Iris, on her 1-month birthday.

A month ago, I became a dad.

For me, its a new label. But to Iris, our little girl born on Nov. 5, I’ve always been that way. Dad.

We heard later that night there was an election, but for us the results were in by 10 a.m.: A landslide in favor of perfect baby.

And she was. Right at six pounds, long legs and torso, slate-gray eyes, a full head of hair complete with her dad’s unconquerable cowlicks — and her mother’s everything else.

To become Mom and Dad, my wife and I spent the better part of a week at the Hotel St. Charles, sampling their selection of jellos. Overwhelmed by birthing, I even took a sightseeing trip to the emergency room while the women in the room — midwives, nurses, laboring mother — showed pity on the fragile male ego.

My first truth bomb of fatherhood was that if men were required to do this whole birthing thing, the human experiment would have petered out long ago.

Luckily, women are around to do the difficult work. And after a few more emergencies, Iris was born.

Several hours later, she was already a NICU graduate. (Gooooo Premies!) Surely it won’t be the first time she’ll earn a degree ahead of schedule.

About 48 hours later, they let us walk right on out of there. No police escort or anything, no on-call nurses perched in the back seat or down the hall. It was now up to us two — and only us two — to keep her warm and fed and persuaded against crying.

For a month now, we’ve done it. And so far, so good. Recently, Iris has only been waking up once between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. for a feed. She loves a tight swaddle and her mother’s milk. She loves riding in a carrier that keeps her pulled up tight against us, allowing us to do housework or go for walks.

And she’s already a Central Oregon outdoorswoman. On a recent sunny afternoon she took her feed outdoors at Smith Rock, overlooking the Crooked and cheering on the climbers.

All the books tell us that she’s still just in her fourth trimester. She doesn’t know the world exists, though she’s been part of it for a month. She doesn’t understand that we’re actually separate entities from her — or that she herself is a thing.

The fact that she is more fetus than newborn makes it easier to cope when a 2 a.m. wail echoes through the house. It also feels good to know that, to her, there’s no difference between her and us. I’ve learned it feels that way to parents, too.