A Father's Story (Continued...)
My disbelief was less scientific than self-protective. It was not merely that pregnancy seemed astronomically unlikely; it was that fatherhood had so long been the desire of my heart. My own relationship with my father is one of the best things in my life, and I have looked forward to fatherhood for as long as I can remember. Ordinary sixth-graders dream of winning ballgames and impressing girlfriends; I too dreamt of those things, but I also dreamt of taking my son for a walk in the park.
It was always a son. Always. I'm certain that this is because I treasured the father-son relationship. When my wife said that her intuition told her that the child was a boy, I figured that sounded about right. So you can imagine my surprise (and a little disappointment, I confess) when I heard that it was a girl growing in my wife's womb. In the weeks following, however, I found myself inexplicably overcome with emotion. I only had to think of the daughter that would soon be mine -- and my throat would grow tight and my eyes sting with salt. On several occasions I imagined the future with her and outright wept. Although it was a complete surprise to me, I knew then that God had been absolutely right to give me a daughter.
The mother is not the only one with a new life taking form within. Something was changing within me, subtly, mysteriously, sacredly. Every time I put my ear to my wife's belly or felt the hidden movements of our baby within her womb, something stirred within me as well. When we lay down each night, I read my unborn daughter a story, prayed for her, and told her how much we loved her and were proud of her already and could not wait to meet her face to face.
She was alive to me, sacred and holy, long before she was born, and well before she arrived I was ready to give my life for her. "You weren't really in love with your daughter," you might say. "You were in love with the idea of a daughter." No. No. I knew all that any parent needs to know in order to love a child: I knew that she was there, and that she was mine. Not mine to possess and control, but mine in that I brought her forth, and therefore mine to love and protect. In the highest sense, of course, all belong to God. Yet when we say that our children are ours, we mean that we are theirs.
At the start of the third trimester we went to the hospital to get a better sense of how our daughter was situated in the womb. The medical technician placed electrodes and monitors on my wife's rounded stomach, and left. As we sat alone in the small, dark room, the sound of our daughter's heartbeat came through the speakers and surrounded us. Just for a moment, it was not we who surrounded her, but she who surrounded us. We were caught up in her life.
Children enter the world amid a rushing fluid of numbers. After 3.5 hours of pushing, at 9:09 p.m. on the ninth day of the ninth month, my daughter was born at 8 pounds and 2 ounces, with ten fingers, ten toes, two healthy lungs, and one fierce cone-head. In numeration we seek to control chaos, to make sense of the whirl of our lives and how swiftly they change. As my wife pushed and pushed, my daughter was always there -- but unseen, hidden in the veil of her mother's body. It was not that my daughter came to life in that moment; it was that her life became wildly and vividly present. The shock of seeing a flailing, writhing, wailing infant, where nothing had been visible before, suddenly emerging and sliding into the waiting arms of the doctor -- well, the suddenness of the change was enough that I began to laugh hysterically.
The nurses worked swiftly and expertly to scrub her down. I did not want her first human contact to be rough and cold, so I put my finger within her palm and she clasped it tight. I was eager to touch her, and I wanted her to have something to hold onto. Still crying, drawing air into her lungs for the first time, hearing the raw-edged noises of life outside the womb, my daughter grabbed hold of me and would not let go.
In the days that followed, there was scarcely a moment when I was not acutely aware of the progress of her breathing, the position of her body, the shuddering rise and fall of her little chest. And in the months that followed, since my wife finds sleeping difficult enough already, I slept on a bed beside the crib and took care of my daughter every night. Through the long dark hours of the Boston winter, I held our little girl when she awoke, fed her when she was hungry, and held her upright in a recliner all through the night when reflux burned in her esophagus. It was difficult work (especially since I was writing my doctoral dissertation when I was not in bed), but when my wife offered to give me a night's break I usually refused. Dreary though the hours could be, and frustrating when she would not stop her crying, the truth was that I loved those nights and would not trade them for anything. There was something sweet in knowing that she was beside me, and in knowing that she knew that I was there for her.
What does this have to do with abortion and adoption? I cannot contemplate abortion now and not remember those nights when we read to and prayed for our little girl in the womb. Consistently, so consistently that it convinced even a skeptic like myself, she responded to the sound of my voice. When she was born, disoriented and weeping, she would grow calm when I spoke the same words in the same voice. There was no magical transformation that transpired in between her life inside in the womb and her life outside. She was alive and human and capable of relationship all along. It is an awesome thing, majestic beyond words, but her formation in the womb was merely the outworking of the design that God had for her from the beginning. She was her in the womb, she was my daughter, and she was as sacred then as she is today.
Secondly, for those who bring their children forth into the world and discern that the children would be better served by other parents at that time, I have enormous respect. My sister is adopted, and I've always wondered what it took for her mother to surrender her. Now I know: it took tremendous love and strength. Love to put her daughter's welfare above her own happiness, and strength to follow through on her heart-wrenching decision. To those who contemplate abortion, I would say this. Wait. Wait and see. You know the person you are now, but you cannot know (as God knows) who you will be when your child is born. God's formative will is at work in her, but also in you. We are never truly ready until the time has come. Endure the stares, endure the discomfort. Do not give up on your child when she is in the womb; give her over after she is born, if necessary, to hands that can carry her better than yours can today.
Finally, I understand the fears that the mothers and fathers of the unborn feel when they contemplate how their children will change their lives. My concern was my own selfishness. I had (and have) so many ambitions, and the thought of the sacrifices required was daunting. Ye remember: "God does not always call the qualified, but he always qualifies the called." From the moment the child is conceived, we are called to be mothers and fathers for as long they are ours -- and God will be faithful to prepare us to fulfill our callings. The new life in my wife's womb was mystically reflected in my heart. In the time of childbearing I was prepared for child rearing. I am still selfish, and I fail her every day, but God has given me the heart that I need to be a father to my daughter. The promise of parenthood will change you, if you let it.
Since we learned of the pregnancy, I have never been the same. Even six months after she was born, whenever I awoke beside her crib, I looked over to make sure her little chest still rose and fell. There's something terrifying and awesome and plainly human, something hidden deep in the inner purposes of God, about having an immense love and care wrapped up in such a tiny, fragile, helpless human form.