I had a rare treat over the weekend–I saw a baby born.
The mom, a free spirit who has embraced everything about motherhood, invited her extended family to come into the birthing room at Marquette General Hospital and, together, experience a miracle.
A miracle. That’s certainly what it was, regardless of your religious views.
A little boy–all 5 lbs 8 oz of him–who had been making a bigger and bigger bulge in his mother’s belly for the last nine months, finally burst into this bright and noisy world. Five grunting, panting, crying pushes from Mom is all it took.
An “easy birth” is how it was characterized. If you say so. All I can say is we men have no comparable experience.
But what we all got to experience in that birthing room was extraordinary, breathtaking. There was Dad, at his wife’s side, tears streaming down his face, crying, “There’s our baby! There’s our baby!”. There was Grandma at her side urging her daughter, “Just one more push! There he is! He’s beautiful!”
And there were the two wide-eyed, teenage stepdaughters, tightly squeezing each other’s hands, their mouths agape, witnessing the wondrous beginning of a life.
And, of course, there was Mom, in excruciating pain but focused like never before, and determined to give her baby boy his first look at the world. Five minutes later, wet and wrinkled and red, he was at Mom’s breast. Fifteen minutes later, he was in Dad’s arms.
Yeah, we all understand evolution and we know that birth is universal–it happens every minute of every day all over the world–but, damn, it sure seems like a miracle.
It’s a brand new person, tiny and innocent, ready to be shaped by the rest of us. It makes you want to create a better world for him.