I peek in on her while she sleeps, just to watch her breathe. She is beautiful every time. Her chest always rises and falls. Invariably, she’ll make some innocently sweet noise as though she knows I’m watching, and am in awe of every noise she makes. I am in awe of her. She is my redemption, and I must protect her from the entire world. Not everyone gets a second chance. Invariably, I will cross the room, stepping carefully and softly so I don’t molest her peace. Invariably, I will stand directly over her, admiring her; I will suppress an urge to cry because I love her so damned much. And invariably, I will lean down to plant the softest of kisses on her softest of cheeks.

I watch.

I swell with immeasurable pride.

I question. I question whether or not I can pull this off without fucking it up.

No, I insist, fucking it up is not even an option.

†††††

Being a father again at 37 wasn’t exactly something I had etched into my day-planner. I’d already had two children. My son was 13, and I had just lost my 11-year-old daughter to suicide. For immensely complicated reasons, I missed out on a lot of their lives –not my choice, mind you. I didn’t get to witness either of them taking their first steps. I was excluded for more birthdays than for those I attended. I grew to hate Christmas, I was bitter on Thanksgiving Day, and Easter held none of the symbolic renewal for me.

I would withdraw from the damnably merry families and their complete little lives with their disgusting Christmas trees and how-cute-the-kids-are anecdotes; I’d simultaneously stifle that crippling pain of emptiness without my kids while silently praying that someone would recognize that I didn’t really want to be left alone to brood and include me in their festivities. I would seclude myself anyway, afraid to infect anyone with my curdled attitude. Not being a terribly great actor, I always knew that my heartbreak would materialize on my sleeve and people would give me a wide berth in order to maintain their unblemished, joyful moods. I couldn’t blame them –I wanted to stay away from me, too. Sometimes I wanted to stick a gun in my mouth, the despair was so intense. That would ruin a family function, wouldn’t it?

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

The number that showed up on my caller ID was Erin’s, but the voice that I heard from the other end was not, “Erik, it’s Rashawn! Erin’s water just broke!”

Microseconds after the words had gushed into my ear, I barked simply, “I’m on my way!” Have you ever watched those cartoons where the character moves so fast from a stationary position that whatever object he’s holding (phone, gun, pencil, etc) is suspended in mid-air –spinning or hanging –as the suggested inertial effect? That’s how fast I’d kicked into overdrive and was on the move. While my instinct and newly-acquired parental knowledge automated my movements, I couldn’t keep up with the sudden cacophony that now flooded my head.

What the hell? The baby’s not due for another month! Where are my shoes? I’m too old for this shit! We were supposed to have a ready-bag for this! We’re not ready! The baby’s not due for another month! Where are my keys? Do I pack a bag? No –just get to the office, pick Erin up, and get her to the hospital. Oh my God! It’s happening! The baby’s really coming! WHERE ARE MY KEYS?!

My Ford Explorer has seen much better days, and I’m still convinced that it hasn’t forgiven me for the whipping it took that chilly April day as I mounted it like a sick steed, and forced it to gallop to Clintonville. Slamming through gears and jamming the accelerator to the floor like I was competing for position in a neck-and-neck horse race, I could almost hear the truck whinnying and snorting –trying to accommodate my impossible demands. Breaking all the laws of God and man to reach Erin’s office in due time, I challenged the police to stop me for speeding.

I stormed into her office and snatched her up like a trauma patient. I paused only to visually confirm her water had broken –the evidence forming a wet stain on Erin’s maternity-jeans. I hauled her out the door and into the passenger seat of her Corolla (which is newer, faster and more reliable). The entire operation was the practical equivalent of tossing her over my shoulders like a sack of potatoes and sprinting. Since I’d gotten the phone call from her co-worker, I’d forgotten how to walk. Every footstep was a run. The irony? Erin was cool and calm. She chuckled at my anxiety, and I silently cursed her for being so nonchalant.

“Goddammit! We need gas; we won’t make it to the hospital on fumes!” How many times had I told her to keep at least a quarter-tank of gas in her car? Once? A hundred times?

“Honey, calm down. I’m ok, it’s ok.” She shifted in the seat, the amniotic fluids likely making her uncomfortable and grossing her out. “We should go to the house and pack up some things before we go to the hospital,” She leaned back, and I was hunched forward, nearly touching the windshield with my nose while I weaved in and out of traffic, flashing my lights and willing drivers out of my way.

From the gas station to the house to the hospital, I challenged the police to stop me, and I spoke aloud my wish for a police escort, “And think of it, I’d get to speed legally!” A demonic grin flashed from the driver’s seat.

