Congrats! The first thing I usually tell friends is YOB. Year Of Baby. Don’t worry about what else is going on. Accept that you have different priorities righ

Congrats! The first thing I usually tell friends is YOB. Year Of Baby. Don’t worry about what else is going on. Accept that you have different priorities right now. After the first year, you’ll be in the swing of it and parenting will be easier to integrate into your life. I was a recording engineer for years before I had kids. I had no plans for kids, I was living lean while building up my career. I got a new acquaintance pregnant. We became a family, I lined up a 3-year recording contract with a celebrity. Of course that was too good to be true and fell apart after 3 months. I found myself working 3 jobs. Full time clerk by day, janitor by night, and a bootstrapped recording studio on weekends. Of course, working 3 jobs and being a Father sucks. So I started learning software development. My first programming/office job I drove 75 minutes each way, for less than a third of my current salary. Let me get to the point though. After kids, I had an incredible awareness of how precious time is. It’s unbelievable how much I can get done now compared to before. And it’s because you start to see all this little slivers of opportunity. A minute here, 10 minutes there. I definitely find time to keep my professional skills sharp. And because I’m all about balance, I’m finally in a low-stress job with a manager that stays out of the way, with hours that I choose. I have health care because of my kids. I have paid time off because of my kids. I own a house in a nice neighborhood because of my kids. I am a more patient, empathetic person because of my kids. Does it get frustrating? Of course it does. But we grow together. Sometimes I feel like having the family that I never planned saved me. It will be exhausting at first. But you will adapt.