Dear Ellie,
I've always looked down on men who name their sons after themselves. I think its so transparently narcissistic. But how many fathers have named their DAUGHTERS after themselves? Most probably don't have the chance like I do, given that most names aren't gender neutral and most men might think that it reflects poorly on their masculinity if they did.
I joke a lot with people and say that I wanted to name you after me. They laugh, and then I laugh, and then part of me secretly wishes that I had.
My first daughter was named after her father. His name is Alex Rey, so we named her Alexis Reyne. (Pronounced rain.) It started as a joke because I have a boys name, Toni, and I said if we have a boy, let's name him after me so I can have a junior. Her father thought that was a good idea as long as a girl would be named after him. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way :-) I think she would have been a great Dana :-)
DeleteShe would be great by any name. :) You're definitely a wonderful father. I'm reading this while nursing my newest baby. She's 6 weeks old. I can't comprehend how her father isn't interested in her. Or how I could have spent 5 years with someone who can turn his back on his child. He is a good father to his other daughters. But he wanted a boy this time. I just wanted a healthy baby. Neither of us got our wish. She is healthy now. She wasn't born healthy because of my BP & stress levels that I couldn't get under control no matter what I tried. He came to see her once in the NICU. He held her for a minute and said, "Yup. She's cute." Then he walked out and hasn't looked back. I think it's made me and my daughter closer. All she has is me. Your daughter is just as blessed to have two wonderful and loving parents as you are to have such an amazing and strong baby. You all really do deserve each other!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words. And believe it or not, while I don't know your husband personally, I can see how he might feel the way that he feels. To put it simply, he probably feels like he has nothing to offer her, right now. Nothing in the world makes a man feel more useless or inept than two things: the NICU and newborns.
ReplyDeleteIn the NICU, there really is so little a man can do for his child. A woman can always produce breast milk, at least, but what can a man do? I found myself in this conundrum. That's why I poured over all of the medical research for some trivial advantage I might give Ellie and also why I started writing her letters. I felt like I needed some kind of angle, some thing I could give her that others couldn't. Even then, it certainly didn't do as much good for Ellie as her mother's milk. In the beginning, I had this peculiar, mounting anxiety. I had this fear of standing around with my hands in my pockets while my daughter suffered. I felt like I was just going to get in people's way. I'd like to think that all of the time I spent at the NICU could be sensed by her, but from what I know of a fetus's brain capacity and sensory organs, I sincerely doubt she knew who I was or that I was even there. Ellie's condition was very dire early on, so I wanted to make sure that if she wasn't with us very long, I didn't miss a minute of her time here on Earth. But if things been less severe? I might have wondered if I, and her, might be better off if I were out of everyone's way.
While Ellie was a "sick" newborn, I found myself challenged as well. Despite how much I wanted her with us at home, despite my ability to teach old folks how to use computers without ever losing my patience, I felt like I had 0 aptitude for dealing with Ellie the first 2 months or so. It taxed me considerably. Unfortunately, before a baby starts smiling, men are endowed with very few parental instincts when it comes to newborns. Even after, all of the books I read and research on developmental milestones, etc., I found that all of my efforts made me about as competent as a slightly below average mother.
As for wanting a boy, just remind him that it's his fault if he gets uppity about it ;-) Personally, I'd be happy if I was shooting nothing but X's. I really wanted a girl. My wife wanted a boy, mainly because she knew that a girl would "have me wrapped around her pinky finger" (so??) I know you aren't supposed to care one way or another, but for all the years we were trying to have a child, I just imagined that Ellie would be a girl. My wife had to take a panorama genetics test as part of our IVF cycle so we learned Ellie's sex when she was just 12 weeks gestation. I remember for the weeks we waited for the results, I felt like a kid waiting to go to Disney World. There were a lot of genetic diseases she was tested for and when we went to the reproductive endocronologist to get the results, I said something to the effect of "I sure hope our baby doesn't have Y-Chromosyndrome." The RE looked at me like I was crazy and said, "uhhh, nope, don't have to worry about that one." Yeeeesssss.
I think a lot of men want boys because they want to, again, feel like they have something to offer to their children. It's been the rule in the past that fathers show boys how to be men and mothers show girls how to be women. Even today with the wall of gender roles being torn down, some men might not feel like they have interests that are properly aligned with gender expectations ("hey honey, let's go outside and throw a football around and afterwords we can lift some weights!") I never felt the need to have a son because all of the interests and hobbies of my wife and I are things that a girl could enjoy, too.
