hipdad

My daughter is now a very precious 8-month-old. This site, along with some of my other pursuits, have been laid by the wayside, but I think I’m back. In truth, every day in that time period deserves a post of its own.

In the meantime, I can only offer the following recap:

I did change my daughter’s (and, by the way, my) very first diaper. I’d say I’ve changed every other diaper since, although my wife would probably argue it’s closer 1-in-3. Either way, they were all latex-free.

Short and poignant.

“[Watching a baby being born] is a little like watching a wet St. Bernard coming in through the cat door.”

— Jeff Foxworthy

“The old system of having a baby was much better than the new system, the old system being characterized by the fact that the man didn’t have to watch.”

— Dave Barry

I am not about to give a blow-by-blow account of the labor and delivery of my daughter. There are literally billions of labor stories out there, each unique in its own way. In retrospect, our labor story is exceptionally unexceptional. Both mother and child [and father] escaped the ordeal relatively unscathed. And the experience itself is eclipsed by the aftermath of raising a baby. Still, several moments from that day stand out for me, as a soon-to-be-anointed father and a concerned husband. My memory has also been fading of late, and the details are still relatively fresh in my head. Plus, some people requested that I chronicle the event. So I’d like to submit a retraction (of the first sentence of this very paragraph): below is a blow-by-blow account of the labor and delivery of my daughter. Enjoy.

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Two weeks ago today I became a dad. In truth, I meant to write this post a long time ago. But between soiled diapers, sleepless nights, and paradigm shifts, I couldn’t find the time to write a concise summary of this earth-shattering event.

The labor and the delivery went with nary a hitch, I’m happy to report. A few very minor hiccups disqualified it from being described as perfect, but neither I nor my wife can really complain. I will write more about “our labor story” in future posts.

The past two weeks cannot be reduced to a single thought — or, for that matter, a single blog post. While some old mysteries were unearthed (What will my daughter look like?, How will I react to being a dad?, Will I be able to cope with dirty diapers?), others remain and yet new questions arise. I intend to address as many as I can in the near future. Fret not, dear reader.

After two weeks it still has not registered that I am father to this little infant. It is all very surreal. I can rationally accept that I am a father and her primary caretaker. But on an emotional level, I think of myself as an extended babysitter, almost waiting for her real parents to show up at the door and ask for her back. My wife feels the same way.

I won’t lie, though. On a few occasions, as I rock my daughter back to sleep at 4 am, after she calms down from yet another gastrointestine-related tantrum, I deliriously stare into those big glassy eyes, and she stares back (though probably through me rather than at me). And then I get it. She’s my flesh and blood. I am having an I-Thou moment with the same thing with whom I shared those transcendental moments a few weeks ago, albeit through the placental plane of my wife’s pregnant belly. Now, those father-daughter connections are becoming somewhat more frequent, but for the most part the past two weeks have been a sort of out-of-body experience.

And that’s one of the lingering mysteries. What does it truly feel like to be a dad and to accept it whole-heartedly? When does it finally sink in? A cousin assured me that it finally registers when your child is 18. Great.

Nevertheless, I am truly and unequivocally one happy dad. I mean this without hyperbole: These days are the happiest in my life. My wife seems to understand and even share the fact that the occasion of our marriage some years ago is only second to this. As for my daughter, she turned out to be just about the cutest baby I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Whatever doubts I had about relating to her and to loving her properly quickly dissolved. I say this with the full acceptance that this characterization must be an innate survival instinct that urges parents like me and my wife to very suddenly and very deeply care for this needy, ungrateful, wailing, bowel-moving human being.

As the dust begins to settle and I start to develop a new routine around Baby, I will post many of the thoughts and wonderments that occupy my confused brain. Some are deep ontological reflections about the essence of hipdaddery, while some are more mundane questions, posed specifically to any experienced readers out there. I am going to need all the help I can get.

I am somewhere between a few hours and a few days of becoming a dad, and righteously becoming this blog’s eponym (my hipness, it should go without saying, is already well-established). I have never met my daughter, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I can hardly wait.

At some point over the last nine months the idea that it’s my daughter inside my wife’s burgeoning belly became very real. And I’m starting to have a very strong emotional bond to this thing. There are moments when I rest my ear on the bump and caress it, almost to provoke a reaction (from baby, not wife). I can feel her move in there, kicking and jabbing, almost in response to my stimulation. It’s transcendental, really.

But do I seriously think that Baby is aware of me? And if she is, does she at all grok who I am? And if she were, does she share those moments of transcendence? Is she self-aware? Does she wonder to herself, “Trippy… that’s my dad out there?”

To meditate over these puzzling ontological quandaries, let us delve briefly into the world of dialogical existence (No, I’m not sure either what I just wrote).

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My wife just turned to me a few minutes ago and said she’s feeling contractions. I momentarily felt lightheaded and weak. Could it be finally happening? Is my life as I’ve known it thus far coming to an end in the next few hours? I’ve been preparing myself mentally for the new reality since a pregnancy stick showed the fateful pink streak back in April. But really, for a dad-in-training like myself, nothing changed since then except how I relate to the inevitable future. For wifey, it’s a different story. Her body changes over the course of 40 weeks. She’s already caring for my unborn child. She’s literally and figuratively carrying a fetal burden. But for me, I can be in denial all these months.

Soon, as the baby will pass through the parturitional membrane, from the comfortable and soothing confines of her mother’s womb into a rugged and cold world (it is December in the Bronx), I will really have to start sharing the task of raising a child. And nothing will ever be the same.

After about 3 seconds of waxing philosophic on the momentous transition period I find myself in, she tells me she’s been feeling these contractions for a while. “Wait, how long is a while?” I ask. “Oh, about a week,” she answers nonchalantly.

About a week! Phew! I’m already feeling the blood flowing back into my face. It’s not time yet. I can still pretend. Okay, she’s been having Braxton-Hicks for a few weeks already. Which is more reason for momentarily freaking out when I hear about contractions. “Woman, why are you telling me that you’re having contractions if I am fully aware that you’ve been having Braxton-Hicks contractions these past few weeks?”

But now I can’t help but think. I see it coming. At some point in the next few days, these contractions will be real, and she’ll go into labor. I’ll be driving with her down to the hospital, and along the way I’ll turn to her and know full well that this is the very last time it’s just the two of us. And the next time that I step through the threshold of our apartment, it will be three of us. And I’ll be Daddy.