Becoming
a Dad
On January 22,
2011 my wife Heidi and I joyfully discovered that we were finally going to have
a baby—marking a major change in our lives as we brought a new human into this world
and established ourselves as a true family. From that time on was, and still
is, a period of transition, intense at times and surprisingly natural and serene
at others. This transition was interesting when compared to the formal
transitions discussed in “Managing Transitions”—we knew when the commencement
of the “beginning” phase would come, roughly nine months from that day in
January, so we had a lot of time to work on ending our previous state of life
as an unfettered couple and transition into a new life as parents, as a new
family. This time combined with a mutual, genuinely positive outlook on life
and the changes life brings helped make that potentially tumultuous change
relatively smooth for us. My wife and I agree that our transition to parenthood
has been virtually without a hitch, and I’d like to explore in this essay
exactly what went so right.
I remember when
Heidi and I were first married hearing that we were then beginning our own
McQuay family, our own unit in the world. That may well have been true as far
as the government or church was concerned, but that fact was far from our
reality. Life as a married couple without children for us felt little different
from our months of dating and engagement, barring the fact that we now lived
with together and had grown much closer. We did most things together, but we were
able to do those things on the fly, with little preparation or foresight: trying
new flavors at restaurants, visiting new venues, seeing movies, fighting our
way through corn mazes, and playing Age of Empires together. We knew that would
all end once a baby joined our lives and we became a true family, actually
responsible for the rearing of a human being.
Several things
made the ending period go extraordinarily well. For one, the fact that becoming
pregnant took longer than we expected helped ease the transition in and of
itself—by the time we were finally expecting we had been hoping for the change
for several months, and were therefore less perturbed by the losses of freedom
we were expecting. Secondly, we had a clear understanding of why we wanted a
baby, and by extension, why we wanted our state of lone "couple-ship" to end. We knew
that continuing our semi-family was not a solid long term option, and certainly
not the best for our continued happiness. Thirdly, we were both already very
family-focused in terms of our relationship and world views. Our sense of
freedom had little connection to our ability to do things outside of our
family—Heidi would have a harder time going to Zumba and I’d feel a greater
pull to study at home. To use the framework provided on page 33 of the text,
Heidi and I spent time discussing what was over and what wasn’t—and to our
surprise, we were going to lose very little. Ultimately, having a baby would
simply ensure the continuity of what mattered: a tight-knit and gospel-focused
home. A quote found on page 36 of “Managing Transitions” summarizes how we felt
about the transition as we suddenly entered the “ending” phase: “Yesterday’s
ending launched today’s success, and today will have to end if tomorrow’s
changes are to take place.”
Despite our
confidence and reassurances, we wanted to ensure we left that stage of being a care-free,
unfettered couple with fond feelings and a sense of fulfillment, so we spent every
moment we could spare during those nine months enjoying ourselves. On top of
lots of dinner and movie dates, we spent a four day weekend camping in Southern
Utah, soaking in the famous sights there, and hiking every trail we encountered
(Heidi gets a lot of credit for doing that—she was 5 months pregnant by then).
During my internship in Chicago, we spent nearly every weekend exploring the
sights and tastes of downtown , spending many hours on our feet walking untold
miles between “L” stops and the various sites we sought. We “lived it up” in
that city as best we could, for we knew we would not be returning and because
we knew that was our last summer without a stroller or a child walking by our
side for many years to come. We loved our time in Chicago. It was a wonderful
summer not only because of all we were able to do and see, but even more
importantly, it was the perfect closing to our joyful years as a married couple
without children.
During those
months, there had been many tastes that we were in a time of transition.
Clothes didn’t fit (either of us, thanks to “sympathy” weight), Heidi had to
watch her body movements to make sure she didn’t hit things with her burgeoning
belly, fatigue set in sooner than she was used to, and people never ceased to
provide compliments of how beautiful of a pregnant woman Heidi was. Questions
of what gender our child would be, what we would name him/her, how we would
deliver the baby were all indicative of the time of flux we were experiencing.
However, upon returning to Provo at the end of August in preparation for my
last year of undergraduate studies, we were suddenly thrust into a purely
neutral zone, with little taste of either the previous ending phase or the
upcoming beginning phase.
During that
time of insecurity, Heidi tried to busy herself preparing our home and herself
for the upcoming changes as best she could. Baby’s room was prepared, we met
frequently with our midwife, plans were made, and every preparation we could
think of was in place. And then, on September 28th, little Miss
Evette joined us and the beginning of our new life as a true was begun.
