I have a son. Some reflections from an exhausted first-time parent

I've been looking for a way to revive this blog. I think I've got it. Below is an unedited, stream-of-consciousness reflection I typed the day my wife Kelli and I brought our newborn son Jacob home from the hospital.

Perhaps I'll put more parenting reflections here.

To read a little more about my son and my hopes for him, see this actually edited and coherent column that appeared online for The Catholic Telegraph (<---- Click those words)

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I’m typing right now in the same chair I always type in at home. Straight ahead is still the TV, but the view is somewhat different. The TV is off, and to the left is a baby swing. To the left of that is a pack-n-play. Not far from that is a boppy pillow and a car seat.

I knew this little guy was coming for nine months. I had that time to prepare mentally, emotionally and spiritually to be a father. I didn’t know less than 2 hours after returning from the hospital that he’d own the living room. It doesn’t really hurt the look of the place though, it just makes our apartment look that much more like a home.

In that pack-n-play is the one-and-a-half-day-old Jacob Michael Stegeman. He was born July 23, at 6:51 a.m. He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and he is 19.5 inches long. He has some of me and some of his mother in him, but for the life of me I can’t tell who’s features are whose. He cries louder than I thought possible and his strength is surprising.

I don’t really know the focus of this reflection. I should be asleep, since he is for a moment, and I’m tired. Dead tired. I’ve slept about 3 hours over the last two nights, and my wife Kelli has had it even worse having slept about the same, but after going through labor. I just know that I’m a writer, and I needed to write something.

For the moment, I’m torn between my desire to sleep and my desire to watch that little man as he sleeps. I watch his chest rise and fall. I watch his little flails and listen to his little coos as I wonder if he’s about to wake up. He’s proof positive to me that some clichés are true. Namely, they say you fall in love with your child the moment he’s born. He wasn’t out for a full second before I let out a sound I can't describe. It was part shout, part laugh, part cry, part prayer and part shock. He cried immediately, and I was in love.

His mother is the real hero. Kelli went into labor at home at 4:30 a.m. July 22, Jacob’s due date. Around 7ish we headed to the hospital and about 12 hours later, and after just three pushes when the time came, we had a son. She was amazing, and has taken to motherhood with complete grace. She awes me.

But while July 23 is his birthday, we’ve had a son much longer. We’ve had a child in our minds since November 7 of last year, our three year wedding anniversary, when Kelli told me she was pregnant. We’ve had a son since a while later when the ultrasound tech told us that the little gray line on a black & white photo was a proof of his sex.

From then on I've thought about who he might be.

One of my favorite prayers these days is the vocation’sprayer written by Cincinnati’s Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr. It starts, “Almighty Father, you have created us for some definite purpose.” The prayer asks God to help people find the path God has created for them, be it priesthood, religious or single life, or marriage. It is a prayer, written by a bishop, that asks for more priests while acknowledging the ever-important point that we all have a vocation.

God created me to marry Kelli. He created her for me, and me for her.He made me a writer who would be a father, and he made her a multi-talented woman who chooses to raise children for His greater glory. 

He created us to be the family that begets and raises Jacob so that one day he will come to know that God has created him for some definite purpose too.

I don’t know what that purpose is yet, and Lord knows neither does Jacob. He just knows he likes to be held, hates to change clothes and he loves to eat. One day he’ll know his purpose. It could be anything. He could be a writer, an artist, a programmer, a priest, a ball player, or anything. It’s crazy to think that this little guy has the whole world in front of him.

I don’t know who Jacob Michael Stegeman will grow up to be. But I beg God for the grace and wisdom to raise him to know that his Almighty Father has created him for some definite purpose. That knowledge gives me solace. I haven’t slept, I’m eating a terrible diet, I have mind-numbing headache. 

I’m happy, and I place my trust in the Lord.

God has created me for this purpose, and with the help of His grace, I know we're up to it.