So, are you ready?

This is the question I am being asked with increasing frequency, and understandably so. It alludes, of course, to the impending B-Day (a somewhat alarming three and a half weeks away).

The last time I remember being asked this question so often was just over eight years ago, just before I married Zoe. The answer now, as then, is frustratingly complex. There isn't a word in the English language to articulate the state of readiness for such a life-changing event as marriage or having a baby. So I will invent one, or maybe two.

How does 'Nes' sound? Or maybe 'Yeo'. The truth is that there is no amount of preparation, no class, discussion, book or course that can lead one to the conclusion that one is ready.

It's an odd sensation. It feels as though there is a universal expectation that one will reach a defining moment of readiness. Perhaps one morning I am supposed to wake up, leap out of bed with verve, strike a pose of heroic anticipation and loudly proclaim "I Am Ready" with a voice in which the listener can actually hear the capitalisation.

"Let The Baby Be Born," I should continue. "Before Now, I Was Unready. Now, I Am Fully, Unequivocally Ready!" At which point wife will oblige by punctually dropping the sprog and the heroism will continue for the next who knows how many years of blissful parenthood.

The truth is, of course, much more banal. I wake up in the morning to a wife who is a little bit bigger, a little bit less comfortable and a little bit closer to several hours of pain unimaginable to a male followed by unprecedented joy. Yet all I do is wake up and carry on with life and be thankful that, so far, there has been no cause for worry.

This doesn't answer the question, though. Mother Nature has been generous enough to give us humans nine months or so of preparation for the event, but a lifetime couldn't prepare me for what is about to happen.

I am excited, nervous, curious, hopeful, optimistic, pessimistic, realistic, deterministic, selfless and selfish. But not ready. But yes, at the same time, I Am Ready.

I am ready because people have been having children for tens of thousands of years. Because every living thing on this planet has successfully procreated irrespective of learning, culture, religion, medicine, support groups, birthing pools or Rough Guides to Pregnancy.

I am ready because having this baby now, at a time of national and international upheaval, personal uncertainty and naivety, simply does not, under any circumstance, feel anything other than right.

But mostly I am ready because I know that the mother of this child is Zoe. Whatever my own perception of my potential shortcomings as a father (and they are legion), I know and trust that our child will have the best mother it could have dreamed of. And in my muddle to try and match that pure, natural perfection, I will be looking to Zoe to show me the way.

And, of course, I have been fortunate enough to have experienced the best aspects of fatherhood from my own three Dads. I hope to distil the essence of these brilliant men and emulate the success that they have had in raising their own children.

The very fact that I am worried that I won't be a good father is, perversely, a comfort to me, as I know that it will motivate me to prove myself wrong. My life philosophy has been "I don't know if I can do this. Let's find out." and I am proud to say that, in most cases I have discovered that, in fact, I can.

I hope to continue this trend with the single biggest, most important challenge of my life.

Brace yourselves...