Fatherhood now overshadows every single aspect of my life.
As a stay-at-home dad, very few moments of my life involve an absence of direct responsibility for a child’s well-being.
I’m so deep into the fatherhood lifestyle that it runs the risk of becoming the entirety of my personality.
I can’t even have a conversation with my barber without making it all about my kids.
I knew that being a dad would change my life but I didn’t quite appreciate how quickly and how completely it would wrap itself into absolutely everything I do.
It happened so fast.
Yesterday was just the third anniversary of the day Jenny first tested pregnant, which seems like an impossibly short time to have fit both a toddler and newborn into my life.
It’s been an incredible journey so far.
With Father’s Day approaching next week, I’ve been reflecting on the many ways becoming a parent has changed my life.
Today’s column focuses on the first moment I learned that I would be a father.
Following is the story of that moment as recorded into a journal written for our child during my wife’s pregnancy:
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…But the biggest and greatest surprise of my life was when I found out about you.
It was the morning of Tuesday, June 12, 2018. I was hurrying out the door to work for an early meeting when I heard your Mom make a weird little noise from the bathroom followed by a faint call of, “Mr.!”
The sound reminded me of one time when I stepped on a piece of glass and realized I might need help, so my first thought was that she was hurt.
“If you’re bleeding, I’m not coming in there,” I said, because I don’t like to be around blood.
“No,” she replied, “Just look!”
So I rounded the corner and saw her shocked, pointing at a stick on the counter. All I heard was the sound of the empty shower running its warming water.
I looked down at the stick and saw the word, “PREGNANT.”
My body took a minute to process the information.
I wasn’t even breathing, like my body needed to prepare itself because any breath I took from that moment on would be different – as it dawned on me that I was a father.
I looked up at your mother’s eyes, which were full of tears yet had never looked more beautiful.
Happiness flooded forth with those tears as we tried to process the news.
There had been so many tests in previous months and years that said, “NOT PREGNANT,” so neither of us knew what to do.
“Take another test!” I told her, wanting to make double sure.
“Is it real?” she asked.
“Yes!”
I wanted to stay and talk with her about how happy we were and share all of our hopes and dreams, but now I was running late, so I kissed Mom goodbye and left to go to work on my first day as a father – with eyes full of years, a heart full of joy, and a head full of hope for your future.
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That moment was like firing the starting pistol of a mad sprint that led me here to a life I hardly recognize yet that feels remarkably familiar and like exactly where I’m meant to be.
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