Dear Zack,

This first monthly letter is a bit late in coming. Sorry. Your old man had a hard time getting this blog together.

Your mom and I went through quite a bit to bring you into the world—her more than me, as you’ll soon read. We tried for about a year to conceive, with no luck. Turns out the thousands of dollars we spent on birth control during the five years we dated and the four years of marriage leading up to the “Let’s make a baby” stage were all wasted. If only we’d known, you might have been able to afford to go to college without having to collect cans or sell your plasma.

Fearing that we might never conceive, we went to a fertility center. We underwent some testing, and were advised to try IUI (intra-uterine insemination)—or, as some folks call it, the turkey-baster method. Your mom had to take medication during the month leading up to the IUI, and, the night prior to the procedure, I had to stick it to her—”it” being a syringe filled with some help-you-get-pregnant serum.

Without going into detail, I will tell you that my part of your conception was fairly awkward. It involved first being alone in a room at the doctor’s office, and then being fully clothed at the moment you were actually conceived. Not exactly the route I had hoped to take.

It also wasn’t the route your mother had expected to take, and I felt very badly that her experience of conceiving a child involved hardware and a stranger. (Question: Does my being in the room with your mother and the female medical professional who administered the IUI technically mean that I’ve been part of a ménage a trois? Probably not.)

Early one morning, not long after the IUI, your mother returned to the fertility center for her pregnancy test. Later that same day, a nurse called to tell us that your mom was pregnant. This was both wonderful and odd. Wonderful for obvious reasons, and odd because your mother wasn’t home when I received this news.

I was immediately stricken with my first moment of paternal worry: Your mother was out and about in the big, dangerous world with you in her womb, and she didn’t know you were there. I convinced myself she’d make it home from work OK, and busied myself by thinking up a creative way to break the news.

When your mother returned home, she found on the kitchen table a dozen white roses wrapped in a bib that bore the embroidered words “I Love Mommy.” Hugs, kisses, and a few tears of joy and relief followed.

The pregnancy seemed to take forever, and wiped your mom out.

The periodic checkups were often no fun. As we were being briefed following one of our first ultrasounds, the midwife used the words “brain” and “cysts” in the same sentence. It is to this moment that I trace the onset of the visible signs of aging that have begun to ravage me over the past couple of years.

As the pregnancy progressed, it became clear that, insomuch as one can determine such things about a baby still in the womb, you were healthy. Phew.

It was two weeks after your due date—and on the eve of a midwife appointment to discuss induced labor—that we went to an acupuncturist in the hope that he could help stimulate the labor naturally. Apparently, it worked, because, at around 2 o’clock the following morning, your mom woke me up and said it was on.

We had spent hours preparing for your birth. We had taken hypnobirthing classes, and had practiced meditation techniques ad nauseum. We had seen film footage of women employing the hypnobirthing method during labor. These women looked as though they would have been perfectly capable of running out for groceries and whipping up a dinner for 12 despite the fact that human beings were passing through their vaginas.

And so it was that I was mostly unprepared to see your mother experience such a gargantuan amount of discomfort during labor. She was in pain, and I was afraid.

The doula we hired to tend to your mom during the birth came to our home, and helped us determine at what point we needed to leave for the hospital. Your mom and I had decided some weeks earlier that she and I would drive to the hospital alone, and that we’d call your grandparents once we got set up in the maternity ward. It was a decision we had made without the knowledge that the actual labor would knock your mom on her ass and turn me into a complete basket case.

Which is why, when your grandmother, M-M, who was staying at a nearby hotel, called and asked if I wanted her to pick us up, I wholeheartedly accepted.

At the hospital, your mom had to push insanely hard, and withstand a tremendous amount of pain, for about three hours. Did I mention she did this without any medication?

By around 5 p.m., you were almost out, but the finale was a lot more difficult than anyone expected, since, as it turned out, you had your arm bent up next to your head instead of resting alongside your body. This, we learned, is why your mom had experienced so much pain and had to endure such a difficult labor.

A few more screams, grunts and pushes, and you were out. They placed you on your mother’s belly and the nurses covered you in blankets. You were, without a doubt, the most beautiful and amazing thing I have ever seen. I have often heard people use the word “miracle” when describing things that, in my opinion, aren’t. Seeing you for the first time, I knew I had found an appropriate occasion for that word.

As I was marveling at you and rejoicing that it was over, your mom said, “Is someone going to tell me what it is?” I was so relieved and overwhelmed, I hadn’t even thought to check. I moved the blanket and took a peek.

“It’s a boy!”

Our lives were forever changed.

A person can never know how difficult it is to be a parent until he or she becomes one—which is probably a good thing, because, otherwise, the species would be extinct within the next 100 years or so. I look at pictures of myself from the time just before your birth, and I see a much younger man. It is no coincidence that I appear to have aged a few decades since your arrival.

In the months—and, now, years—since your birth, you have amazed me on a daily basis. Watching you grow into the little person you’ve become has been the most incredible experience of my life.

You have always been large for your age, and your verbal skills are insane. You have a great sense of humor. You are funny, and you know it, which makes you even funnier. All of this makes it easy to forget that you are only two.

You do not care much for sleep.

You do not know that 5 a.m. is an awful time to get up in the morning.

You are unfazed by the fact that I am a grumpy, Godzilla-like creature at that time of day.

Dealing with the two-and-a-half-year-old version of you is proving to be a challenge. I understand now why someone coined the phrase “The terrible twos.” Your ability to test my patience is nothing short of spectacular. You often are not interested in doing what your mother and I ask of you, and you protest with all the fury of a crack-smoking banshee when you don’t get your way.

All of that washes away, however, when you spontaneously say “I love you, daddy,” which is something you have taken to doing in the past couple of months. In the moment after you utter that sentence, you could ask me for a pony and I would get it for you. I’m glad you haven’t figured that out yet.

I cannot tell you what an absolutely humbling experience it is to have your unconditional love.

I cannot properly describe how much I love you. Spread your arms as wide as you can and say, “This big, daddy?” No, even more than that.

I cannot put into words how blessed I feel that you are my son.

I love you, Buddy Boy.

Love, Daddy

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