A wan smile hung from the other, “You’re crazy.”

Over the curb and around the car at the light. Flash lights. Try to cut through Roush Hardware at Westerville Center. Growl in frustration at red light and even lazier traffic that just doesn’t understand my need for it to move the hell out of my way. Flash lights. Will light to turn green. Make hard right turn at 75mph, probably on only two wheels. Haul ass, weaving in and out of traffic. Flash lights. Almost there.

☺☻☺☻

I’m sure I hurt her when I wrap her tiny body in my arms and squeeze her like I do. I don’t mean to. I can’t help it. I try to channel the adoration and love I have for her into her, so she feels it. I hold her tight enough that it might appear as though I’m trying to fuse us together. Maybe I am. If we’re fused together, then I’ll always be there to protect her. I need to protect her.

The morbid possibilities I entertain are infinite. I worry she may stop breathing in the middle of the night. I worry she might contract some heinous virus and die. I worry she will fall and bump her head, and be dragged into some miserable coma. I worry some sick sonofabitch will nab her. I worry I’m going to falter; I’m going to fail her in some way. I worry she will need me, and I won’t be there –just like before…

†††††

When Erik and Bethany were born in 1995 and 1996, respectively, the average American household didn’t have the Internet. If you wanted to know what to expect as an expectant father, you had to sit down and read a book, like What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I ask you – who in the world has the time for that? Go, go, go! Everything I knew about fatherhood at the age of 23 was what I’d grown up with and, frankly, it didn’t amount to much.

Changing diapers and feeding babies was something that I had to do. Being a father wasn’t transformative, it was an inconvenience. It was a hiccup. I didn’t know any better. And don’t you know –when you don’t appreciate things or people in your life the way you should, Fate will come thundering along in his cold black chariot swinging a rusty guilt-infected scythe to lay your soul wide open, and wake you right the fuck up by taking away that which you had taken for granted?

All you can do is learn from your mistakes. When confronted with a situation you’ve faced before, one in which you have faltered or completely screwed up, you unlock that mental safe –the one that stores your Contingency Plans for [insert life-changing circumstance here]. You begin the process that first recalls All The Stuff You Didn’t Do Right The First Damned Time, and hopefully you adjust accordingly; you step up to the plate, remember your lessons, and Do Better This Time Around. I guess that would be true of anything, from putting your hand on a hot stove burner to just not knowing enough.

This time around, I was armed with the Internet. The ‘Net affords the immediate answers to life-and-death answers (like, “how to save a laptop that’s had coffee spilled on it”) that I didn’t have at my fingertips in 1996.

After Erin and I had her pregnancy confirmed in September of ‘08, I subscribed to a weekly email newsletter sent by a website known as babycenter.com. Synchronized with the projected due date in May, the newsletter gave me a week-by-week synopsis on how the baby should be developing in utero, as well as articles and features written in order to better educate the expectant parents by obstetricians, nutritionists, pediatricians, and other baby-related professional-types. I eagerly gobbled up most of what I read, and as the pregnancy wore on, I felt more and more confident in the role I was about to play. Even though this was to be my third child, it felt like it was my first. In a way, it was.

I was older, wiser…wasn’t I?

Leave it to a psychologist to shake your foundation and bring you back to reality. Dr. Jerrold Lee Shapiro wrote an article for the newsletter called “Seven Fears Expectant Fathers Face.” According to him, they were:

• Security fears (Am I going to be able to provide for my baby?)
• Performance fears (Am I gonna pass out at the sight of blood during delivery?)
• Paternity fears (Is the baby even mine?)
• Mortality fears (I’m thinking about the end of life now that I’m about to face the beginning of one.)
• Fear for your spouse’s or child’s health (Bad things can happen during childbirth.)
• Relationship fears (Is Baby Mama still going to like me after the baby comes, or am I to be relegated to mere errand boy and post-partum whipping post?)
• Fears of “women’s medicine” (Does watching a doctor prod and poke in places a man would rather not think of as “anatomy” shiver my timbers?)

I wasn’t worried about the baby’s security –I knew that if I had to sell every ounce of blood and semen in my body, she would never need for anything. I wasn’t worried whether or not she was mine, or whether I’d be able to hold up in the delivery room (I’d watched Erik’s Caesarean delivery with great interest). To the best of my recollection, I never missed a regular visit to our OB/GYN, so I wasn’t afraid of women’s medicine. The prospect of Erin neglecting me in favor of the baby wasn’t even a vague concern –we already knew the baby was going to be a daddy’s girl. More accurate was the specter of Erin being neglected by me.

