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The author with his daughter Juniper<\/p>\nMoments after my daughter\u2019s birth, I was in tears, though not the kind I was expecting. My wife, Meghan, had just endured a grueling 18-hour labor, and I was standing at the foot of her bed as the doctor retrieved a ruddy, shrieking alien from between her legs and placed it in her arms. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s certainly vigorous,\u201d the doctor said, her voice overly upbeat. \u201cAt least you won\u2019t have to worry about her not communicating her needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first several hours of her life, Juniper didn\u2019t stop making her needs known. A nurse led us to a fluorescent-lit room barely wide enough for two beds and closed the door, trapping the cries \u2014 and us \u2014 inside. <\/p>\n
From the outset, breastfeeding went poorly. We were harvesting colostrum like a rare earth mineral and feeding it to Juniper through a syringe. We tried swaddling her, but she easily wriggled free. Eventually, Meghan pressed Juniper against her body, hoping that one of skin-to-skin\u2019s seemingly mystical qualities included temporary paralysis (it didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n
Outside, the sky was a perfect June blue in Seattle, the Olympic Mountains jutting out clear and white against the horizon. I thought about how, just a few days prior, Meghan and I had watched a breakdance performance at the Neptune Theatre, gone out for Indian food, bought Kewpie mayo at Costco. The modest makings of a life I\u2019d now give anything to reclaim.<\/p>\n
I stared at this being \u2014 my daughter \u2014 in disbelief. I wasn\u2019t overcome by the miracle of life. I wasn\u2019t swept up in love and oxytocin. Instead, I felt a wave of regret so great it threatened to upset my stomach. I crawled into bed next to Meghan, this life we had created resolutely between us. <\/p>\n
\u201cI miss us,\u201d I managed to eke out between sobs. <\/p>\n
I knew it was a terrible thing to say. Meghan had just undergone major trauma to have this baby. And yet, I was haunted by what we\u2019d done. I wasn\u2019t na\u00efve enough to think our challenges were unique, but increasingly I remembered that having a child was a choice, and one we didn\u2019t have to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to make the best of it,\u201d she said, part exasperated, part exhausted. After all, it was too late to do anything to change the situation now. She was our daughter, I thought, and our lives would be forever ruined. <\/p>\n
The author with his daughter Juniper<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Daniel Tam-Claiborne<\/p>\n
Meghan and I joked early on in our relationship about wanting a kid. The discussions were hypothetical, but there was always a hint of conviction about the future. We called it our Quarter Asian, on account of my mixed Chinese heritage. After a few drinks, we would add to a list of potential names we weren\u2019t allowed to share with anyone besides ourselves. <\/p>\n
But in 2021, when the time came to start trying, I got cold feet. Despite the persistence of the pandemic, we were both happy. We had jobs we cared about, a healthy social life, passions and hobbies that vied for our nonworking hours. Mostly, though, we enjoyed our life together. The more I read about childrearing, the more I worried about its effects on climate change and overpopulation<\/a>, but also on a couple\u2019s happiness. Studies have shown that having a child decreases marital satisfaction<\/a> and that parents are less happy with their marriages than nonparents.<\/p>\n In an age when people were having kids later or not at all, I didn\u2019t feel alone in my indecision. There were so many other ways to have a fulfilling life. Did we really need to have a child to give our life meaning? <\/p>\n What eventually tipped the scales was a different question. Which would you regret more: having a kid or not having the opportunity to have one? There were plenty of stories about people who never wanted children until they became too old to conceive. But in all the conversations I\u2019d had with parent friends, I\u2019d never heard a single person regret having their own.<\/p>\n We decided to go for it, uncertainties be damned. In the 10 months that Juniper was gestating, I forced myself to stay optimistic. But the whole time, I couldn\u2019t help wondering: How could I reconcile a relationship I treasured with one I knew nothing about? How could I possibly love someone I\u2019d never even met?