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sakon76There are many things I will delight in, and then come to forget over the passage of time. This is the way of human memory; we are made of ephemera.
On the day of your birth, I arose, dressed, did not eat. I went to the hospital to collect your father and big brother (why they were there is a story for another time, and another blog post). We returned home to meet your Nana and send Big Brother to stay with her and Gampa for a few days. (Big Brother was delighted, for all that he looked a little worried as she drove away. It's the first time he'd ever been driven away from us, you see.)
We packed my car with all the things we thought we'd need and returned to the hospital. I worked on embroidering a quilt square until we were admitted, and then while the nurse did one last monitoring session on you. Eventually she took me into the operating room, where the doctors confirmed who I was, what surgery they were to do, and gave me a epidural. After laying me out on the table and prepping me and putting up a blue sheet, they brought your father in.
All I could feel from the waist down was a slight tingle in the toes of my left foot. I gained respect and a little understanding of paralyzed people. My right leg in particular was just so much meat attached to my body.
Your father and I talked of inconsequentials while the doctors cut me open. We were neither of us scared - we had been through this before, with your brother. And like him, you were big. One of the nurses had to lean on me, press hard just under my ribs, trying to pop you out like a pea from a pod. I could feel the pressure even through the numbness. Eventually, we heard you cry.
After a moment, they put you on my chest. You were so little! And yet so big. Nine pounds, eleven ounces. Just three ounces shy of your brother's birthweight. But you were also longer than him by a whole three-quarters of an inch. My big boys!
You kept sliding down my chest, so after a minute Daddy took you. Then he went with the nurse over to the side to watch her as she cleaned you and I don't know what else. After a few minutes the two of them went with you to the post-op room while the doctors stitched me back up. They told me I had been having contractions during the surgery, so I guess this was meant to be your birthday any way you sliced it. They also said I had a lot of scarring in my uterus (from your brother's C-section, I presume), so we might want to consider limiting it to two children. Which was pretty much what we had intended. My not getting a tubal ligation was for other, psychological reasons.
They inflated the mattress I was on, slid it onto another gurney, and took me out to post-op, where you and Daddy were having skin time. After a while, all three of us went to our room in the postnatal unit. And Daddy pressed the button on the wall that played a lullaby, letting the whole hospital know you had been born.
Images that stick in my mind from the first few days:
Your scrotum, like a red Italianate plum hanging between your legs. I'd forgotten how big baby boys' are, proportionally, when they're born.
The weeping red cherry of your penis, post-circumcision.
The raspberry of your mouth as you and I negotiated nursies.
The softness of your skin; rose petals have nothing on it.
Wondering at your full head of hair, as black as Daddy's.
Big brother giving you kisses like candy.
And the baby-powder scent of you, as I fell in love all over again.
Welcome to the world, Peter Gilgamesh. Welcome home.
On the day of your birth, I arose, dressed, did not eat. I went to the hospital to collect your father and big brother (why they were there is a story for another time, and another blog post). We returned home to meet your Nana and send Big Brother to stay with her and Gampa for a few days. (Big Brother was delighted, for all that he looked a little worried as she drove away. It's the first time he'd ever been driven away from us, you see.)
We packed my car with all the things we thought we'd need and returned to the hospital. I worked on embroidering a quilt square until we were admitted, and then while the nurse did one last monitoring session on you. Eventually she took me into the operating room, where the doctors confirmed who I was, what surgery they were to do, and gave me a epidural. After laying me out on the table and prepping me and putting up a blue sheet, they brought your father in.
All I could feel from the waist down was a slight tingle in the toes of my left foot. I gained respect and a little understanding of paralyzed people. My right leg in particular was just so much meat attached to my body.
Your father and I talked of inconsequentials while the doctors cut me open. We were neither of us scared - we had been through this before, with your brother. And like him, you were big. One of the nurses had to lean on me, press hard just under my ribs, trying to pop you out like a pea from a pod. I could feel the pressure even through the numbness. Eventually, we heard you cry.
After a moment, they put you on my chest. You were so little! And yet so big. Nine pounds, eleven ounces. Just three ounces shy of your brother's birthweight. But you were also longer than him by a whole three-quarters of an inch. My big boys!
You kept sliding down my chest, so after a minute Daddy took you. Then he went with the nurse over to the side to watch her as she cleaned you and I don't know what else. After a few minutes the two of them went with you to the post-op room while the doctors stitched me back up. They told me I had been having contractions during the surgery, so I guess this was meant to be your birthday any way you sliced it. They also said I had a lot of scarring in my uterus (from your brother's C-section, I presume), so we might want to consider limiting it to two children. Which was pretty much what we had intended. My not getting a tubal ligation was for other, psychological reasons.
They inflated the mattress I was on, slid it onto another gurney, and took me out to post-op, where you and Daddy were having skin time. After a while, all three of us went to our room in the postnatal unit. And Daddy pressed the button on the wall that played a lullaby, letting the whole hospital know you had been born.
Images that stick in my mind from the first few days:
Your scrotum, like a red Italianate plum hanging between your legs. I'd forgotten how big baby boys' are, proportionally, when they're born.
The weeping red cherry of your penis, post-circumcision.
The raspberry of your mouth as you and I negotiated nursies.
The softness of your skin; rose petals have nothing on it.
Wondering at your full head of hair, as black as Daddy's.
Big brother giving you kisses like candy.
And the baby-powder scent of you, as I fell in love all over again.
Welcome to the world, Peter Gilgamesh. Welcome home.
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