recovering from childlessness

Hello, my name is Jason, and I am a recovering Childless Person. Before entering into this treatment program I had no children and lived a childless life. My story is by no means unique. I lived the organized pointlessness similar to many others afflicted with this disease. I scheduled (and kept) appointments with other people, I went to bed at reasonable hours and woke up when my alarm sounded. I had "free" time in which I did things like read, write, (I am ashamed to say) fly kites. I even planned things that one could only do during "free" time, believing that I deserved this time to myself. I see now that l was addicted to these spare moments without obligation and they were controlling my life. Things began to turn around about ten months ago when my wife got pregnant. My life began to spiral out of control and it became clear that I was not going to be able to sustain my childless lifestyle for much longer. I could say that I hit bottom exactly 28 days ago and my childless existence ended. That is when I checked into this program and my recovery began.

Most of you are familiar with this program. It is basically a "deep end of the pool" approach involving a chaotic, unpredictable, "schedule" of soothing shrill cries, changing poopy diapers, getting spit-up on and peed on with occasional "rest periods" of staring into my son's shiny grey eyes as one would stare into a bottomless well.

Many of you are also familiar with the "12-steps" of childless recovery--the new blueprint for my life:

1) I admitted that I am powerless over my childlessness and that it had come to define me.
2) I acknowledged that there is a Power stronger than myself--namely, my child.
3) I made a decision to turn my life over to the taking care of a child.
4) I made a searching inventory of all of the baby-related stuff at Target and Toys-R-Us, and gave this list to people to buy.
5) Admitted to myself, my wife, and anyone who would listen that I have no idea how to take care of a baby.
6) I was entirely ready to have a baby remove defective open spaces of time from my schedule.
7) I humbly asked my baby to forgive me for bonking his forehead on the arm of the rocking chair as tried to move him into an new position that might make him stop crying.
8) I made list of all of the persons that we need to send "Thank you" cards to for food and gifts.
9) I made direct amends with my neighbors who can surely hear my child's wailing in the middle of the night.
10) I continue to take a personal inventory and if I ever find myself with out a barf rag handy, take steps to correct the situation.
11) Seek through endless asinine babble to make a conscious connection with my child in anticipation of the day that he can just tell me what he needs without screeching.
12) Having been awaken by his crying, try to carry his message to his mom to feed him so that I can get a few more minutes of sleep.

I know that these 28 days are by no means the completion of my recovery from childlessness but are rather the beginning of a lifelong process of growth and struggle as I learn to live my life without the need of "free time."

Thank you for your support