I wonder often about the physiological changes a person undergoes when they have a child. I’ve noticed that I occasionally get this weird feeling like I’m expressing some unconscious trait that I didn’t know I had. Is it too far out there to think that my body has undergone some of the same — or similar — biochemical changes that Leah’s has? I try to think of myself sometimes as the very end of a long, long line of evolutionary development, only the latest occurrence in an innumerable chain of fathers who’ve come to understand (vaguely) that somewhere deep down in their mitochondria there’s a signal telling them that their child must be protected and nurtured, maybe even at all costs.
I was lying with Ava this morning while Leah showered. She rolled over in the bed and snuggled up to me, and I was suddenly overcome with this feeling of possessiveness. For the tiniest part of a second, it was Ava and me against the world, and I could feel the weight of my responsibility bearing down on my shoulders and squeezing my chest. Her lips parted as she let out a soft sigh on the pillow next to me, and I got that some old sensation — almost like deja vu now — that I couldn’t possibly be the father of this…being next to me. How can it be? I know about the biological process that created her, and I understand it, but I couldn’t reconcile that with the tight little curls of blond hair resting on Ava’s cheek in the dim light of our bedroom. What beautiful, strange ephemera fill that space between the science of Ava and the feeling of her?
And then the moment was gone. Ava rolled onto her back, raised her little fists above her head on outstretched arms, and turned her face toward the window. Time for breakfast, and getting dressed, and brushing teeth and hair. A different, more mundane and not so profound, sense of responsibility took over. I scooped Ava up off the bed and carried her downstairs to scramble some eggs.