Exactly one year ago last night Nigel was a nervous wreck.
After MANY months of being "so ready to finally get this baby out” of her, suddenly the cold, hard realization of what was about to go down must have dawned on her and she became almost inconsolably frightened. It took an enormous effort just to get her (and myself) to get some rest that night, even though we knew that the next day could prove to be one of the longest, most exhausting, and let's be honest, dangerous days of her life.
To be honest, I was a lot more nervous than I let on …and with good reason. Between the two of us we had ample experience; we had collectively delivered 3 healthy babies. But we also had, between the two of us, 20 collective years of time since our last childbirth and an increasingly acute feeling that we didn't know what to expect.
What if something goes wrong? What if we have finally spun the roulette wheel one too many times and used up all of our allotted good luck and certain danger lay before us? What if the past decade since the last baby has lessened her memory of the pain that she experienced before and she was in for something that she couldn't handle?
These were the questions that kept her (us) up that night and plagued our thoughts all the next morning while we made the long drive to the hospital (whose name escapes me at the moment).
Of course I wouldn't be telling this story if it didn't have a happy ending: The baby arrived right on time. Her labor and delivery went beautifully and far better than we expected with no complications. Both King and his beautiful Mom were healthy and in good spirits.
I guess the point of this whole long-winded story is that today is King’s 1st birthday and I was just reminded of how much of a treasure he is to our whole family.
Happy Birthday, Kingy-boy.
Love, Dad
