Happy Father's Day.

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It has been exactly one year since we told the world about Adelyn. I can't even remember how much sooner before that we found out. It wasn't until we told our families that it seemed real, that it started to seem less terrifying and more celebratory. No amount of introspection brings that first week or weeks back to me. I just can't remember it, it was all too much. So I like to think of Adelyn's timeline beginning here, when everyone was happy.

Father's day, that I remember. I'd finally worked up the courage to tell my mom. I was going to wait, maybe until the second trimester, maybe until I'd come to terms with it myself, but I literally could not hold the words in any longer. My mom has always been my touchstone, the person whose perspective I want to hear and learn from the most. So I told her. I made her go to lunch with me on father's day, even though neither of us were hungry and we were going to eat with my dad in a matter of hours for dinner. I spilled the words out in the car. She nearly swerved into the stop sign and brought the car to a halt. This is what I was expecting--the shock, because no one had expected it, now right now, not anytime soon. But once she put the car in park--ten feet away from my house, that's all the time it took for me to summon the words--she was happy, and spoke nothing but happy words, and then in that moment I started to feel at ease about becoming a mother.

When we got back home from lunch I told my dad. And that was infinitely harder. I didn't want to tell him on father's day, but my mom promised me it would bring him happiness, too. That's the thing about fathers, though--I'm not sure if Jason and I had been married for a decade and I was in my late 30s if I would have felt much differently telling him. But I did, and once again, he was happy. He said it was the best father's day he'd ever had.

Later that day I drove to Jason's parents' house, and we told them. (Again, nothing but joy out of our fear.) They called Adelyn's great grandparents over. Happiness all around.

It wasn't until we were back at home that Adelyn truly came into being in my mind. It was no longer a pregnancy but a new life. That day created a new father, two new grandfathers, a great-grandpa, two aunts, countless other family members alive and passed on who made up this tiny heartbeat inside of my belly, and the heartbeat that is napping right now beside me.

So happy first (or is it second?) father's day, Jason, and to my dad, Jason's dad, Jason's grandfathers and my grandfather and all of the countless fathers out there who have created new life.

And for the memory I'll always hold close of father's day, the day when Adelyn stopped being just a situation but a creation, for that I will always be thankful we used this day to share the news.