And as heartless as it may seem, I didn’t really worry about Erin’s health at risk during the course of delivery –she’s a bad-ass.

What I did fear, though, was something bad happening to the baby. I feared her being stillborn, even though we kept tabs on the heartbeat, and even though I had bought Erin a baby heartbeat monitor. I feared her having the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, being oxygen-starved, and having to live as a vegetable. I feared having that unconditional parental love constantly tested by having to forever care for a vegetable.

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ

I am sure I looked like a complete jackass bursting into the maternity ward at St. Ann’s, wresting the wheelchair out the door, and beating the hell out of it because it had the audacity to not open for me in my moment of need. I had forgotten how to breathe and think, let alone perform the simple task of opening a wheelchair. “You looked so cute trying to do everything right,” Erin said later. Usually, when a woman tells a guy he looked cute doing something important, it means he looked like a complete jackass.

Strap her in. Race to the registration desk. Be prepared to take the head off any staff who doesn’t immediately respond to Baby’s impending birth. Meet charge nurse who wields the demeanor of a drill instructor. Orders are barked, she is running this show. Dad is put in his place. Reconsider head-removal. Drum fingers. Announce imminent birth on Facebook. Hurry up and wait. Make phone calls. Drum fingers. Almost there.

She arrived less than seven hours later. Shapiro’s article said that dads who took part in his survey “secretly” counted toes and fingers. There was nothing covert about my instantaneous inspection and assessment. Shayne Bethany Lutes had ten fingers, ten toes, a full head of hair, a healthy cry…and my heart.

☺☻☺☻

I don’t have to feed her, I want to. I know she’s getting nourishment. I don’t balk at changing diapers; I’m vigilant about her hygiene and health. The first time she ever pooped (a milestone in any new baby’s life), she let go right in the palm of my hand, leaving a black sticky puddle. There was no disgust, no frustration. I cried.

I love making her laugh. Her wide, bright, toothless smile rights even the greyest of days. She lights up when I enter the room, and it melts my heart without fail. I’ve learned where she’s ticklish, and just to hear her laugh, I’ll go for her “giggle spots.”

When she cries, though, it slices into me like a samurai’s calculated attack. Hearing her wail in pain when she got her first shots reduced me to a dithering, apologetic blob. I could swear I saw betrayal in her eyes, too. How could you let them hurt me like this, Daddy?

It’s for your own good, honey. I promise. But know this is the only time I’ll ever allow anyone to hurt you. You are my redemption. I must protect you from the entire world. Not everyone gets a second chance.

The other day, I was chatting with a friend on Facebook. He just so happens to be the police chief of a certain city in which I reside. We chatted about the economy and its effect on rising crime statistics. We chatted about the decay in morals and standards. We chatted about being protective fathers. I told him that if I could lock my daughter away until she is 50, I’d be ok with that –after all, I know how boys are. He reminded me of his daughter, who’s attending Ohio State, and told me, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Erik. She’s not going to be that young forever, and you can’t protect her from every little thing in life. You’ll have to watch her grow up, eventually.” But I don’t want to. I don’t ever want her to venture from under my wing –how else can I shield and protect her? I don’t ever want her to wander any farther than my arms can reach –how else will I catch her if she falls?

Just hold on loosely, but don’t let go
If you cling too tight babe,
you’re gonna lose control.
Your baby needs someone to believe in,
And a whole lot of space to breathe in.*

†††††

True to its stealthy nature, the holiday season is fast approaching. Erik Jr. is still going to be kept from me, and Bethany is still going to lie in the cold ground on that windswept, lonely hill in Springdale Cemetery. It doesn’t get any easier, ever.

But I will have a new addition to my woefully diminished family this year. I will have a reason to smile and partake in the revelry that comes part and parcel with this time of year.

I will be witness to Shayne’s first taste of home-made turkey gravy. I will watch her gleefully rip the wrapping paper off her first Christmas gift, only to abandon the toy I thought she’d love in favor of chewing and shredding the paper.

I will scoop her up into my arms, and I’ll smother her with kisses, and nearly suffocate her with hugs. Except for her eating the wrapping paper, those scenes will replay themselves every year.

In April she’ll be a year old, and I will take innumerable photos of her painting her angelic face with the rich frosting from her first birthday cake. Only my own death, my last fear, will prevent me from watching her blow out every candle thereafter.

I have to hold on loosely, though.

I know I can’t fuse her to me. I know I can’t protect her from everything. I will do my damndest. Where I have failed before, I will not fail this time. Not everyone gets a second chance.

Note: Originally published in Otterbein University’s 2010 Quiz and Quill Magazine and kindly shared by Erik Lutes.

Photo by Kudaker