Editor’s Note: To celebrate Father’s Day, the Daily News chose to tell the story of one man’s relationship with his baby girl.
FORT WALTON BEAC H — Jimmy Pitts can’t remember a time when he didn’t dream of being a father. Even as a little boy, he knew he wanted to have children someday.
But life doesn’t always have what you want most on its menu. And as he reached his mid-30s, the Fort Walton Beach man had become resigned to being “that guy” — Uncle Jimmy — when his friends and their families gathered.
Last year, when his girlfriend of nine years became pregnant, he allowed himself to hope. But his tiny daughter was born two months early, weighing less than 5 pounds, and had drugs in her system.
Jimmy tested clean. His girlfriend didn’t. Child welfare officials took Zoe into protective custody in her first hours of life and put her in a foster home for two months.
“I’ve wanted her my entire life,” he says. “To have that taken away from me at birth just about killed me.”
He left his girlfriend so that he could be a father. During those early months he visited Zoe on Saturdays and Sundays. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day they spent together.
By her 2-month birthday, Zoe was back with her daddy. Now almost 7 months old, her weight has nearly tripled since birth.
“She’s beautiful and wonderful and my first and only child,” Jimmy says, changing her tiny diaper with hands so big they circle her chest when he holds her up.
Zoe has been a daddy’s girl since the beginning. Jimmy has two voices: one for talking to the rest of the world and the other for talking to his bright-eyed baby girl.
He gets up with her several times a night to feed her and can’t resist her desire to play. Minutes slip into hours and he guesses he loses more than two hours of sleep each night.
“Exhausted,” he answers, when asked how he is coping. “But I would give up any amount of sleep to have her.”
On weekends, they visit family or go to the park. His favorite is the one near Beal Memorial Cemetery, where the swings are shaded and big enough for Jimmy.
“She’ll wrap her arms around Daddy and fall asleep,” he says. “It’s awesome.”
Sleep deprivation has been challenging, as was getting her on a schedule in the beginning. But the hardest part of being a father was putting his baby girl in day care.
“Leaving her, that hurt my feelings,” he says. “I cried a couple of mornings. I just wanted to spend every single second with her.”
He’s dating again, a woman he’s known for more than a decade with two children of her own. She takes care of Zoe while he works as a general contractor.
He handles the needs of an infant girl with ease, cheerfully changing her diaper twice in 15 minutes, praising a loud burp and dropping the name of her pediatrician. She is tiny against his massive frame, sitting in his lap like a precious doll and smiling.
“Some of her smiles and looks can make me cry,” he says. “She’s my blessing. She’s my little girl.”
