Witnessing Fatherhood

Yesterday, I had one of those moments -- one where all the world around you seems to slow down for a bit just for you in order that you may pause, see something, and let your soul soak it all in.

I've always known that James was going to be an amazing father. Having come from a place where most of the young adult men I knew either sought to delay indefinitely or entirely avoid fatherhood, it was a refreshing change to fall in love with someone who could hardly wait to embrace it, even with all the responsibility and "inconvenience" it entails. As I've written here before, I wasn't always so keen on embracing motherhood, but James made wanting it easy. I knew he wasn't going to be one of those dads who only begrudgingly "babysits" (as opposed to parents) sometimes.

James & Ewan

It was amazing to watch him and his fatherhood at work when we were in the hospital with Ewan. We were both in over our heads with our firstborn (like I'm sure any parents of a medically fragile child feel much of the time), not only adjusting to life with a child outside the womb, but learning on the fly to make critical life-and-death decisions on his behalf in an area where neither of us had any experience. I never knew what questions to ask, or how even to begin to approach decision-making with the litany of choices we were presented daily. He asked detailed, meaningful questions that gave us the information we needed. He asked the things I would have been embarrassed to posit. He made sure those discussions went somewhere.

He never, ever -- even in those final moments -- gave up on his son.

Practicing for Austen

A little over a year later, I watch him in wonder still. Our anticipation at the arrival of Austen is filled with giddiness rather than wariness. He became positively silly and giddy after installing the car seat and trying on the baby carrier, pretending to kiss her little head. He's as excited -- if not more -- than I've seen any father be at the arrival of a child. He's long desired daughters and I can hardly wait to experience my heart melting into a puddle over and over at the sight of him caring for and loving her. I can't wait for him to be able to hold her.

Christmas 2011

Yesterday, we got a bit of a taste of one of those normal moments. We enjoyed Christmas dinner with one of James' co-workers and his extended family. The gathering was boisterous and loud and fun, the presents practically burying some of the kids in the room. One of the younger children, an 18-month-old, got a Sesame Street play drum set. After it was set up, it was with delight that we all watched him confidently wield the plastic orange drum sticks and bang away at the drums and the little cymbal. He invited us all the bang along with him.



James joined right in. And I got a picture of what it would be like to have one of these normal types of parenting moments. It was amazing to observe him in a crisis, but it was equally amazing and delightful to witness a moment where he was playing along, helping a toddler bang his new drum set.

Normal, delightful, (messy, exhausting, whatever) parenthood -- I can't wait for this -- to live it, observe it, and soak in every perfectly prosaic and extraordinary moment.

Anticipation

The clock is ticking. Every day, I see the baby countdown ticker tick down the number of days left before my due date. There are 75 days until my due date of January 11 and just 54 until December 21 which is when I will reach the 37-week (full term) mark. When people say things like "You still have awhile left," I'm tempted to scoff. It doesn't seem like all that long. As the number gets smaller, I feel any number of things all at the same time: anticipation, anxiety, and excitement to name a few.

Disbelief is another big one. I keep wondering: Will I really have a child at home? Really?

There is no reason to expect anything will go wrong. It's just that things didn't go quite right the first time around, and this being the second, well ... I don't know what it's like. Though this pregnancy has been textbook perfect to date (a fact which I do not take for granted for a moment), to have "normal" from the point of birth going forward is still a foreign idea where my experience is concerned. Even with Ewan's diagnosis, we made our home ready to have a baby there. But the baby carrier, the stroller, the crib, the diapers, the changing table, the clothes -- none of them ever got used last time. I never got to breastfeed, bathe him, or wake up with him in the middle of the night (at least not in the usual way).

And here we are, all prepared again. Gulp.

The disbelief is a good heaping dose of "too good to be true," part having no other experience to which to compare it, and more than a smidge of having lived just over a year now in the thick of our loss.

I don't think we will lose again -- I'm not afraid of that this time around. But by the same token, the thought of "normal" when it comes to having a baby, watching her grow up, and doing all the things we missed out on before is almost entirely unbelievable to me.

I anticipate that I will simply need to take it one sweet, unbelievable moment at time, beginning from the moment she is brand new and in my arms -- and no one is coming to take her away.