Musings on the Days of Delivery

Some snippets of memories and thoughts that stand out and remain from the days around Sami's birth:

• Women about to give birth are unerringly hungry for any and all stories from other women about their births; but no two experiences are the same. I went in expecting excrutiating, indescribable pain, and came out thinking, "Shucks. That wasn't so bad." Truly. I did. Don't listen to the horror stories. I'm the woman you want to talk to right before you deliver.
• The afternoon of the day Sami was born, Michael took her to the nursery, and took me outside the hospital on a beautiful late summer afternoon, and helped me go for a short walk. We sat on a low wall, and the beauty of a bed of profusely blooming, multi-colored flowers somehow ended up being the symbol for me of our experience of having Sami. How did he know that was exactly the right thing to do at exactly the right time?
• That morning she was born, after we both attempted to sleep and Michael returned to the hospital, we arranged Sami near the light of the window and the gorgeous white roses his family had brought for our room, and we took photo after photo, and only then was I able to grasp how truly, exquisitely beautiful was this child we had wrought.
• We were smug because Sami had been born 21 minutes into Sunday, which allowed me to stay an extra day in the hospital, and that second night there was the most wonderful sleep I had experienced in months.
• The nurses at this hospital were the most compassionate people. Can you imagine if I was a nurse? God help us all. How do they do it? I remember feeling so spoiled by the simple offering of a soda cracker and pain medicine offered up by them in the middle of the night, because they did it with such sincere care and kindness.
• When we went to check out, we questioned why we had not been given the consent form to sign. The nurse was like, "Consent form??" We explained that it was blatantly obvious that they would forevermore want to use Sami as their hospital neonatal unit spokesbaby, and so we thought it only prudent that there be some sort of legal document allowing them to use her image in their future marketing campaigns. Why they passed up on this one, we'll never understand.
• Michael's 82 year old dad, hovering nearby as we prepared to leave the hospital with Sami, "You better be careful about taking her out in public." We inquire further..., and he says, "Other parents will want to stone their babies when they see Sami." This one didn't even really register with us until later, he delivered it so dryly.
• Michael filling me in on the gory details of the birth much after the fact, that I wasn't aware of. He says incredulously, "I saw things you can't even imagine." Accompanied by graphic descriptions of the voluminous bloodshed he witnessed. Oddly, I can't hear enough of these stories, as I think it makes me feel grandly brave and victorious.
• Weeks later, Michael telling me that Dr. Wester winked at him and told him he'd taken an extra stitch "for him." This was at the same time such a cliche, and so funny, and so outside the staid personality that this doctor displayed to me, that I thought Michael had made it up. But he insists it was true.
• In the first days of watching our angel sleep, Michael with his arm around me, saying, "She is truly a gift from God," with such heartfelt belief and sentiment that to this day, I feel myself get emotional when I think of it.