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My university experience, like that of so many others, was rich. I was a college athlete and editor of a campus paper. I had discovered a love for philosophy, and I was thinking seriously about going to graduate school. Life was great, an ocean of potential.
And then I got the phone call that changed everything. Only one sentence of the conversation really mattered: "I'm pregnant."
With these two words, Jennifer turned my world upside down. I had no income, no degree, and no set future plans.
When the phone line went dead, I put on my running shoes and took off into the night. It was cold, Boston cold. And it was raining. I ran hard for eight, maybe ten, miles. My legs raced; my mind raced faster. I screamed at the sky.
Of course, you can't run away from your problems forever, so within days I settled into stage two of my reaction. I pouted. I pouted through my new summer job, painting houses in the hot sun. The previous summer I had taken a course in creative writing; now I was on rooftop gables, taping up windows, and scraping away peeling paint. I pouted through Lamaze classes and prenatal appointments.
I even pouted through Jennifer's early labor. At one point, I actually told her to "pull herself together." (Future fathers, do not do this.) The nurses, luckily, were more sympathetic and were keeping a close eye on her. They watched the baby's internal heart monitor and noticed that it was dropping rapidly. Suddenly it flatlined, and within seconds the entire room was filled with scrambling nurses and doctors. Jennifer was prepped for an emergency C-section, and I quickly put on a sterile gown to join her. The tiny little family that I had resented was in mortal danger. Jennifer was possibly dying. My unborn baby was surely dying. I was horrified.
Until that moment, I had bought into the myth that children are nothing more than a drain: a financial drain, an emotional drain, a dreamkilling drain. I viewed children as little more than vampires, sucking the lifeblood out of their parents. I feared becoming one of...