One

On November 17^th, 2011 at 4:13 a.m. we welcomed our third child, our baby boy into this amazing world.  Tomorrow he will have his 1^st birthday.

When I pause and reflect that he is already turning 1, I can’t help but remember the morning he was born.  All the details surging back and I am immediately living that time once again.

The grace and strength of his mom as always carries us through.  I can hear her talking calmly all through her labor.  If you were to have walked by the labor and delivery room you wouldn’t have ever known that she was 9 cm dilated, 100% effaced and in a little bit would be pushing.  She carried on casual conversation with the mid-wife and delivery nurses until, the last 10 minutes.  

As always that is when it gets real, that is when she finds a way to dig deep within herself and bring our next miracle into our lives, at 4:13 a.m. my hands touched that miracle and life has never been the same.

While for her at 4:13 marked the birth of our baby boy Abram.  For me it marks a time of utter vulnerability.  I felt like I was holding my breath while being anchored to the ocean floor.  It was like life was standing still. 

When Abram’s head crowned, my hands first touched him, welcoming him into this world.  Being positioned this way also provided me a front row seat for what would happen next.

Abram, like his brother and sister before him had passed his meconium.  But this time it wasn’t quite as clear.  When they broke my wife’s bag of waters it didn’t have the classic brown signature within it that would signal that meconium had been passed.  In fact when they broke her water, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of fluid to speak of.  That was because much of the fluid was being held in place by his position in the birth canal. 

Back to his head crowning.  After his head crowned they had to work one of his arms free as delivering the shoulders was proving to take longer than anyone wanted.  There his head was, a sort of purplish blue color, for what seemed an eternity until they got his arm into position for the shoulders to pass.  Once his shoulders passed, so to came the rest of the bag of waters.  It was then that it was clear that he had passed his meconium.  This further complicates matters because when a baby has passed meconium they don’t want to stimulate the baby until they have suctioned the airway to make sure they don’t breathe the meconium in.

So like I said his head had crowned and it took a while for his shoulders to deliver.  So as I am watching, it seems like an eternity before he is fully delivered.  During this time the mid-wife tells me very quickly that I will need to cut the umbilical cord quickly, because they need to get him suctioned. 

It was at this moment that I sensed an element of concern in the air, which is the last thing you want to sense in a labor in delivery room.

I work as quickly as possible to cut the umbilical cord.  Once the cord is cut, he is quickly swooped away into an adjoining room.  My wife is being attended to, and in that moment I am aware that between the two of us, I am the only one who realizes that he has not cried yet.  I quickly embrace her, tell her I love her and how amazing she is.  Oh and at some point I also let her know that we have a little boy.  We didn’t know if we were having a boy or girl until he was born.

I then quickly move into the adjoining room….

Where I find our little boy surrounded by four Neonatal Intensive Care Unit nurses.  They are giving him oxygen as his Apgar scores were low.  They look concerned, and I, I am on the verge of tears.  I have no idea what is going on, except that my heart and soul feel like they are sinking. 

I quickly lean over him wanting to hear him crying.  He is crying, and I tell him that everything is ok.  As I held his little hands and heard him cry, I realized that I was hearing the sweetest sound. 

My heart lifts to my throat, I am in the midst of a full blown emotional roller coaster. 

Soon his color is much better, his oxygen levels are good. 

As quickly as vulnerability and fear had clutched my breath and shook my soul, it vanishes.  All is right with the world as I hold our swaddled little man.

As I held him in the beginning moments of his life, a new life for our family was also beginning to take shape.

One year later, Abram is the epitome of a beautiful baby boy.  He is walking around and always exploring, always.  He is insatiable in his thirst to do, to be in the mix.  Always on the heels of his brother or sister, or independently exploring, his motor never stops.

Happy 1^st birthday to our little boy, who won’t be so little for long.