06 Sep One for the Dads…
This is an open letter to my baby’s daddy. This is a letter to all the Dads. This, is a letter of thanks…
Thank you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart – where the cracks are. The cracks you have seen in the making, and have patched up. The cracks that are there because my heart has swollen with love so often I’ve felt it could burst. The cracks that ache with the vulnerability I now contain, ever since my babe left my body, and forever will.
Thank you. Thank you for letting this new time be all about me, and him. Thank you for letting our needs be more important than yours. Thank you for doing everything you can to ensure we are comfortable and reassured, even though your own world has flip turned too. Thank you for not taking a back seat, but stepping up to where you belong – up front – quietly leading and guiding us through the dark.
Thank you for being my shelter, my strength, and my gentle love. Thank you for being my outward voice, when I needed to go within. Thank you for having all of those awkward conversations I didn’t want to. Thank you for being my confidant, my ally, my support, my friend. Thank you for building a wall between us and the rest of the world, and for helping me to climb over it once the time came that I was ready. And also for the times when I was not.
Thank you for your stability – for creating a safe and secure home for us, our fragile new family – when it felt like my own foundations were crumbling.
Thank you for seeing my tears and not trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. Thank you for knowing that I have never actually been happier, even when I am sobbing and at my wits end. Thank you for not demanding I get up off the kitchen floor and, instead, sitting down there with me and telling me I am doing so well, that I am doing my best. And thank you for knowing just how much that is.
Thank you for all of the times you have rubbed my back, and held my hand, and stroked my head – and slept in a chair, or on the couch, or drove around in circles in the middle of the night so that we could sleep instead.
Thank you for that time you smiled at me, when I peed on you during labour – and also for that time afterwards, when you nonchalantly peed in front of me as I brushed my teeth. Thank you for repairing my own dignity, with parts of yours.
Thank you for kissing my cheeks, with tear stains 3 days old, and stroking my unwashed hair and telling me how beautiful I am. But more than that – thank you for making me feel beautiful.
Thank you for getting up in the night with me – not because you wanted to help, but because you knew it was your responsibility just as much as it was mine.
Thank you for quietly ordering pizza when you came home to see no meal prepared. And thank you for adding a chocolate pudding to the order, with no intention of making me share.
Thank you for not being embarrassed about buying those ENORMOUS pads I had to wear in my pants – when I was too tired to get dressed and leave the house. Thank you for affectionately resting your hands on my extra bumps and telling me you think my PJs look sexy.
Thank you for your kindness and your unconditional positive regard – even (ok, especially!) when I have yelled at you to go away.
Thank you for knowing how much you are needed, even when I need to be alone. And thank you for knowing that when I said ‘I am lonely,’ it wasn’t from you – but from me.
Thank you for letting me grieve those things that have changed and been lost and remain out of my control, and thank you for trusting in my love and happiness – knowing that I didn’t mean it, when I said I wanted to run away.
Thank you for appreciating the things that is our baby’s prerogative to take for granted.
Thank you for telling me I do not need to thank you, that it is every bit your responsibility to share the load. Our load. Thank you for picking me, for being in my team.
Thank you for reminding me that the care-free, fun-loving girl, with the easy nature, is still here – that she is still me.
Thank you for giving meaning to my life, and for seeing the good in me, as I go through some of my most challenging days.
Thank you for soothing my tears, as I soothed theirs; for sharing all the joy of all the firsts; and for caring about them just as much as I do.
Thank you for knowing how much you are valued and appreciated – even without it always being said.
Thank you for being you; for being ours – and, above all, thank you for loving us.
We love you, too.
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Happy Father’s Day – to all the amazing Daddys out there (both the newbies and the old-timers)!
Thank you for making us mothers – we couldn’t do it without you.
x
About the Author
I am a lover and a writer. Wife to Nick. Mumma to Beau. NZ Marriage Celebrant. I have a degree in Psychology and a background in Theatre. I used to write poetry, but now I write: Love Letters to Baby, where I openly share my experience of this terrifying, challenging, and utterly magical journey we call motherhood.