Fatherhood, post 1

So, a while back, before N. was born, I promised to a few friends that I would get back to blogging. They were specifically hoping for some posts about being an expectant father and then about being a dad after my then expected son's birth. This promise wasn't kept until now, which is pretty typical of me: late. Part of the issue was that I wanted to get all of my blogs from Ecuador and other trips posted-as that was another promise I had made (and also failed to fulfill). So, I've just recently gotten a few blogs updated, a process which I started when back in the States for paternity leave, and will keep that going. I realized that I probably won't finish that anytime soon, so better to get my thoughts up here now. I regret not getting a post or two up before his birth, and then some more in the past three months.

I say this because just the other day I was searching for an email and had an interesting find. After text search didn't work, I did the advanced search on Gmail using the date function. I found what I was looking for, an email from back in 2007 when I was studying in Spain, but also started reading through other emails in the same two week period. Emails to fraternity brothers about things at the house, emails to my sister, to my now deceased grandmother, and emails to professors/administrators at TU. It was very revealing, quite humbling, and a bit weird to read through the emails and see how I wrote (spoke/thought) then. Surely in the future this post will be just as intriguing and possibly embarrassing as those were to me the other day. Which is part of the point of doing these type of blogs. Originally, my blog was set up to keep people updated on my experience living in China. I liked that it meant I wouldn't send a regular email or newsletter, that might leave someone out who was interested in what I was doing. After a bit, I realized that it was a great way for me to keep a log of my travels and experiences, and my impressions in the moment (or a few weeks afterward). I've never kept a journal, and writing for a public audience helps me think about how to present things in a (hopefully) interesting and thoughtful manner.

I don't know how long I'll keep this up, or on the Internet, but I think it's best to just use N. instead of my son's name, as this is a fully public blog.

I got lucky from the beginning. And we have been incredibly lucky in the past three months as well. The State Department prefers that its overseas employees have their kids in the USA. I think that's mostly because they are a back-up insurer for overseas employees (and spouses) for childbirth and related medical incidents. So, they'd rather have the kid born in a reliable and familiar healthcare system. Livia and I had agreed that she'd not work for the first two years or so, so she quit her job at six months. So, the strategy for me was to use as much paternity leave after the birth, and not too much beforehand. We also decided that her staying with my parents was way better than staying in a hotel near DC (State Department's preferred method). We opted for the birth in the States not so much to follow State Department recommendation, but because they pay a not insignificant per diem the whole time Livia would be in the States-and an additional 50% after the birth. So, we came up to Des Moines at the end of October, I stayed for a week, then left Livia with my parents, and went back down to Ecuador to work (and take a long planned vacation).

The baby was due between December 6-13 (Livia had various sonograms, thus a changing due date). The doctor in the States had decided to put December 13 on everything-I think it was the most recent sonogram, but two others had said December 6 and December 7. So I bought my ticket back for November 30. The doctor said there was only a five percent or less chance that the baby would be more than 10 days early. Well, N. was born on December 4th. Like I said, I got lucky from the beginning.

And we got really lucky that day too. The labor was long, painful, and in the end very frustrating for Livia, as she had an unplanned c-section after 14 hours of labor. That was an experience worth writing a few blog posts about. It was intense. But I say we got lucky because N. was born healthy. Totally healthy. He got 8 on his immediate APGAR, and 9 on the five minute APGAR. He had 10 fingers and 10 toes. He was normal weight and length. He passed his hearing test. He had a full head of hair. He looked like a normal, healthy baby because he was. I'd be lying if I said I didn't worry about that before his birth. Livia took great care of herself, ate healthy, stayed active, abstained from alcohol throughout her pregnancy. Well, maybe a glass of champagne here or there. But nonetheless, I thought about possible complications or congenital disorders a lot. I say congenital disorders because I don't like the term birth defect. Honestly, I didn't have a big problem with it until it became really real (for me at like seven months). But then I started to think about it, to imagine it, and you don't want to consider anything a defect. I say complications, because almost any congenital disorder would complicate things. It would've complicated our marriage, it would've complicated medical care/insurance, it would've complicated decisions we'll make in the future about where to live, how/where to educate our son.

Those of you that know me know that I run through all those different possibilities fairly quickly. I had no reason to worry. As I said, Livia took care of herself perfectly, she's at a healthy age to give birth, neither of our medical histories gave any flashing indicators of any congenital disorders. But, it was one of the things I thought about fairly often. Just thinking about how I would deal with various possibilities. When you choose to have a kid, you are, in a small way, choosing to accept and love whoever is born. That's risky. People may not want to admit it, but it's risky. It is a decision in life where we have very little control. With modern technology and medicine, we have control over SO many aspects of our lives. This isn't one of them. I thought about a lot of other things, mostly because they came up in my month by month becoming-a-dad book. I had always wanted to be a father, Livia a mother. We talked about all sorts of things, what he'd look like, act like, his personality, etc. I think of myself as a positive person, but I also know that I tend to consider all possible outcomes when analyzing a choice/situation, so maybe that's why I thought about this fairly often.

Despite the crying, the 2 am, 4 am, 6 am diaper changes, the crying, the milk not coming, the stress of the milk not coming, the crying, and who knows what else in the first few days, I felt lucky. I think the previous two paragraphs demonstrate why. When people asked how we were, how I was, how N. was, I think I almost always answered "Great, fortunate, doing really well." And it was true. Granted, Livia and I were having fights at two in the morning. Granted, I was at times infuriated with N. and then hated myself for being angry at a one-week old. Admittedly, I was having a hard time wrapping my head around how was this all going to work out. Yes, I brought Livia to tears more than once in those first two weeks. But, when I said we were fortunate, I meant it. He may have messed around with gaining weight for a bit, but he was otherwise about as healthy as a baby can be. Some of that is proper care, but a lot of it is plain old luck.