Father once again… trying to be cool during the time of your life

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… it’s clichéd, I know, but it’s true: nothing can prepare you for the birth of a child. Fatherhood second time around it’s just as exciting, just as nerve-wracking.

Our gyne has a real sense of humour: “I would be a jibbering nervous wreck if I was you,” he tells Tam, while the anesthetist is doing his thing. Comforting. He starts to operate as the anesthetist, the pediatrician and I chat with him about movies and Chile mine workers.

Adam Judah Robert Calder was born just after 1.30pm by C-section and everything went super smoothly, thanks firstly to God’s grace, and secondly to the skills of the doctors and nurses at St Anne’s hospital in Pietermaritzburg. Once again, as with our firstborn, I am just too proud to find words. Mostly, I am proud of my wife. She is the bomb mom.

I often wonder whether it’ll ever be possible to be cool as a parent and as a father. Every emotion that comes with parenthood lends itself to complete nerdishness. Pulling funny faces, talking in weird voices… it’s impossible to not let the happiness out somehow, and it usually manifests itself in the most non-cool expression.

Our two little troopers – Rachel and Adam – bring us abundant joy and delight, and I am completely in awe of them. Literally. It’s kinda silly, really… as a parent and a father, you get caught just staring. So not cool. I can already hear the words, “Daaaaad, you’re looking at me funny again.”

The world slows down and becomes surreal. There’s no line on the horizon. Love equals time in the equation of a child’s understanding, and there’s nowhere else I would rather be than in the company of my kids. Even the toughest, hardest hearts are tenderized to a jelly-like pulp as soon as that baby comes out.

There is nothing more awesome than being a father. How something so intricate, so complex as the human body can be formed in such a short space of time is completely mind-numbing and humbling. Even more so is the sense of responsibility that comes with it all.

But thanks be to God, the Father of all, who orchestrates it all so masterfully and mysteriously.

[rps]