Monday, December 30, 1991, 18:30

   
 

We arrived at the hospital at around 10:00 in the morning. Your mother had once again felt contractions in the night, and this time they were significantly stronger than five nights earlier. I tried to be helpful as she kept herself busy trying not to feel too much pain, but true to my usual character, I dozed off and left her to suffer on her own. By the early morning it was once again clear that I wouldn't be going to work in the morning.

Still, we weren't sure that things would go particularly quickly. And that was the case even at the hospital, after your mother was checked and told to return in a couple of hours. We were told that you were on the way and that we should stay in the vicinity of the hospital.

Even at that time, your arrival seemed somehow far off in the distance. But by 15:00 we were in our own private delivery room, hooked up to the various mandatory monitors, and from there on things began to run at a fast pace.

There were contractions and attempts to remember how to breathe correctly, and of course pain as well. Part of the time we passed listening to the radio, but toward the end the radio played and we hardly noticed.

And then, of course, there you were.


It probably happens to all parents in the same way - until the moment of birth they maintain some degree of objectivity. They intend to look at their young infant and see what's really there - probably some funny looking tiny and scraggly little baby that more than anything else looks like lots of other newborn babies. But I discovered very quickly that this wasn't the time for being objective. You're beautiful and wonderful and you have already met and surpassed all our expectations.

After nine long months of expectations - of wondering, of trying to picture what and who you are, of snatching at every little, and later big, movement of yours in order to get some conception of the hidden treasure that your mother was carrying in her womb - your time has come.

And through those nine long months, during which time you trampled around your mother's womb with no consideration whatsoever as to what you were causing her, we grew very attached to you. Your mother felt you all the time and I had little choice but to make do with the external signs of that jumping, or to try and communicate with you in the way which was easiest for me - words.

(One of our last pre-natal contacts with you was when you were monitored. At first the monitor wasn't attached properly to your mother and your heartbeat didn't sound like the simple "beep, beep, beep" it was supposed to. Instead, it had a deep echo, and you sounded like the entire U.S. cavalry on the way to a daring rescue. For a moment, until I realized that there was a problem with the monitor, I was really fearful that all of your pre-natal activity which so impressed us was due to the fact that you really were the entire cavalry in disguise.)

I never assumed that you understood what I was writing you - and of course there was no way for you to read my communiques. For a while I'd thought of sending messages by Morse Code, but I'm very bad at Morse, and my guess is that you're even worse.

But through writing to you I became attached to you, and that attachment helped me recognize you immediately when you appeared out of your mother's womb. You're ours.

Throughout these long weeks I've told you about many things - mostly pertaining to yourself, but also about all sorts of other events. Interestingly, I haven't quoted from one of my favorite philosophers, a bear by the name of Winnie the Pooh. Toward the end of The House at Pooh Corner Christopher Robin asks Pooh what it is that he likes doing most. Pooh thinks a long thought: He knows that he loves the taste of honey, but often the thought of tasting honey is even sweeter than the taste itself. What's true for Pooh is true for many of us. Our expectations are often much sweeter than what eventually materializes. But not this time. You're everything that we could have imagined.

 

 


 


Pooh was right about many things, but perhaps not always so on the topic of expectations. Believe me, our expectations of you, no matter how high, can't measure up to the real thing.