Some months ago I posted an entry about my imminent fatherhood. The condensed version is this: I wasn’t concerned. I was ready. Oh sure, challenges were bound to arise, but I didn’t for a moment feel like I was in a free fall. No, I felt like an able captain aboard a seaworthy ship, sailing into narrow straits perhaps, but with a full moon at my back and a good map in hand.
Here I am, 5 months and three weeks later. Have I run up on shoals? Have I hit a reef? Lets put the marine analogy to bed for now. I consider the process of taking inventory one of the more important disciplines in life. A big part of that process is looking at how far you’ve come. Looking at how far you’ve come helps you keep things in perspective. Often, taking time to really consider where you started will give you a more realistic appreciation for where you stand today. In order to do this, you need to set aside a few minutes, take stock of where you are, and compare it to your memory of your first day at whatever it is you’re trying to assess. For this post, I’ll be comparing where I’m at as a father today to my first day as a father. This process is one that I’ve been engaged in for the last week or so, but I can sum up the results anecdotally.
There was a period, after the family had been ushered out of the room, before my wife and I really became acquainted with our new child, that comes to me only in disjointed flashes. I can’t find the thread of its chronology, all I know is that, for a some time I slept while awake. I have memories of the things I did in my sleep, but I know I was unconscious. The move from the labor and delivery room to the recovery room is one such vignette, I can remember carrying bags while walking down a hallway, but I don’t remember picking the bags up or setting them down. In this way several hours went by, some of them in waking dream, others in a place of exhaustion so raw that I was insensate. By the time I regained my faculties it was late morning on the day of my daughters birth. I remember laying in the hospital bed next to my wifes, awake for some time, at first unable to open my eyes, and then having opened them, unable to move any part of my body. I did eventually win free of this paralysis, of course, but I was sluggish. My thoughts were encumbered by a thick fog for several days. It was in this state that I confronted the mechanics of fatherhood for the first time.
Everyone loves babies. Loving babies is a biological imperative. It is not rooted in the part of the mind where opinions make their nest. It is not a choice for most humans, or in fact for most animals. It’s impossible not to love babies. If asked, most people would love a baby. To hold, to look at, to be cooed at by. But to raise? That’s a different thing. The biological imperative is harder on some than on others, and I often said during my wife’s pregnancy that you had to be quite merrily insane to subject yourself willingly to that highest calling. However, by the time the child had made her inglorious entrance into the world, I felt most of the insanity had passed. Carrying and birthing a child may be madness, but loving and raising one? That’s a much more rational experience.
There I stood, looking at a hospital push tray that contained the entirety of my legacy; any good that I had ever done. I knew then that it was more good than I had anticipated, or could have imagined, though I still don’t understand the depth of it. As I stood and stared in wonder (My darling, what wonder have we wrought here?) a nurse bustled into the room. We chatted amiably for several minutes, she checked on my wife but not me, and then she asked if we had changed BG Eagle (Baby Girl, who had no name). Changed? What would we change, if we could? Meaning took time to penetrate the fog, and by the time I realized she was talking about a diaper, the callous woman was already unswaddling my only child, waking her up, exposing her tiny hands, her sensitive skin to the cool air.
Up to this point, I had never in my life changed a diaper. Not one. Don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with the process from an ideological standpoint. I’m not one of those mysogynists who thinks that handling the “baby” is the mother’s responsibility. To be honest, I had never known anyone with a baby well enough that I would be in that situation. It had never presented itself. Abigail’s first diaper change was mine, as well.
It didn’t go badly. I was uncomfortable with the process, I used too many wipes, and it took some time to get her buttoned back up, but nobody lost any limbs and there was a bare minimum of crying on either side. I think most parents will be able to remember the time before diaper changes were second nature to them. That’s not to say you were poor at it, but it wasn’t instinctual.
A few nights ago, Abby lay in her crib, fussing. Her fuss didn’t say, “I’m bored, get me” but, “I’m tired, I can’t get comfortable.” Three months ago, I didn’t know the difference. Then again, there may not have been a difference three months ago. I took her out of her crib and carried her to the changing table, because I wanted her to go to sleep in a fresh diaper. In the pitch black I unsnapped her onsie, undid her diaper, cleaned her with two wipes, applied the requisite lotions, balms, powders and poltices, and began securing a new diaper in place. As I closed the last strap on the clean diaper I flashed back to my first diaper change, that fumbling, excruciatingly insecure episode played through my mind. In a few short months, to go from discomfort with a process to doing it literally blind isn’t all that impressive, but taken as an analogy for parenting it resonated with me.
I was fooled, all those months ago, with my map. There’s no map. Those books, they aren’t a map. After 5 months I disagree with more of them than I agree with. But they do help to create a frame of reference. Was I right? Was I prepared, despite my ignorance?
Yes. Having a child isn’t about having all of the answers. It’s about being willing to try. What I had 5 months ago was a willingness to take, in stride, whatever became of my life as a result of having a child. That, coupled with the desire to give your child the best in everything, is all that there is to being a parent. Every stage is different, every day is a transformation, and there’s no knowledge that will carry you through it all.
Was I prepared to be a father, when I wrote those words? Yes. Am I prepared for what fatherhood will call of me in the months and years to come? With all of my heart, yes.
Do I fear the future? No more than I’ve feared any future thus far, and my expectations have all been met.
