How to Be a Seahorse Dad
When your baby has a meltdown on the C train at rush hour and everyone stares – never fear. No one knows you birthed this little one you can't soothe. Let them imagine it's mommy's day off. Let them slot you into that well-trodden role of inept father. If all else fails, pretend it's your stop and get off.
When someone stops you in line at the cafe and, teary-eyed, tells you she just came from a funeral and needs to stare at your baby for a while, turn the stroller so she can. Look her in the eye and say, "I'm sorry for your loss." Let her tell you about the physical acts of caring for her dying mother, the soiled diapers, that she would give anything to change her mother's diaper again. Breathe in her grief. Let her keep watching your son, who sits wide-eyed, chewing the fingers of one hand. When she says, thank you for helping to bring him into the world, smile and say thank you. Resist the urge to say you grew him within you and pushed him into the world. But wonder if maybe she can tell.
Your boobs are showing.
Find any excuse to tell your birth story whenever your partner has his cis gay friends over. Having a homebirth makes this easier. Say, "I had him right over there by the electrical outlet," and point at the nondescript outlet over a nondescript wooden baseboard, now plugged with those plastic safety plugs.
Tell only the parts of your birth story that you want to tell. Don't tell how the moment he was out you feared he was dead and it was all your fault, everything, how you thought you had gotten so close and might yet be left with nothing.
Tell instead how they slid him toward you on a towel, how he grabbed immediately at your St. Anne medal and you had your partner slide it off over your head and that was the moment you became a parent.
When pumping in a public place, choose a wrap that's masculine but busy, like a plaid tartan.
Pump at your desk. Pump at plenary sessions of conferences. Pump in the car. Feed your baby by the ocean with a towel draped over you, and remember the joy you felt a year ago taking your newly pregnant body to the nude beach.
Don't explain things you don't want to explain.
Thank the woman working at the front desk who looks past your newborn to you and asks how you're doing and waits for your real answer. Feel seen.
Don't give up on being a sexual person. Don't.
Write. Write on your phone while nursing.
Or just scroll aimlessly. No pressure.
Feel like you're between stories, like all of the stories are some sort of costume chest and you're about to strew them all over the floor. Like you already know the one you are looking for isn't there.
Because you are still writing it.
Feel like you're doing it wrong when your baby won't sleep. Decide not to feel that way anymore.
Love your body but miss your old one. Feel grateful to not have weird toxic positivity narratives about your beautiful postpartum body.
Don't forget to trim your beard.
