“Could still be a week, a minute, three days …” said the text from my brother. “The imprecision of this process is a hoot.”
Amen!
Children. Especially the non-born kind. They have no respect for time. Due dates. Promptness. That people might have lives and need to get on with them.
Masters of imprecise processes. Boy, if that doesn’t sum it up!
My brother and sister-in-law are due pretty soon. Any day. It’s their first child, and as we all know, it can be an agonizing wait when you’re down to the final days. Uncomfortable. Anxious. Excited. Nervous. Wondering why in the world you thought this was a good idea. How you are ever going to use all the diapers stacked up in the baby’s room. What horrors will await you as you change those diapers!
The more you wait, the worse it gets.
I mean, it’s great practice, right? A taste of the patience you’ll need throughout parenthood: Waiting for teeth to get brushed. Waiting for shoes to be put on. Waiting for them to remember you told them 18 times to brush their teeth and put their shoes on. It’s a wonder we get anywhere or do anything.
Shoot, with children it’s a wonder they ever get born.
As I wait on my little nephew, I’ve found myself growing nostalgic, thinking back to my own daughter’s birth. It was almost 8 years ago. The due date was Dec. 23. In case you didn’t notice, that’s two days before Christmas. And as she has exhibited most of her life, she was in no hurry to get anywhere fast.
We worried she would come on the holiday, and we had visions of Christmas in a deserted hospital. Do they staff maternity wards on Christmas? Or do they give you a do-it-yourself birthing kit with cartoon pictures for instructions?
We didn’t know, but we certainly didn’t want to find out.
“Not on Christmas!” we told the little peanut. “Anything but Christmas. Let Jesus have his holiday!”
We read that walking was good when you needed to move the process along. Trampolines were recommended, but my wife thought that was a little extreme. So on Dec. 23 — the due date — we went to the Alligator Farm. My wife wore overalls, and the poor straps strained just to hold her enormous, child-filled belly.
It was cold and drizzling, and we walked the exhibits over and over again. She stomped and hopped as we walked. We had a picture taken with a baby alligator.
People must have thought we were crazy. These two weird, soon-to-be parents standing shivering in front of a Cuban crocodile enclosure, pleading with a suspender-supported bump: “These are what your relatives in Cuba must have wrestled with. Don’t you want to see?”
I thought the police would show up and drag us off to the psych ward.
But still she didn’t come.
I pictured my daughter in rock climbing gear, clinging on for dear life through all the jostling and jumping. The more the earth rumbled, the tighter she held on.
Hey, who can blame her? It’s nice and warm inside. There is 24-hour food service. Outside there are literally man-eating lizards. Maybe it wasn’t the most ideal of locations.
My wife’s water broke on Christmas morning. We were opening up presents and yelling at the dog to stop eating wrapping paper.
“Now you want to do this?!?” I remember saying.
But she didn’t. She still hung on for another 28 hours, and wouldn’t see daylight until Dec. 26. Another thing about kids: They never finish what they’ve started.
I’ve been reliving the first moment I saw her. This whole experience with my brother has made it crystal clear again. How there is nothing more amazing than that first glimpse you get of your child. Holding her in your arms. Looking into her eyes. Never wanting to let go. That sense that she is an utter stranger, yet someone you have known for a very long time. That calmness that washes over you.
Knowing that the hard part — the imprecision of the process — is finally over.