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.
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