It was a rainy morning, 21 years ago. I woke up at midnight with some serious contractions that were clearly too close together for my comfort. We woke Ceila and informed her that Ed and I were headed for the hospital. She would need to be available when Sharon woke up to explain why we weren’t home.
Driving to Methodist hospital, the rain was coming down heavy and my contractions were getting stronger with every bump in the road. I kept telling Ed to pass every red light in hope of a cop stopping us, but of course, when u need a police officer, there’s never one around.
I remember Ed racing down 7th avenue toward the hospital and noticing all the vacant buildings in the higher numbers of the avenue and lots of bodegas. No cops either for that matter. We pulled in front of the emergency room where Ed saw me into the hospital and dropped me off as the car had to be parked. The nurse put me in a wheelchair and told me my midwife was waiting for me.
They rolled me into this very beautiful room that was part hospital looking and part living room. As the staff were quickly placing me in the bed, I noticed the they were putting me into a hospital gown. All I kept remembering was wanting to push and boy, was I ready to push. My water had broken the minute they got me into the bed and I felt I could not bare to hold back any longer. I told the midwife that I really wanted to wait for Ed. She said that was up to the baby and me…….
Ed came running in with a nurse behind him, helping him put the mask and sterile gown on and with one quick breath of relief, I pushed. On that first push, I actually felt the head crowning and wanting to come out. On the second push, the midwife told me to hold my breath, as she quickly took hold of the baby to prepare him to be released. When she told me to take a deep breath and push hard, I felt him leave the womb and this littletiny body being pulled into his new world. I HEARD him cry as they placed him and our umbilical cord on my stomach. Well thinking back now, it may not have been a cry, I seriously believe it may have been more of a jazz tune I heard.
My little Thaniel (as he would be called, short for Nathaniel). How hard it was to imagine that this little baby had been growing for the past 9 months in me. With the umbilical cord cut, the journey began.
21 years later, how fast time flies. My mother always said, you’ll see, time goes by very quickly and indeeed I see that it does. But the journey doesn’t end, it continues and the life cycle is awesome to watch as your children mature into their own being. At 21, he enters a new journey to explore the roads ahead. My gut feeling tells me, he is going to be all that he sets out to be.
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