My first daughter was born on May 12, 2009. The entire time my wife was pregnant felt like a dream. I was going to have a child. My DNA was going to be spliced with someone else's and a living thing would bear that mishmash for the rest of its life. Boy, that's a heavy responsibility. Your kid gets whatever sequence you inherited, minus a few hit-or-miss pieces. A crapshoot, really.
"I hope it has your eyes."
"I hope it has your nose."
"I hope it has your lips."
"I hope it doesn't have your predisposition for diabetes."
"I hope it has everything great about both of us and none of our terrible shit."
It'll have all that and more. Its own beauty. Its own flaws.
I read many stories and listened to many lectures, both by mothers and by fathers, and, oddly enough, by people who didn't even have children. What is with that? Women who've never carried so much as a sunflower seed in their stomach and men who've never had so much as a scare have the balls to toss in their opinion and advice. We had more experience parenting the moment we both looked at each other and said, "Oops."
I heard it all. Prevalent among the bunch was one sentiment that I seemed to hear once a day. "Your life will change the moment you see that baby." Right on, I thought. I'll see my child and my entire world will change. I will be a parent, forever entrenched in the love and adoration that comes with siring a child. I'll be her god and she'll be my protégé.
But that wasn't how it worked. Especially not for the first child. Not for me.
I was more worried about my wife's well-being toward the end of the pregnancy than my own insecurities. I'd read a story about a man who had lost his wife the day after she gave birth. The story stuck with me – not just during my wife's first labor, but throughout the last five years and into this last pregnancy. In fact, it was the first thing I thought of upon hearing that she was pregnant. It lingered throughout the months and came roaring back in the delivery room, where it was my responsibility to remain collected.
For the first baby, my wife was lucky enough to have a water birth. Our little girl bobbed to the surface like a buoy in the ocean, and I met her proper not a few seconds later. She was chock full o' vernix and her face was swollen. She was cute in the way only a mother or father could see. But she was ours.
I wish that I could say my first reaction was one of swooning and melting. But it wasn't. The feeling was certainly indescribable, sure. I was staring at my child. No matter how many times you see mommy's belly morph, it's still nothing compared to those first few seconds out of the womb.
In all honesty, she scared the shit out of me. I was never more petrified than seeing something so helpless for which I was suddenly responsible.
There's a difference between becoming an instant parental idiot savant and relishing in the adoption of a lifetime of selfless, unending responsibility. The former simply doesn't exist. The latter settles in once the anxiety of the gravity of the situation fades. Once you accept your new reality.
Shit is real. Let's do this.
Realizing that I needed to strive to be everything perfect in a father figure wasn't about a magical look or sudden jolt of reality. I'd had nine months to think about that. Realizing that becoming the perfect parent is not an instant reaction to seeing your flesh and blood was the jolt of reality.
By the time my daughter began to recognize me as one of the two main people in her life, I was beginning to recognize myself as one of the two main people in her life. I'd put in the time to see the seed sprout (no pun intended... a little pun intended).
Tonight at dinner, my daughter did something stupid, as all five-year-olds do. Stupid is the modus operandi of the five-year-old. And I, being the disciplinarian, put her in her place. Immediately after, she asked if she could hug me. Those are the moments of swooning and melting. That feeling of being a parent that I was told I'd feel the moment my daughter arrived.
I'm not the ideal parent yet. I may never be. But I'm closer to being one than ever before. Constantly moving forward and inching closer. Provided I'm doing that, and not moving backwards, I'm okay with it. And that requires work and dedication. And love. And faith that what I'm doing is best for my child.
My second daughter was born a week and a half ago, on July 14th, 2014. The feeling was different. The fear of becoming a parent was gone. That comes with the territory. Been there, done that fits the bill a bit more. And that's not a bad thing. Would you rather a surgeon who's standing there with a look of sheer terror on her face, or one who is confident, knowing that this isn't her first rodeo.
I'm a parent to my first daughter. But I'm a beginner yet again with my second. I have a slight advantage, but I'll still need to work my ass off trying to perfect the craft. Trying to earn that special title – Dad.
Shit is real. Let's do this. Again.
eyeseeyou1