are totally within her ability, like making breakfast or doing little things. And I tell you what, as a partnership, knowing that she doesn't have to, but she does it anyway. Little things to keep the relationship together. Not that I need it, but her wanting to do that. Just a hair.
I think it's been really good for us because I've never felt.
Never once in this pregnancy felt like, oh, my God, she just wants from me. And it's taking, taking and not giving. And I can imagine that some relationships, rightfully so, right, we should be 100% in service of our pregnant partner because they're doing all the hard work. But to kind of do that little bit has been really amazing because our relationship has stayed really strong and really stable throughout this. And I think that has something to do with it, because I can imagine that a lot of times pregnancy is very rough, and then you're heading right into a baby, and before you know it, it's been like 18 months or two years before you've ever been a partnership where things are moving back and forth. And I can imagine that being a real strain. And so I just wanted to kind of shout out Laura on that one, and we can more later.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Some of the unspoken words that you're saying right there is you're not giving people advice or saying that women should be like this. You're just saying, this is the way it is and it's beautiful. And should, in the coaching world, should is known as the most violent and judgmental word in english language. Right. And you're not shoulding on her at all. You're just exclaiming from the rooftops how amazing that it is.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Exactly.
And the unintended benefits of what she has happened to choose to do. And I'm aware that the word serve has a lot of connotation and kind of can be used as a weapon, and I don't want it to be serve, as in she works for me, but just I come from the school of thought that when you have a partner, you serve them right. My job is to serve her, and her job is to serve me. And when we do that right, and together, we find ourselves in really good balance. We find there's a lot of love kind of moving between the two of us, and it's a way for us to express our appreciation for each. For each other. And I just am kind of exclaiming and shouting her out that despite the fact that she has every right to be entirely focused on growing a human being from scratch, she somehow managed to also keep letting me know that she appreciates me, and that makes my job even easier. And that's just an amazing thing that has happened in all this, and I don't think we set out to do it. It's a shout out to my lovely, supportive wife. One thing, because I think it's worth pointing out in human relationships, whether it's.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: Where you work or who you do things with or you and I choosing to do this, when you do something voluntarily, it takes on a totally different context. And that's what I hear you saying. She's voluntarily choosing to be of service to her partner. And some of it is obligatory because she needs the help and you're the partner, but some of what you do is of service to her voluntarily and by choice and loving. I want to go back though, half second to. And this is voluntary as well. So this morning I was walking the dog and we kind of have a late start on Wednesdays for a couple of reasons, and new home. And I was saying, you know what? I can go to the local breakfast place. It's a four minute walk. And I could journal today.
And as I was walking home, I said I could journal today or I could invite Sarah Beth and Theo to come have breakfast with me on Wednesdays. And because we voluntarily chose just to have a breakfast date, it was so impactful, meaningful. It wasn't even 45 total minutes. But we voluntarily got to be together. And because you were talking about it might be years until you do this, this is the first time that we can recall since, baby, that we've had two meals in a row at a table. Last night we had dinner at the dinner table and this morning at the breakfast place. And that was like we just did gratitudes this morning, looking each other in the eye, and that was my gratitude. Know, we got to have dinner and breakfast voluntarily at a table like adults. No phones. Yes, Theo's there. Yes, he needs this and that, but we just got to just be together.
And I think it's natural that. I think six months is pretty early for that to have happened, especially everything we've got going on.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: I think it's just nice to remember, don't stop fighting for the partnership. There's going to be a lot going on and don't stop fighting for that partnership. I think that's so important. And I'm cognizant that we're coming up on our time.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Let's do final thoughts.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think my final thought here is that for anyone listening to this who might be going through this, one of the bigger surprises of this pregnancy for me is I thought we'd get to week 39, 41 and feel very content that we had gotten through the pregnancy and then just be kind of happily anticipating when the baby would come. And I am feeling more anxiety now about, is the baby okay? Is he going to be all right than I felt basically the entire pregnancy. And it's probably because I'm more attached to him now. It feels more real as a father, I think you grow, it takes a while. There's lagging time to how you feel attached. And so that's a surprise for me. And so anyone who's going through this, if you feel like for some reason all of a sudden, you're just so scared in a way that you weren't before, at least that's been my experience. So listen to your gut. Call the doctor, call the midwife, call people to get reassurance. Don't just hunker down and say, like, oh, well, this is natural, but know that. I don't know. I don't know if it's natural, but it's my experience that, like, oh, man, I am way more anxious than I thought I would be. And I just can't wait for him to be born.
And so I'm hoping that's very soon.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I hope so, too. Well, it will be one way or the other. It'll happen one way or another. It's the roller coaster ride. You can be anxious all you want, but there's a moment when you sit down and you hear that thing click and then you're on the ride and you're already there. And take care of yourself. My friend and I can't wait till we get to talk next time, whether that's a couple more days from now, still waiting, or a week from now saying, hey, welcome to the world, little baby boy. So thank you for your time.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Thanks, Brad. Thanks, everyone for listening. If you like us subscribe, follow us, make a comment, and if you've got any advice for the show, feedback for us, email us at
[email protected] thank you, everyone. Thanks, budy. Bye.
