My Child's Father

When we found out we were to become parents, we couldn't have been happier.  We were in our young twenties and we had been trying to have a baby for a while.  Finally!  A baby was coming.  My husband and I were happier -- possibly -- than on our wedding day, as truly this was what we wanted most in our marriage:  to become parents together.  

As the baby grew, so did my husband.  Suddenly, he no longer was simply the man I married.  Or even the teenager I first fell in love with.  My husband became a father.  Already, he knew the important and cosmic responsibility of fatherhood and embraced it with a wholeness inside himself.  Truly, the day the stick turned positive, my husband became a father. 

Jonathan came to every doctor's appointment.  He was present for every blood test and ultrasound.  It was Jonathan who was with me, by my side on the bed, who felt the first butteflyish flutterings of the baby moving as we read Harry Potter out loud.  And he was holding my hand when we went in to listen for the baby's heart beat after not feeling him move for a day.  

And it was Jonathan's head the baby kicked when he laid his head on my belly as we watched t.v. 

Jonathan was the one who indulged my every craving -- even the baloney sandwiches on Wonder white bread (not my proudest moment), and he is the one who has sworn to me that no matter how much I want baloney sandwiches on Wonder white bread again with the next baby he will not allow me to eat them.  My sweet husband tolerated every move swing, every wild temperature shift, and every great effort it took me to roll over in bed.  My belly was large, the movement was huge, pulleys and levers should have been employed but they were not and we lived in an apartment -- I don't think they would have been permitted anyway.

My sweet husband set up the crib and rearranged the teddy bears.  We practiced putting in the carrier.  We secretly worried the baby wouldn't be cute.  I never had to worry with Jonathan.  I knew.  Just knew.  He would be the perfect father for our baby.  

Jonathan was worried, though he tried to not let it show.  He is an only child.  He had no experience with children, let alone babies.  The only real experience with children at all came from being around my family, my nieces and nephews.  And he had a crash course in it before we were married while living with my brother's family for about two weeks.  All of a sudden he was around four children.  The oldest at the time was 8 years old and the youngest was, I believe, 2 years old.  Jonathan enjoyed that experience.  Loved it, in fact.  But this was the only time he had really been around kids.  

Now we were having one.  It was growing inside me.  The baby condo was rapidly running out of room and the baby was reminding me constantly. But Jonathan never let me see his worry.  His quiet confidence quieted my worries.  I had never been a mother either.  It was all new to the both of us.  

Ethan is a Christmas baby.  Born on December 22nd.  Jonathan stayed by my side until they told him he had to leave during the emergency C-section. I wouldn't have had it any other way.  When I woke up from the anesthesia, the first thing I clearly saw was my sweet husband holding our baby.  I didn't get to see my baby when he was first born.  I didn't have those first moments so many women talk about excitedly -- what it's like to hold the baby, to hear the baby's cries, to know the weight right away -- I didn't have any of that.  I woke up about four hours after he was born.  And though I am a little sad about this, and may always be, I will never trade the moment of opening my eyes and seeing my husband holding our child for the first time.  To me, that is when my husband became a daddy.  

It doesn't matter that my husband had never grown up without brothers or sisters, or that he never had any real experience with babies or children.  I truly believe that for some men, the moment their child is placed in their arms for the first time, the divine rights and responsibilities of fatherhood are bestowed upon them.  My husband is one of these men.  My baby is safe in his arms, just as I am.  And I will always be grateful that I found him.

We brought Ethan home, and so began my recovery from a labor, an attempted delivery and an emergency delivery.  Jonathan was loving and patient, covering me in calamine lotion when I broke out in hives -- after we discovered I'm allergic to Ibuprofen.  Doing baskets and baskets of laundry -- who knew Ethan would be a projectile vomiter?  Changed countless diapers -- we never could figure out how Ethan wet his clothes on his back.  My sweet husband only complained once, and it doesn't really count because it was in his sleep.  He rolled over while I was feeding the baby and mumbled, "I am always.doing.laundry." and that was it. I could never begrudge him that moment.  The truth is, he was always doing laundry!

Jonathan fed the baby bottles, endured being thrown up on, peed on, scratched... all sorts of newborn atrocities.   Jonathan withstood it all.  He even hunted down Ethan's prized stuffed star on the university campus because it was the only toy Ethan really loved.  

My child's father; his daddy -- my husband and best friend.  I love him with my entire heart.  There isn't any other man that I would allow to be my child's father.  He is already Ethan's daddy.  I wouldn't want it any other way.

Happy Daddy's Day