<\/p>\n Those questions only intensified after we returned home from the hospital. Meghan and I were committed to equal parenting, which included both taking the maximum amount of parental leave available. In Washington state, that was five months for the birthing parent and three months for me. Meghan took the first shift, but by the time she went back to work and it was my turn, I was miserable. <\/p>\n Spending every waking moment with a baby was the hardest thing I\u2019d ever done, an observation unremarkable to the millions of stay-at-home parents in this country. I loathed the relentlessness. I dreaded the sudden fits. But I also found myself seized by a hopelessness I\u2019d never before experienced. I saw my old self slipping away, and with it, the simple joys that made life worth living. <\/p>\n Instead of talking about it, I hid my negative feelings. I didn\u2019t feel like I had any right to complain. Fathers have historically been ancillary to the project of parenthood, and I knew Meghan was struggling, too. But unlike the ecosystem of books and resources and community available to moms in a similar position, I found almost nothing for dads. I expected caring for Juniper to be difficult, but I didn\u2019t anticipate being faced with a depression so all-consuming that I spent many nights in tears.<\/p>\n I realized that what I was experiencing was postpartum depression, a phenomenon I associated with new mothers but didn\u2019t know could affect fathers, too<\/a>. I read that parental leave can reduce its incidence<\/a>, that taking time off work is good for father-baby bonding as well as parents\u2019 relationship with each other<\/a>. I kept waiting for some signal that my life with Meghan would resemble its carefree past or that my indifference toward Juniper would suddenly turn to cherishing. <\/p>\n But even after two months of parental leave, what I really couldn\u2019t stop feeling was regret. This thing I\u2019d hoped to avoid before Juniper\u2019s conception was suddenly in overdrive, along with the intense shame that accompanied it. What kind of monster could feel this way about his daughter? <\/p>\n Meghan insisted that, in addition to therapy, I needed a change. We enrolled Juniper in daycare. For the last month of my parental leave, I was still her primary caregiver, but having a couple hours to myself drastically improved my depression and even allowed me to see my relationship with Juniper in a new light. We explored the children\u2019s section of our local library. We enjoyed weekday dim sum. We listened to Pearl Jam together during bath time. I filed away each positive association, grateful to have made it through another day.<\/p>\n On the way to and from daycare, we walked past a tattoo shop on whose exterior wall was painted a mural of three animals: a snake with its body coiled, an eagle with wings outstretched and a tiger making scratch marks in the brick. Juniper was born in the Year of the Tiger and has always been fond of animals, but especially big cats. I made a habit of pointing it out to her each time, delighting in seeing her eyes light up. It became a thing we shared, this little reminder that the world\u2019s simple joys were still present.<\/p>\n By Juniper\u2019s first birthday, our family had reached something approaching stability. Meghan and I were both doing our best to balance work and parenthood and had even experienced the three hours of nighttime rapture known as hiring a babysitter. Juniper, for her part, had learned to crawl, sign and undertake the barrage of small but constant changes that are all but imperceptible in a tiny human body, until they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Daniel Tam-Claiborne<\/p>\n One morning, I had her strapped to my chest for our usual walk to daycare when I stopped. The tattoo shop had closed without warning. The chairs and upholstery had been vacated, leaving behind only the faded wallpaper. What was worse was that the mural \u2014 our mural \u2014 had been painted over, too. Soon, the colorful animals would become a distant memory. <\/p>\n It took me a moment to process what happened next: Juniper pointed a finger at the phantom tiger on the wall and emitted a low rumble. She did it again, this time louder, throwing her head back and roaring like an animal. I felt the familiar onset of tears, but this time was different. She had remembered! This thing we shared had meant something to her too. It seemed to encapsulate so much of my experience with Juniper. It was impossible for me to appreciate the moments we shared until they were gone.<\/p>\n As Juniper gets older, I\u2019m increasingly grateful for the time we got to spend together when she was so young. The highs and lows. The tender embraces and the bitter tantrums. I miss everything now, even those episodes I was all too happy to relegate to the past. I know they will only accelerate with time. Never would I have imagined that I would come to mourn the days when it felt like my identity and all my freedoms were taken away. But I realized that love is meaningless without adversity, which is as true for Meghan as it is with Juniper.<\/p>\n 20 Years OfFreeJournalism<\/p>\n Your SupportFuelsOur Mission<\/p>\n Your SupportFuelsOur Mission<\/p>\n For two decades, HuffPost has been fearless, unflinching, and relentless in pursuit of the truth. Support our mission to keep us around for the next 20 \u2014 we can’t do this without you.<\/p>\n We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.<\/p>\n Thank you again for your support along the way. We\u2019re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. ![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/68ac7386170000649363f022.png\")
The author with his daughter Juniper<\/p>\n