Reflection #20/40

We waited and waited and waited what seemed like forever for Alice to go into labor. Finally they scheduled us to come into the hospital on a Wednesday, to induce labor, but what do you know, Alice started going into labor before we got there. It was afternoon when we got there. They told us that the baby would be born by 11:00.

That was a lie. After we had been there for a few hours Alice fell asleep, for quite some time. I dozed off in a chair next to the bed, nervous but exhausted.

Finally Alice woke up, and the doctors and nurses came in, and things started happening very quickly. Sometime, around 2 in the morning on November 20, 2008, Abigail Elizabeth Connor was born.

I saw them deliver her. She was small and pink, her head was slightly squished, and she was filthy. She was also the most beautiful person I had ever seen. I loved her immediately.

They cleaned her off, checked her vitals, and handed her to me. It was a profound moment; it went beyond terrifying, into the transcendent.

I remembered Alice telling me that, when she was born, her dad recited the opening lines of Romeo and Juliet to her. Alice went on to major in Theater, so who knows, maybe that had an effect. I looked down at my newborn baby girl, the center of my world, and softly whispered to her, “There came a time when the old gods died . . . ”