My son,

At our first ultrasound, your mother reached for my hand.

I made her reach twice.

I was sitting beside her head. My hand stayed in my lap, my phone in my pocket. I was thinking about emails, loose ends, the next meeting. Things I could do nothing about from that chair and still couldn't put down.

Then you appeared on the screen.

I saw your first images while I was still thinking about work. Your mother kept watching. I was close enough to hold her hand, and she was having to ask.

I've spent so much of my life trying to become someone people could depend on. I know how to take on more. I know how to keep going when I'm tired. Some of that has helped us. Some of it has made me difficult to live with.

When I'm overwhelmed, I go quiet. When I feel behind, I can get sharp. I've expected the people closest to me to understand what I haven't told them, to know that I'm scared when what they can hear is impatience.

I've expected your mother to see how much I'm carrying and forgive the way I bring it home.

Writing that, I can feel how easily I reach for an explanation. I grew up having to read the adults around me. I learned to make excuses for people I needed. I know where some of this comes from.

Your mother still had to reach twice.

That's what I keep coming back to. I can understand myself and still leave someone I love waiting.

You aren't here yet, and already I can see how I could ask too much of you without ever saying the words. You could learn to wait until I look less busy. You could decide a question isn't worth asking. I could mistake how little you need from me for how well you're doing.

I don't want you to become good at leaving me alone.

There are things I need to learn how to tell the adults in my life. That I'm overwhelmed. That I need help. That I can't keep taking everything on and then resenting the people around me for needing anything else.

You shouldn't have to learn those things about me before you can be a child.

So when I say I won't make you carry what belongs to me, I mean my mood doesn't become your responsibility because we're in the same house. You don't have to find a way to make me feel better before you tell me what you need.

I will still have to work. There will be times I can't stop immediately. But I don't want you having to guess whether there's room for you in my day.

Next time, my phone stays out of the room.

That won't settle everything I've written here. I've made private promises before. I need help noticing what I excuse in myself, and I need to ask for it without making your mother responsible for catching every time I drift.

If I put my worry on you, I owe you more than an explanation of my childhood. I owe you an apology. I need to take care of what I handed you.

I want to be able to say, That was mine. You didn't do anything wrong.

And I want you to believe me because of what happens afterward.

At our first ultrasound, your mother's hand was open beside her head.

I was close enough to take it.

~ Dad