New baby, fatherhood changes a man

The word fatherhood has been on my mind throughout my life. I was first introduced to fatherhood by watching my own father raise my sisters and me the best way he knew how.
After the first couple years being married to my wonderful wife, we decided to start our own family.
A few years had gone by and we had no success. We were told by doctors that due to health reasons, it will be harder for us to have a child of our own.
There were many moments of tears and frustration, but we knew that things would be okay and that we could pursue adoption or fostering to grow our new family.
 A few months later we were surprised with the news that my wife was expecting. The reality of being a father started to set in.
The pregnancy went by as relatively normal as it could and my wife handled everything like a champ. We worked really hard to prepare ourselves for this life changing event, but in the end, we knew that it wasn’t something we could be 100 percent ready for.
Time flew by until finally it was my wife’s 39-week appointment with our great doctor, who took great care of us the entire pregnancy.
Our doctor preformed an ultrasound and decided that something didn’t seem right with one of the images and told us we needed to go up to the University of Utah Hospital to meet with a specialist.
We were in shock. It had been a perfect pregnancy and we were expecting our baby to be born at the hospital in Price.
Two days later we drove up to Salt Lake City and met with the doctor at the University of Utah Hospital. Soon after we were in labor and delivery waiting for the baby to come. The doctor said she found a potential problem with our baby and that my wife needed to deliver there in Salt Lake City.
Thirty hours after my wife checked in, our beautiful baby girl was born.
I fell completely in love with my baby and knew that after years of frustration and concern, it was worth the wait. Things felt right.
I wish I could tell you that we were in the hospital for two more days and then all three of us got to go home. That was not the case. The doctors found an infection and some other worrying signs, so my daughter spent her first three weeks of life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Those three weeks were the most gut wrenching, hard, tiresome, and rollercoaster-like weeks of our lives. We felt as though we had been robbed of the normal experience starting out as parents. Everything we planned for was scrapped and we were living day by day.
After three weeks, my daughter was discharged and we finally got to begin the life we wanted.
We have been home for over a month now and being a father has changed me. I am more selfless, loving, and I feel important.
Sometimes when I am up at night feeding my daughter and it is 2 a.m., I think about how surreal it is: this child is mine and this is really happening. She has my hair and her ears look like mine. Being a father is kind of crazy.
I can’t write this and not mention the importance of my wife in this whole process. She is a great mother, wife, and is my best friend. I could not handle the rigors of being a father and dealing with the late nights, dirty diapers, and craziness without her.
Being a father requires so much, but it also requires all of yourself. If you are lucky, like I am, to have another parent in the picture, then it requires all of their time, energy, and focus as well.
I am a worrier. I mean I worry about a lot of stuff, especially what my career is going to be and how I am going to pay my bills.
While my daughter sleeps in the other room with my wife watching her, I can write this with full confidence: what I do as far as a career is not really a concern to me anymore. My wife and child are my main focus.
I look forward to the challenges in life and will do whatever I can to be the best father I can be.
Maybe my daughter will write a column about how great a dad I was someday.