Fathering

As the sun's light faded behind the deep blue-green silhouette of the Oregon Coast Range, I looked down the hill to A and M, playing with friends just met in the excited, cautious way kids naturally do when in a new situation.

This is our new life. I don't know where it's going, but it couldn't stay there. We've embraced change and launched ourselves into a future of indeterminate place and time. I realize that the kids are at a different place developmentally, than they've ever been. No longer fully dependent on us, they have begun to be excited about their friends and their social lives, learning how they fit in and what pleasures there are in being an individual.

When A was born on the last day of November, I was in the room and excited to greet her; as well as stressed since her birth didn't go smoothly. The doctor thought she was trying to come up 'sunny side up' and spent a lot of time trying to get her flipped over. Eventually, when she arrived, she was a three on the Apgar chart and a team of nurses standing by was able to quickly get her up to a seven. Nonetheless, she spent the first couple of days in the baby ICU.

I spent most of time in with her, trying to maintain skin contact with the tiny little new arrival. She seemed hearty to me and that has been the truth of her life. She's a competitive, driven little kid. She does well in school and has been a solid athlete in every sport she's tried.

I am her father, if not completely, and I may not ever know. Most important to me is that I love her and I can see the positive qualities I've helped build in her. She knows me and knows she is supported in this world by a man who will always be there to protect her and champion her.