I'm grateful for colic and difficult teen years: they end sooner than I anticipated and once gone, I see what a gift they were.

Almost certainly, whatever you are going through now as a parent is something you will one day miss--and probably very soon.

30 years ago, just two weeks before Thanksgiving, my wife and I went to a routine OB/GYN appointment. After some basic tests, the doctor told us that the baby she was carrying--our first--needed to be induced right away, a few weeks early.

We were so very young, so untried and untested in every way. I'm not sure one is ever fully prepared for a first ch…