Well, we're off to Cape Cod for a week. Hope this tides you over until we return...
First journal entries are hard. It is difficult to select a single topic from a week full of firsts: first child, first diaper change, first burp, first bath. For this reason, I’ll begin this entry on the second day of our new daughter’s life. On that morning, I awoke in my apartment to a quiet room, the air conditioner humming from the window. I felt no early morning drowsiness, but rather an instant alertness, and within that frame of mind, I thought of the first thirty seconds after Reilly was born—right after I cut her umbilical cord, and the doctor put her to Shawn’s chest. Shawn looked down at Reilly, then over to me, and in those few seconds, as our eyes met, we connected a way in which the whole world fell away, and all that remained was intense love. When someone asks me how it feels to have a new baby, I say, “awesome,” and when I say that word, what I think of was that moment.
That morning, as I lay in bed, I also felt another emotion, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the feeling was. All I knew was that I felt different. The first time I had felt this difference was when we were still in the labor and delivery room. Shawn was having difficulty delivering her afterbirth, and I was holding her hand and rather fruitlessly trying to comfort her. When all the blood made me feel a little queasy, I stepped back from the bed for a moment. When I turned around, the hospital bassinet was there, and in it was Reilly, jerking her arms and legs. The sight of her caught me by surprise, and I realized that I had forgotten she was there. In fact, I had forgotten that she existed at all. I thought, Oh yeah. Wow. I have a daughter.
Soon, I got out of bed, and walked over to St. Vincent’s hospital to reunite with my wife and baby. I made my way up to the ninth Floor, and then over to the room labeled “S. Overcast.” When I walked in, Shawn was there with Reilly. She debriefed me on how her night went, and then asked me how I was feeling. I told her that I felt proud, and happy, and in love with our new daughter. I also told her that I felt different in some way, though I wasn’t quite sure what the emotion was. She smiled at me. I think she knew, intuitively, what I was trying to express.
As my first week with my new baby daughter has progressed, I’ve learned so much about her, what her patterns are, what her diapers smell like, how angelic she looks when she sleeps. I have felt her warmth as she napped on my chest and I have felt my heart jump as she made eye contact with me for the first time. That day in the hospital when I forgot Reilly was in the room seems distant, because everywhere I go—every minute of the day—she is with me. I realize now that I feel different because I am different. In my life, I have been a son, a brother, a husband. Now, I am a father.
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