My journal entry from last July.
It has been two years since I last celebrated my birthday. In two days time, I turn 33. An age which really to me doesn't matter now. I think at some point turning 30 mattered. Turning closer to another box on a questionaire used to matter. I was asked the other day how old I would be, and I had no idea...It surprised me to think I was that old.

A year ago, I refused to celebrate my birthday. It was one of the worst periods of my life. My wife was pregnant, and had hyperemesis, a condition where morning sickness was extreme, to the point of continual sickness, de-hydration and stays at hospital. It's hard to be happy for a birthday when your wife, partner and soulmate is busy to keep water down, giving life to something deep inside.

Pregnancy should be a time of happiness, and joy and all I remember at that time, whilst I was driving back home to an empty house after holding hair back and being in that hospital, around that 'smell' was "I want my wife back". After weeks of seeing her in that much pain, and all that suffering, all I thought was about how much I missed her. I didn't care about the pregnancy, I wanted my wife back.

In February when Edie was born, though we didn't know what sex she was at this point, she didn't breathe for two minutes. Two minutes. It doesn't sound a long time. It takes more time to boil an egg. You can travel a mile at 30mph. 1605 metres. Think about it, start two minutes and count 120 seconds. When your baby doesn't breathe for two minutes that is the longest period of your life. Those two minutes were all of the years which I might not have, the times I might not have, not even knowing the sex, what sort of life I would be having with them. All I knew then was all the time leading up to the birth I wasn't Dad or father. I was playing pretend about how I thought I should be feeling. The moment I realised that I might not be Dad was the moment I felt like Dad.

In less than a year, it went from wanting nothing more than my wife back to wanting to hear just one cry from Edie. And it came, quietly and tentatively.

And in two days I celebrate my birthday, with my wife and soulmate. And a little girl whose cry I hear every day.

Though now it's with a little more gusto.
(beatpig understands subliminalesbianmessagaying., Thu 17 Apr 2008, 18:55, 7 replies)

Beautifully written
and poignant

*click*
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 17 Apr 2008, 19:00, closed)

There's no terror like it, is there?
Wait till she falls over hard, and there's that gap between the thud and the yell. And it won't be just the once.
*click*
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Thu 17 Apr 2008, 20:07, closed)

well written
*click*
(The Ear-Trumpet Addicting is NOT a word., Thu 17 Apr 2008, 22:45, closed)

That's beautiful.
Have a click.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 12:25, closed)

Well Written
Took a tear to my eye
(Scoobiedoo79, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 12:37, closed)

*click*

*sob*
(w0rmwood pearl, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 12:57, closed)

You made me tear up a little bit there
*click*
(The Who Bird is eating Jaffa Cakes on, Fri 18 Apr 2008, 13:30, closed)