On Fatherhood Pt.4

Two months ago - May 28th to be exact - my wife and I were blessed with the birth of lovely, healthy baby. We didn't find out the gender ahead of time, we wanted it to be a surprise. It was an incredible moment in our lives, full of joy and happiness. I already have a hard time remembering life before we had a baby. Yet it was also an intense, seemingly forever moment of time, packed with raw emotions - fear, pain, suffering, helplessness - and far more blood than I imagined.

The baby seemed to take forever to arrive. First, there was the long pregnancy, ending two weeks late. Often times people will say about anything that takes a while to arrive, "oh, the waiting is the hardest part". Those people are right. Sort of. But also not at all. The waiting was excruciating - going to work everyday, being ready to bolt out the door at the second the text message arrived declaring the imminent arrival of our dear little baby. This lasted for two weeks - two long, long weeks of unceasing alertness and readiness. That text message never came. Instead,  the waiting ended with us having to evict the stubborn little peanut from the womb with medical induction. The waiting was over.

Next, there came the actual hardest part - the neverending labour - nearly 40 hours of intense, painful contractions. I am in awe of the stamina and strength of the woman I love. While I slept - albeit fitfully - she suffered through a night of constant, uneven contractions, contractions that went on for over a day and a half. We arrived at the hospital, after more than 24 hours of contractions and multiple phone calls to the nurses station advising us "oh, just give it more time". Once we got there, we were told we may be sent to another hospital, as Surrey Memorial didn't have enough beds to accommodate every expectant mother in triage. We watched as one couple was sent to Royal Columbian, another to Peace Arch, and a third sent to Abbotsford. Then the water broke, and we were allowed to stay. 

We got a room, some pain medication was administered, and a brief couple hours of sleep followed. Then came a couple of hours (that felt like an eternity) of gut-wrenching pushing, which very nearly ended in a C-section, and resulted in our little darling being born on the operating table in case a last minute attempt at anything but a C-section failed - thankfully it didn't.

I tried my best not to look towards the doctors as they worked, not because I'm squeamish - but because I wanted to focus on my wife, on comforting her. I made the mistake of looking over once - and seeing far more blood than I ever imagined seeing at a birth. They don't tell you about that during prenatal classes - none of the videos or talks or books mentioned how incredibly visceral things could get.  

They lifted this tiny, incomprehensibly small person onto my wife's chest, and wrapped them in a towel. I cried. I squeezed my wife's hand, and practically sobbed out a few words - "we have a baby girl."

I spent the entire pregnancy boldly declaring "I'm not a baby person"; "When do they stop shitting their pants? I'm excited for them to be that age"; "I wish we could adopt a fully grown person who doesn't need anything from us". 

The moment I laid my eyes on her, I was smitten. I've never felt love so deep and powerful - it's such a raw, tangible feeling that tears at your heart. I became a baby person in the blink of an eye.

On Fatherhood

This is going to be part of an ongoing series, as I try to make sense of what it means to be a father, since in a few short months (and they're increasingly feeling shorter and shorter) I'm going to become a dad. And I couldn't be more more excited. Or terrified.
 

Pictured: A baby version of me, 11 months old. Practicing for a modeling gig I never got.

Fathers are an intrinsic part of human society. Most of us have one. I say most, because some people have two, and some people have none, but the majority of people have a dad. Some dads are wonderful, amazing human beings, others are just okay, and some are, well, deadbeats. Dads are as varied in quality as any other people. I suppose the same can be said of moms.

My dad is one of the good ones. No, sorry, he's one of the amazing ones. He's taught me more life lessons than anyone else, and I feel like he (and my mom of course, but this blog is about dads, sorry Mom) is one of the primary reasons I feel I can consider myself a successful adult, whatever your definition of what that means. He taught me how to ride a bike, to fish, to build a fire and to change the oil in my car. He taught me to respect women and to appreciate a good rye. My dad can be summed up pretty accurately I feel, as a man of integrity. He says he's going to do something, and he does it. I've never seen him cheat or lie about anything, even Monopoly, and everyone cheats at that awful game. I'm secretly pretty sure that's how my grandmother won every game I played with her*; although maybe it's because she was as an accountant, and 8-year old me was rather lousy at math and didn't quite grasp the concept of what a "monopoly" actually is. But back on topic: Dads. My dad isn't perfect, he has his faults, but so do we all. But he's my dad, and I'm intensely proud of that fact. Dad, I'm pretty sure you're reading this, and I don't think I've ever said it before, but thanks for everything you've ever done for me. I love you.
 

My Dad, my sister, and I. 

It's soon going to become my responsibility to share in the care and maintenance of the life of another human being, one completely incapable of taking care of itself, or telling me what it needs or wants. A wholly uncontributing member of society. It's going to be my responsibility (and my wife's) to educate and teach our child how do this thing we do called living. I have to feed this person, clean up after them, keep them safe. They're going to puke, poop, and generally make a mess, and I'll have to clean it up. They'll get sick, I'll take care of them, then I'll get sick, then this cycle will repeat. This is going to last for the rest of my life. And to top it all off, like some sort of sadistic cherry on top, this tiny human being is going to seriously cut into my beer budget. This is, to put it in the bluntest of terms, fucking terrifying.

But at the same time that I feel the icy grip of fear envelope my heart, I can feel the warmth of joy prying those cold fingers loose. I get to experience everything in life over again, anew, through the eyes of a tiny little person who's never seen a tree before. Who's never seen the sky, who has no idea what anything tastes like, or feels like, or has any concept of, well, anything. And I'd be lying if I said the idea of all that didn't fill me with excitement and tumultuous joy. I get to sit down and read books to a tiny little person who's never seen a book before. How soon is too soon to start reading Tolkien to them? At what age can I introduce Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss to my child? These are serious, pertinent questions about parenting that I need answers to.

I'm looking forward to becoming a father, to being called "Dad" soon. I hope I can do as good a job raising this little one as my dad did raising me, and as his dad did raising him. 
 

*I don't really think my grandma cheated at Monopoly. She's beaten my entire family at it, many, many times. You'd think we'd learn to stop playing with her. Maybe she should have been an investment banker or something.