The Birthday Boy

Eight years ago today I became a dad.

Seems amazing to me that it has been eight years. Both in the sense of “Holy cow! It’s been eight years!” and the sense of I can’t really remember myself before dadhood. I have vague memories about sleeping in and going to the theatre to watch movies, but that’s about as far as my BC (Before Children) recollections go and in so many ways I feel my kids that have always been here.

Nikki and I stumbled into parenting. Ben was one of those blessings we weren’t wise enough to ask for. Don’t get me wrong Ben was in the plans, he just jumped the queue by a few years. I said this to a friends father and he looked me up and down and kind of laughed and confided “None of them are planned, they’re all surprises. That one there? Surprise! That one there? Her too! By the time we had that one I’m pretty sure we just held hands on night and bang!” He has six daughters.

But Ben was coming ready or not so we’ll try for ready I guess and me being more than kind of a geek I read books about nutrition, spent my time with “What to expect when you’re expecting” and went to the prenatal classes. I tried to be the cool, well read, ready for anything dad but in hindsight I didn’t have a clue and I suppose no one does and even if you think you do God designs those little critters to throw you off your game so good luck with that.

So this brings us to one frigid day in late January and coming up on the DUE DATE and nothing and then maybe something. Contractions and Nikki doesn’t sleep for a night and we time the contractions and we call health link and we prepare the bags and when we are convinced it’s time we head in to the hospital. The nurse at the desk takes one look at us and asks the classic “Is this your first delivery?” and it is and she gives a knowing little smile and they take us in and they slap on all the monitors and then a kindly matron type of nurse comes over and quietly tells us it isn’t time yet and maybe we should go home. I ask how we know when it’s time and she tells me “Well, for starters, your wife won’t be laughing at your jokes anymore.” and well that doesn’t help because she never did but perhaps the lightheartedness of our corner of the admitting area is not well received.

And we don’t go home but to a friend’s house and Nikki keeps contracting away and we spend the day trying to distract ourselves and getting pretty excited (I am anyway) for this next big adventure. We try the hospital again and once again they turn us away and I feel all righteous because we timed contractions and two minutes and we’re supposed to be here when they are two minutes and we go back out to the car and the tire is flat and it’s minus 30 and I don’t have gloves.

I get the spare on and we roll home and try and sleep but nothing and then suddenly something. Now it’s for real and Nikki is moaning and I’m even less funny than usual and she bites me on the arm at one point and I think maybe NOW we can got the hospital. So out to our tiny little Honda and Nikki groaning and I think she just might die and off we go but now the spare is flat and there isn’t another one of course and frantic cell phone calls and Nikki’s sister picks us up and we’re off.

And now it’s for real. And now an epidural (we learned a lot about these a few years later) and Nikki resting and contracting through the night and Nikki’s sisters and Christine (honorary sister) helping me keep watch and just fighting boredom now.

About 3:30 I tell the sisters to go, get some coffee, get some rest, nothing’s happening, I’ll call you and the elevator door just closes when Nikki calls me and tells me to get the nurse and the nurse comes and IT’S TIME.

And now frantically trying to reach sisters who’s phones are off from being in the hospital and a few apologetic but still frantic wrong numbers and finally they are back and just in time and here we go.

Ben arrives in the world at 4:29 on January 27th and, not coincidentally, that is also the minute my world changed forever. I often describe this in the cliche of the earth moving sideways beneath my feet but of course the earth didn’t shift, just my world did. When I met our baby something bubbled up inside of me that I didn’t expect and wasn’t prepared for. I am not by nature or by choice a violent man, but if someone had come through the door to harm my Ben I would probably be in jail today as a result of what I was prepared to do to that person.

Nikki talks about falling in love with her babies. It takes her some time to attach and I’ve heard that is not uncommon, but for me the first meeting of every one of my children has been accompanied by a whip quick bond that lashes out at me and ties itself around my heart and pulls me to them in a very tangible manner and maybe this is the way with dads. I suppose from an evolutionary perspective it makes sense and prepares me to fight off the saber tooth tiger and I’m pretty sure that that night in the hospital I could have made a tiger skin blanket for our new baby with my bare hands if given the opportunity. It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t.

All I know is eight years ago I became a dad and even though the days have come and will again where I yearn for how free I must have been before this happened, I am so thankful that it did.

My Benjamin is eight today. I made my famous chocolate chip cookies for his class last night and Nikki wrapped up the LEGO HOGWARTS CASTLE and left it on the table with balloons on his chair for the morning because you don’t turn eight every day you know.

Happy Birthday Ben.