So my last post was the story of Booker’s arrival into our family. I want to talk about my first impressions of being a father and maybe the first month or so into our adventures.
Above is one of our first pictures together the day he was born. I may look tired but my emotions were swirling in a vortex of happiness, excitement and the wonders that my son was yet to experience. My life had changed forever.
Not unlike many others, I had dreamed of the day when I would be a father. I always loved the times I got to spend with my nieces and nephews. I was lucky enough to have some older siblings that loved having their baby brother spend time with their kids. I was only 12 when my first nephew was born. I got some early experience in watching him grow and learn about his new world. Is he looking at me quizzically because he’s curious about his silly uncle or is he pooping? Speaking of which, I got some early experience changing diapers and feeding him. It wasn’t long before another nephew and a niece and another nephew and on and on until I had 10 of them by blood and another 4 that became a part of our family in one way or another. I don’t want to speak for all of them but I got to be the cool uncle because I was young and would play endless silly games with them. Fast forward about 20 years and I was a great uncle! Two of my nieces had babies of their own. I don’t get to see my great niece and nephew too often because of geographical reasons which makes me sad at times but I try to be their for their mommies(my nieces) if they need some help. I know none of this has to do with me being a father yet but I’m getting there. When my nieces had their children I was elated for them and a bit sad in my heart as I was now a man in my mid thirties who wanted a child but had not done so yet. Family and friends would always say “you’re going to be such a great dad”. Will I get that chance?
I met my future wife when I was 32 years old. Honestly, one of our first arguments was about children and whether we should have any. She is a bit younger than me and was of the mindset that she really didn’t want children. I didn’t want her to say “I want to have your baby” as soon as we met or anything. I just wanted her to be open to the idea of us having children in the future. This was important to me. It’s not only women that feel a biological clock. If I did have children I wanted to be able enough to be there for them and do things with them as they grew up. It was probably during this argument which stretched for weeks in a way that my, then girlfriend and I found a new way to love each other and respect each other. We were able to set boundaries for ourselves in the way we argued. This helped us build a more solid foundation for our lives going forward. We came to a compromise of sorts. I really don’t know how to word this because neither of us “won” the argument. We simply kept talking and found our way through together. She would be open to children in the future and I wouldn’t push at it. The small and skinny is that we both realized that we thought we found someone we truly wanted to be with in life. It wasn’t long down the road until my wife said to me, “I love you so much, I want to have a baby with you.” I can’t express the feeling that one small statement gave me inside. It was beyond her wanting to have a child with me. It was realizing, this was IT. I honestly don’t remember whether that was before or after we were engaged. HOLY CRAP man, I thought this was about you being a dad! I know, I know. My brain feels the need to drag this out and give you some backstory. 🙂
We were set to be married in August of 2013. She went off birth control late in 2o15 and we thought we would just let things happen however they happened. She even took into consideration this fact in shopping for wedding dresses. “Will this look good if I have a bump?” I told you she was pretty awesome in some previous posts. August came and there was no pregnancy. We chalked it up to maybe her system reacted slowly to getting off birth control and it just wasn’t ready yet. In the back of my mind of course I wondered if it was my system that was failing. We never went to any fertility doctors. As the time went by we used our super powers of communication and knew we could be happy together if kids just weren’t in the cards for us. We knew we loved each other enough that we would be ok if we just annoyed each other forever. 🙂
It’s now early spring of 2014. No pregnancy but other big news. I landed a job transfer in my company that would move us to the US Virgin Islands! How’s that for a life changing event? We dove in with both feet(never understood this expression, can you dive in with one foot?). Off to paradise we went, 2 dogs and a cat in tow. I will skip a year because even I’m like, “what the hell man, you’re almost 1000 words in and you’re not a dad yet!”
July of 2015, we had just bought our first house together…on an island…in the Caribbean. We were in the house for less than 2 months when the news broke. PREGNANCY AT LAST!! You can now go back to my previous blogs if you haven’t read them yet to get a feel of those 9 months.
April 12, 2016 is the day I officially became a dad. I held my son for the first time and trembled inside. It’s now a reality. Can I live up to all those friends and family that said how great I would be at it? Sure, I could play some games, change some diapers and feed other children but this was mine. I can’t just give him back. I have to be here for the rest of my days to help guide and mold this child into a good human being. It’s not good enough to just make sure he eats, sleeps and poops. I am part of a team that has to make sure he’s emotionally healthy and grows to be someone good in this life. My wife might say I was calm and ready. I’m sure I appeared that way but I definitely was doing some self examination to make sure I would be able to do the right things for him and my wife. You can ask her how that’s going so far. 🙂
I am VERY fortunate in that I have a good job with good health insurance and paid vacation time. I was able to take the first 2 weeks of Booker’s life away from work to spend every moment with him and my wife. I wanted to just hold and admire him all the time. My wife is breastfeeding so I was a cheerleader at night time feedings but I knew I couldn’t be one while sleeping. She would feed him and many times I would take him to try and get him back to sleep. TEAMWORK right?
My wife is sleeping next to us in this picture.
He got to meet his grandma(wife’s mom) and his Nanny(my mom) in his first month of life. I was filled with pride in just seeing his 2 grandmothers pour their love over him. This was my mom’s 11th grandchild and you would swear it was her first. I know I said this blog would be about my feelings but my mind goes where it goes. My feelings are entwined with my wife’s, my mom’s, her mom’s, my friends and even our dog’s. 🙂 I like to think of myself as an overall good person but that is no longer good enough. I need to try to be a great person. There is no better way for me to teach my son than to be a good example. My eyes well up with pride and a love that I had only heard about up to the day he was born. You really don’t understand those feelings until its real for YOU. I could get my hand covered in poop when I change a diaper. I look down and think, guess I’ll have to wash my hands again. There may not be a limit to what I would do to make sure our Booker grows into an amazing adult human being.
I LOVE BEING A DAD! There are days that Booker is a crank and it’s frustrating. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. I usually take a few seconds to go through everything in this post and then he can be a crank. I love him even more for it. You tell me what’s wrong Booker. You can’t talk but I’m a good guesser. Even if I don’t guess right the first 10 times, we will eventually find what’s needed to calm us down together. That is my goal for his life in the grand scheme. He will scream literally or metaphorically and then we will work together as a family to get things right. I just want to be a good dad that my family can be proud of together. I see the same thing in my wife being a mother. We make a great team and now we just have a new member of the team. We’ll work and learn together and make sure we are all in the best position for success.
Truly thanks for reading this if you made it all the way through. These little blogs are really just a good outlet for me. It helps me gain perspective on my life and you reading it is just gravy.
My team!