In this article I write about my joy of becoming a parent and about how my life has changed since the birth of my son. It came as quite a shock to me a few years ago when my girlfriend told me that she was pregnant. We had in truth been trying for a baby, but I never thought it would happen. I am not really sure why this was, I am stupid I know. I have to admit that I was quite scared at first but now feel very lucky and he has truly changed my life in a positive way.

Around a week before my son was born, I decided to go out for a few beers with a couple of friends. It was like one last night out of freedom before being thrust into parenthood. During this particular night I remember thinking something like, I will miss this. For some reason I actually thought that becoming a father would end any social life that I had and would be the start of a life of choirs.

The feeling of emotion and happiness when I first set eyes on and held my son is very hard to describe . He was so small and light. I was handed some milk to feed him and he soon started to knock it back, a bit like me with the beer I thought to myself. My girlfriend left the room to have a bath and I was left in the room on my own, holding the baby as they say. I could not stop staring at him, he was so perfect. Scared, what an idiot I thought, you are the luckiest man alive.

My whole attitude to life has now changed, in the past socialising with my friends was a massive part of my life. Even though I still do go out with them, I have to say it is probably only around half as much as I used to. You might think I am sad but when I am out I do miss all of my family including my son.

Every morning he is the first one to wake up and walks into our room and says, morning! I wake up and there in front of me is my son with a beaming smile on his face. Can you get me some breakfast dad please? He loves his food! This is the best type of alarm I have ever had.

I have always been the type of person who is often anxious and stressed. This can even turn into a period of sustained depression. Nowadays whenever I feel any of these symptoms I spend as much time as possible with my son as he soon puts a smile back onto my face.

I feel very sorry for people who are unable to have children and find it very hard to understand people who choose not to have any.

I am as you can no doubt tell, a very proud parent and would do anything for my son. Even when he is naughty I find it hard to be angry at him for more than about two minutes. I have recently spent a weekend at a friends stag party. I have to say it was a lot of fun and I had a great time but despite all of this I could not wait to get back home.

I now have something to really live for and the future is really exciting for possibly the first time in my life.

There are many things that I am looking forward to including:

Taking my son for his first beer

Taking my son to watch the football

Taking my son to play snooker

Seeing my son with his first girlfriend

Becoming a grandad

These of course are just a small number of many things which really excite me in the future.

For any people out there who are unsure about whether they want to become a parent, I can honestly say that from a personal experience it has been amazing.