Decades before he was born, my son already had a name. I was in high school, dreaming about the future, as adolescents do, when I named him Christopher. When pronounced, the name, Christopher Kime, has an alliterative, rhythmic quality that seemed to fit the boy I was imagining. In the technical terms of poetry, the syllables of the first and last names together form a trochee (strong, weak) followed by an iamb (weak, strong). The name glides easily off the tongue. A perfect name for a perfect boy - one I hadn't even met.

In daydreams I wasn't bound by the strictures of reality. In the video of Christopher that I was writing and directing in my mind, I had total artistic freedom to depict an idealized father-son relationship. I envisioned us going to Descanso Gardens in La Canada (I lived in Southern California at the time) on weekends, just as my father and I had done. Dodger games, of course, and boat trips to Catalina, hikes in the Angelus Forest. Maybe, if we trained enough, a climb to the top of Mt. Whitney (14,497 ft.) in the Sierra Nevadas.

In addition to joint physical activities, I dreamed of sharing favorite books, discussing politics (I imagined him as a Democrat), philosophy and religion. And, of course, lots of talk about girls, always an exquisite mystery to the male mind. I'd already written the program for our relationship by the time I was 16.

Most of all I wanted a free, easy and emotionally uninhibited relationship that allowed me to share with him, and him with me, without fear. Recalling the text in I John, "Love casteth out all fear," I longed for a loving and fearless relationship with my then-fictional son.

The desire for a son seems to be embedded in men. Someone to interact with who has a Y chromosome and is thus capable of understanding man-speak. Someone who doesn't break into tears and rant about emotional insensitivity every time a discussion/argument ventures into the realm of logic.

My boy-hope was also motivated by a need to perpetuate the family name through male progeny. I was the only man left in the family actively engaged in the business of reproducing. My three siblings are all girls. My uncle (the only sibling of my father) had four girls. With my then-wife, I had sired two girls, but no boy. In 2002, when I was 41, it seemed that no more Kimes would be produced by this genetic line. Yet we wanted another child.

So we did what every 21st century yuppie couple does - we went to a fertility specialist. He presented various options for producing a boy. Like a GM dealer who shows you a Chevy, then a Buick, followed by the pice de resistance, a Cadillac, our doctor explained the options and their costs. He started from an inexpensive and only somewhat reliable method, to one that was expensive but guaranteed to succeed. The latter process cost in 2002 dollars 35,000, and involved selecting a known male sperm and injecting it into the egg.

We took the cheapest route.

We anxiously waited months after conception for the ultrasound that would reveal the gender of our third, and last, child. I can still remember that moment when the doctor said it was a boy, with 100 percent certainty. I was not one to cry (that's changed a bit with age). But I almost did at that moment. Eye liquid welled up and balanced on my eyelids but did not spill over. So technically I didn't cry.

He was born in March 2003, and the name Christopher Kime was put on the birth certificate - of course. At the moment I heard his first cry, I turned away from where all the important action was happening to face the wall. His cry prompted me to cry along with him - he from fear, I from joy. I was surprised by an ineffable joy, to paraphrase the title of a poem by Wordsworth. I cannot convey in words the emotional power of that singular moment. A boy formerly "existing" only in my imagination was now a boy in my arms.

Genetics sometimes produce strange results in human procreation. A piece of the mother here, a piece of the father there, some atavism from way back in another feature, we are all assembled from an assortment of disparate parts, like a Raggedy Ann doll. Christopher has my face (cheeks and mouth), skin (snow white) and eyes, but some other progenitor's hair, who I don't know. He has his mother's personality through and through. He is upbeat, friendly to everyone, gregarious, athletic, totally embracing of the world. Everything that I am not.

The last point is a relief for me. The last person I wanted Christopher to be like, both when he was a mere player on the stage of my imagination and later in reality, was me. I felt that way as a teenager when I "named" him, and when I watched him being born 12 years ago, and as I've witnessed him grow and develop.

We all make mistakes as individuals and parents. I have made more, many more, than my fair share. For one, his mother and I are divorced, just like my parents. That was the last thing I wanted to happen to my children, but happen it did. I carry deep regret for that, along with my other misdeeds. Parents worry, perhaps excessively, about how their mistakes might affect their offspring in the long run. We start savings accounts to fund their future psychotherapy. We wring our hands; we hover and become overprotective. We wince as our children display some of our own negative personality traits. We choose to believe they'll grow out of it.

But thus far Christopher appears to be largely unscathed by my fatherly ineptitude and personal failings. This fits right in with the way I hoped he would be when I first sketched his portrait in my adolescent mind.

Father's Day is a reminder of all the reasons I love my son - and daughters, of course. All fathers feel this. I trust my readers won't consider this a sacrilege, but I'd like to end with words uttered long ago about another Son: Christopher is my son, the embodiment of all I'd hoped for, and in whom I am well pleased. It is a good day to be a father.

Karl Kime is a Coeur d'Alene attorney.