It's really just that he is more interested in going to bars and spending time with his new gf. She's a lot more wild than I am, even though she is 10 years older. I can tell that you're the type of person that looks for the good in everybody. That's definitely admirable! I try to look for the positive in every negative. There are a lot of positive parts to being a single mother. I get her all to myself, and I got to pick her name without him vetoing every name I like. There's definitely plenty of good things about having a complete family, too. A father in the home would be great. He's barely seen her and she's 6 weeks old now. She was out of the NICU in a week. He has a really good job and a good income, but he let me spend the majority of my pregnancy homeless. Just as AJ was born, I was able to move in with some really good friends! We really like it here. But there really just isn't very much good that can be found in my daughter's father. I don't even like to use that word because he doesn't deserve it. But after 5 years and at least a dozen chances, I have to accept that he just isn't the person he pretended to be in the beginning. We all have different struggles in life. This is part of mine. Both of my little brothers also committed suicide in the last couple years, and I was in foster care as a child, plus a million other things. But I'm happy and I hope I can raise my daughter to be happy and strong. I know I'm a strong person, but I don't want her to have to face the struggles I have. I am really enjoying reading your story. Ellie is such a beautiful baby girl!! That was your struggle, and I'm sure you'll agree that the reward was definitely worth the struggle. That's how I feel about my life. My baby girl is absolutely worth everything I went through to bring her here! Sorry to be so long winded. Thank you for documenting your journey.
ReplyDeleteWell, I feel pretty dumb, then. That's what I get for assuming things. I'm sorry you've been dealt a raw hand again, in life. Men like him used to make me very bitter, believe it or not. My wife and I spent years trying to have children and seeing people like him treat as a burden the very thing we wanted most in the world was just too much to handle. Fortunately, there are mothers like you to pick up the slack. I know men like him. They've even told me, once they've grown older, that the product of their lives are regrets. The father of your child? All of those late nights at the bar will be blown from his memory like dust. He'll look back and wonder, probably quite soon, whether he ever really connected with anyone in his life. Whether he was anything other than just a string of mistakes in other people's lives. I think you'll make up for his mistakes though. The product of your life will be nurture.
DeleteI think you are right on your points about single motherhood, too. There are a lot of people who pound on their drums about the virtue of two parent households, but having a good mother and a bad father is far worse than just having a good mother. Why would you want to co-mingle a good influence with a bad influence when you could just stick with the good?
Even with the fertility issues and Ellie's troubles, I have been incredibly lucky throughout my life, and I've always known it. I came from a strong family with a love of knowledge, I met the love of my life when I was 14, and I have a brain that seems a stranger to boredom. I could focus on the things that have brought me sadness, but I think we make our own happiness from the things in our lives worth being grateful for.
Anyway, thanks for chatting :-)
You definitely shouldn't feel dumb! You're just a good person used to being around good people, so you don't just assume that someone is a crappy person.
DeleteMy iPad wouldn't let m keep typing. But I think that my daughter will be better off without his influence in her life. She will have me and my family to cater to her every whim. She is very loved, and she will never feel alone. I think it's best to keep the bad influence away from her. More importantly, I don't EVER want her to feel like a burden, unloved or unwanted. She will always know that she means the world to at least one of her parents. He has always wanted a boy more than anything in the world. I think it's poetic justice that he has 4 daughters now. If he ever has to watch a man treat one of his daughters (at least one of the daughters that he claims) the way he has treated women, he will realize just how bad it was to treat another human being that way. But I don't want to to on and on about my soap opera on your blog. It looks like you have an amazing family and it's wonderful that you and your wife were able to have the baby you've always wanted. It makes me so happy to see people who really deserve their baby recognize what a blessing it is to be able to create life!! It's so sad that it seems like the people who don't realize what an amazing thing it is to procreate get to pop out a litter of little people that aren't taught the right things in life, and the people who would really treasure being parents and try the hardest are unable to do it. I was a nanny to an amazing young man that I am so proud of now. Him and his wife were told they wouldn't be able to conceive. Amazingly they did have their miracle baby. But she was being watched by the grandmother and tragically drowned just a couple weeks before my baby AJ was born. It has devastated the family. They were bringing their baby's ashes to relatives here in Mi & came to see my baby in the NICU & asked me to surrogate since I make such beautiful babies. How could I say no? So I get to create at least one more human before I'm done. :) I really do make awesome kids! My oldest daughter just got a letter from Harvard asking her to consider them. It's her 8th college letter & I couldn't be more proud! She's a 4.0 student and a national basketball champion. Sorry to ramble on! I can be really long winded!
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