However,
Evette’s coming was far from the end of the “neutral zone.” Thankfully, Heidi’s
mom flew into town to help ease the hardest points of the transition—when Heidi
was recovering in bed for the first week and a new human was throwing a lot of
new demands at us that we’d never experienced before. My mother-in-law’s
presence was analogous to a strategy recommended by Dr. Bridges during such
times of uncertainty: to bring in outside experts or establish temporary
guidance committees to ease the bumps natural to the neutral zone. Her
experience and help was crucial to helping us make it through that phase
successfully. Over time, we learned that it takes a lot more communication than
it used to to ensure that we were and are meeting one another’s expectations
and making subsequent adjustments. We realized that even though we felt we had
a highly transparent relationship before, we had to be even clearer on
scheduling and availability, for any miscommunication was suddenly quite a bit
more serious than before.
I myself had an
unexpectedly long period of anxiety and uncertainty with regards to accepting
this new baby as my own daughter. While the birth truly was a miraculous and
awe-inspiring experience, it took me several weeks to develop a strong connection
with Evette as there was little I could do for her during those early weeks
and, even then, there was virtually no interaction taking place. Thankfully,
her eyes began finding their focus and I found ways to interact with her—and I
gradually began to feel like a dad, and that feeling (and everything it
entails) grows every day.
Even months
later, well after the initiation of what I’d call the beginning phase of this
transition, there are still moments in the neutral zone. One great example was experienced two weeks
ago when we flew down to Dallas to get a feel for the type of neighborhood we’d
like to move to this summer: it was our first flight with our baby girl. The
anxiety was certainly there and we didn’t prepare as well as we later learned we
could have, but things worked out well, many thanks to Evette’s cheery and
patient demeanor. Even with four months of parenting experience, there are
still plenty of moments of uncertainty and subsequent lessons to be learned.
When we learned
that Heidi was pregnant, all three phases of transition began simultaneously.
We began wrapping up our life as a two-person family, we stepped into the great
unknown of transition, and we began to act and think as parents. For example, Heidi
and I soon began reading as much as we could about the baby’s growth processes,
receiving weekly and daily updates from various email newsletters and
smartphone apps to inform us of what milestones of development were being
experienced at any given point.
Thinking of
ourselves as happy and grateful parents from day one was immensely helpful to
our successful “beginning phase.” Now that Evette has come, both Heidi and I
try to ensure that we are doing all we can to provide a solid environment to
enable us to be the best new parents we can. Core to this is an effort to
ensure that we have a stable relationship, working hard to ensure frequent and
open communication. Heidi has begun her chosen career as a stay-at-home mom and
tries to ensure that all household tasks are taken care of so that I can focus
on spending time with her and Evette when I’m home after school and between
homework assignments. Because of Heidi’s hard work in this way, I’m able to
spend a lot of time with Evette, even though I’m not home for very many hours
in any given day.
On page 102 of
the text, Dr. Bridges says “Beginnings are psychological phenomena. They are
marked by a release of new energy in a new direction—they are the expression of
a new identity.” I’m now a dad, a father to a beautiful little girl. She just
started laughing a couple of weeks ago, she began “kissing” Heidi and I only a
few days ago. Because of the transition Heidi and I consented to experience and
because we chose to execute it well, I am now experiencing some of deepest joys
I have ever felt in my life.
To conclude,
why were Heidi and I, in our opinions, so successful with this transition? To
use Bridge’s 4 Ps framework (introduced on page 60), we understood our purpose
from early on; we tried to picture the new beginning as best we could as soon
as we were aware of the coming changes, an effort greatly bolstered once we
knew the gender of our baby; we established plans early on every topic we could
think of; and we had many discussions on the role (part) we would each play in
the home. To use Andre Gide’s words, quoted on page 39 of the text, “One
doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a
very long time.” In my opinion, we “nailed” the ending phase especially well: we
knew that the new land would be worth it, even if that meant abandoning a life
as an unfettered couple until at least our 50s. We had a very healthy
perspective on the change that was happening. Many older adults and peers
suggested that life as we knew it would end—no fun, no travel, no freedom,
etc.—but we think we know the secret to true adventure: “An adventure is only
an inconvenience rightly understood. An inconvenience is only an adventure
wrongly understood.[1]”
It’s all a matter of perspective.
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