At the time I write this, our son is now 6 weeks old. I wondered how much I would write in the first few weeks of his life, or if I would take notes of things to mention in future posts, but really, I just wanted to experience life with him and figured I would just sum it up later.

I am in awe of my wife and her ability to bring him in to this world. She kept him nice and healthy inside for 41 weeks and then was incredible during labour. I am so glad I could be involved in that and help her through it. The path we’ve gone through has not been easy, and generally is not easy for so many people. I am thrilled that we’ve made it through to meeting our child, and a massive part of that is thanks to my wife, from whom I will always be grateful.

The first 6 weeks of his life have been wonderful, joyous, beautiful, confusing, exhausting, hard, and the best ever. There have been moments of extreme sleep deprivation, frustration when crying just won’t stop, and feelings of being overwhelmed. What I am grateful for is that these moments are fleeting. Just as they say that newborns grow so fast, every moment feels like a lifetime when you are in it, but really, it blows by pretty quick and you are on to the next.

I have been overwhelmed most by feelings of love and gratitude as more and more people celebrate his arrival and show their love for us. There have been so many people who have given gifts that I don’t even know, or would never have expected in any way. Then there are the friends and family and coworkers and neighbours who have given many enormously generous gifts of love that I don’t know how to ever repay it, but it’s a good thing I believe in the concept of paying it forward. Thank you to all who have shown us love as we reach this milestone.

There is so much that we do not know, but yet it is surprising how much has come naturally. We are both people who read alot and have longed and prepared for so many years for this moment, and I guess it shows. It surprised me how easily he slipped into our life and everything shifted around him. Sleep took a bit to figure out (and I know it’ll need reconfiguring many times as we go), but we continue to find what works for us, and many things just seem to happen organically as we learn and grow alongside him and his needs.

His needs are simple, but to him they are the biggest of problems, all at once. They are all he knows. He is helpless, he needs us, and he can only cry to deal with it all.

Today he screamed and cried his way through another bath (less than last time though!) peed all over the bathroom on the way to the tub, pooped all over his towel 4 times while I tried to dry him off and get him dressed again, and the whole time I kept singing to him from the bath time playlist that I have created for us.

After finishing up everything and holding him in his room, I had found myself singing “Long Live” by Taylor Swift. While I sang the song to him, the line “If you have children someday” made me instantly fall apart in tears. The bath was exhausting as usual, but here we were…calm again. By this point, he was happily nuzzling his head into my neck. The only tears were mine as I continued singing:

“Long live the walls we crashed through
I had the time of my life with you
Long, long live the walls we crashed through
How the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
And I was screaming, “Long live all the magic we made”
And bring on all the pretenders, I’m not afraid
Singing long live all the mountains we moved
I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you”

The poop blowouts that put everything on pause.
Middle of the night showers because the baby threw up all the way down your back.
The endless crying for seemingly no reason at all.
Problems you can’t solve for them because you’re stuck in traffic.
Completely new sleep patterns resulting in more caffeine being drunk than ever before.
Bath time that seems like torture, or bottles that don’t meet their needs properly.
Learning how to communicate when nothing makes sense.

These are just some of the dragons we fight together through the newborn stage. You go through hard, exhausting, frustrating moments only to come out the other side and have this tiny human happily giving you all the love in the world.

And I get to do it. I have this.

I sang that song to him while continuing to cry with gratitude and knowing that I would fight any dragon he has, even if it’s bath time. We’ll do it together, and it’ll be the time of my life.