COMMENTARY : A First-Time Father Looks Forward to the Challenges Ahead

A beep interrupted me from the maze of figures that I had been working on all afternoon. “Yes,” I mumbled into the speaker. “Honey, can you come and see me in my office? I need to talk to you about something.”

It was Wendy, my wife and fellow employee. “Sure,” I replied, while thinking darn, I was just starting to make sense of the financial challenge that lay on my desk.

I was curious that she had asked me to see her in her office. Being the president of the organization I was pretty used to having employees see me in my office, so I knew that something had happened.

A few minutes later I appeared in her doorway. Wendy was sitting working at her computer.

“Hi. Come on in and close the door,” she said.

As I did she bent back in her chair. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Well,” she smiled, “I have a job I need help with. Do you think you can handle another one?”

“What sort of job?” I inquired.

“How about daddy?”

“What?” I laughed. “You mean we’re. . . .”

“Yep,” she interrupted. “And guess what . . . the doctor thinks there may be more than one. . . .”

That was my introduction to the prospect of fatherhood.

That conversation was held just over 11 months ago. Since then I have become the proud father of twin girls--Sarah and Maiah. I say proud because I can say without bias that they are the most beautiful little girls that God ever blessed anyone with--and also because i’m a paraplegic. At the ripe old age of 18 I became paralyzed when I broke my back in a freestyle skiing accident in Park City, Utah. From that moment on a wheelchair replaced my feet as my main means of locomotion.

When Wendy and I were married we were not certain that we would be able to have children of our own because of the injury to my spinal cord. Wendy, being a physical therapist, knew that this was a possibility, but whenever I would raise the question she would reply, “I’m not certain that I can have children. No one knows until they produce them.”

We left it at that for six years as we worked hard and traveled extensively with our jobs. We were not certain that we would be able to have our own children, but we knew that when we were ready to have kids we would either conceive our own or we would adopt.

After six years we decided that we were both ready for the challenge of parenthood. We worried whether it was possible for us, and after our decision pregnancy didn’t come easily. At the time it seemed like it would never happen. But now that our two precious little bundles have arrived it’s hard to imagine that we ever lived without them or that we had to wait all that time to conceive them.

I am a new daddy. I learned in a very short time that this job of being daddy is in some ways the most difficult and in other ways the easiest job I’ve ever taken on. Difficult because of the long hours working weekends, holidays and vacations. Difficult because of the energy, imagination, endurance and flexibility required; but easy because these children are a gift from God and I am so thankful they are a part of my life.

Who else but a father can appreciate witnessing his baby being born, holding his own flesh and blood for the first time or that first smile and first laugh. Just the thought of those things is guaranteed to melt my heart every time.

Wendy and I know that we have a difficult path ahead of us. That path is well trodden by all the parents who traveled it before us.

Many of you reading this column may be thinking right now, “Those poor things . . . they don’t know what’s ahead of them!” You’re right. But you know what? We’re going to have a lot of fun along the way because we’re one of those couples who didn’t know if we’d ever have the honor of walking down this path.

Many tread it wearily, some unwillingly, and others try to hurry along as fast as they can, filling their lives with so many other things they don’t appreciate the roses along the way.

We’re going to be skipping down this path--wheelchair and all! This Father’s Day is my first-- and I’m going to be enjoying every minute of it! And I hope that our experience will encourage others who are physically challenged to not give up hope that they, too, can have children and experience the joys of parenting.