"40 Weeks"

I was asked by McLeod Regional Medical Center to write an article for a new publication they will be putting out titled "40 Weeks". The article was to be similar to my journal about my wifes pregnancy which can be found on my website www.dowsedesigns.com under "A Father's Journey". This has turned into a wonderful opportunity to present new moms with a father's perspective. The following is the article I wrote for the first edition and gives a little insight into what it was like for me when we first found out that my wife was pregnant.

Becoming A Daddy

One of my earliest memories is of a hand-stitched sign my mom had hanging in our living room that read, “Any man can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy.” I’m not really sure why that caught my attention at such a young age but for some reason I always wondered about its meaning. It has been almost 30 years since I was able to first read those words, and now as I watch my children play together on the floor I think I have a better understanding of what that simple phrase truly means. To fully appreciate this realization, we must first back up four years.

My wife and I had been married for almost a year in October 2004, and being “older,” we decided to start trying to have a baby early in our marriage. We thought she would not get pregnant right away and figured on having at least a year of wedded bliss behind us before she conceived. Boy, Were we wrong! Even though that night seems like it was a lifetime ago, I still remember our discovery she was pregnant as though it were yesterday.

Even though my wife had stopped taking birth control only three months ago, I had a strange suspicion that she might be pregnant. Though she did not share my suspicion, she took a pregnancy test to humor me. Several minutes later I hear a flurry of words flying out of my sweet and delicate bride’s mouth such as I had never heard before. Thinking she had somehow caught her hair on fire, the plumbing had exploded or some sort of natural disaster had occurred, I ran back to see what could cause such a commotion. I found my wife standing over the sink looking at a little white stick. She was very pale and obviously not able to form coherent sentences, so I took the stick from her expecting some sort of divine knowledge to be imparted to me by this tiny piece of plastic. The white stick had a little window on it. The window showed two very clear little pink lines. Lisa was pale and speechless. I knew it was no use talking to her, so I began to talk to the little white stick:

  “What is this, Morse code? What does it mean?!?”
  “Two lines?!?”
  “Is this some product designer’s idea of sick joke?”
  “Why can’t it just say “pregnant” or “not-pregnant”?
  “Where are the instructions?!?”

At this point my wife looked at me with her beautiful green eyes and formed the only complete sentence she was able to make for the next 15 minutes. Very sheepishly she muttered, “I don’t know.” Finding this answer completely unacceptable I decided to hit the Web. I entered “two lines pregnancy test” into a search engine. Yes, it was Google that finally gave me the answer to the most important question I have ever asked. Our lives were about to drastically change forever.

The first and second trimesters went very smoothly and we were sure this whole pregnancy thing was going to be a breeze. We found out we were having a boy, picked out a name, designed a nursery and started buying all of the “things” that everyone says you “need” (but most of the time do not). Life was great until the very beginning of Lisa’s last trimester.

Lisa began complaining of chronic heartburn and strange upper abdominal pains. Her doctors reminded us of the normal changes and problems that are experienced during late pregnancy, and we all just regarded it as normal side effects of her pregnancy. We would later find out that her symptoms were not “normal.” In fact, she had developed a condition that threatened not only the life of our unborn baby but hers as well. This unexpected complication marked the beginning of a very difficult period for us.

The last few weeks of Lisa’s pregnancy drained us emotionally, spiritually, and physically. She was taken out of work, put on bed rest and I was tasked with keeping the household going. This meant I was solely responsible for cleaning, preparing food (we ate a lot of takeout), and taking care of the yard work. I had to do all of this while working full time. This was when I began to really learn about why it took someone special to be a daddy, and I really hoped that I was capable of doing the job. The only thing I knew for sure was that my wife and the baby I had not even met yet were the most important things in my world and I would do anything to keep them healthy. Weeks of uneasy rest and constant worry paid off on May 11, 2005, when we were blessed with a beautiful 4-pound, 6-ounce baby boy. He was very small but relatively healthy and, after 10 days being cared for by the angels in the McLeod NICU, we were able to take him home.

With my son and wife at home I was finally able to take a deep sigh of relief. Everyone was home and healthy. Compared to what we went through, I thought, the rest would be easy… right? Well, four years (and another baby) later I can comfortably say that it is not any easier. Every challenge is simply replaced by another challenge that is at least as difficult as the first. These are often measured in milestones. Rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, talking, eating with a spoon, using a potty, saying “Please” and “Thank you,” the list goes on.

I have learned a lot over the last four years, and not a day goes by that I do not learn something new. I have learned that I still enjoy playing with trains, finding shapes in clouds, and splashing in mud puddles. I have rediscovered dragons, super heroes, and magic. I have also learned that nothing makes me happier than a hug and kiss from my son followed by those magical words…. “I love you, Daddy.”