The fear came to a screeching halt with guttural screams—mine—between contractions surging through my core-- the moment seven pounds and one ounce of sticky new life was placed on my chest. The soft cries (his) and the gasping sobs (mine) met for the first time and every facet of my life would alter.
Outside, the mask-faced world kept spinning. My parents stood in the parking lot amid the
strict pandemic no-visitors rule, while I, an hour after birth and completely depleted, clutched
my sweet, swaddled baby against the scratchy hospital-gown, pressed into my chest,
presenting him through the glass to the parking lot below. Though a few floors up, I could see
their eyes glittering behind their sunglasses. That warm June afternoon, my husband’s gentle
protective arm around my shoulder to steady my wobbly legs beneath me... faith floated
between all of us. Hope strung from one generation to the next, the strength of my parent’s
love threaded to me, my husband, looping to the tiny baby in my arms. This new life that I’d
spent months agonizing over – fearing his arrival, withstanding the birth, looking upon the life
changes with such dread....it never occurred to me that it would be a perfect instant, twinkling
in time, amidst the madness of this year. I never grasped that this fleeting moment would
surge with peace, with hope. That the thing I’d feared the most, would be an anchor in a
swelling sea of uncertainty. This tiny precious being, would become my one sure, my one pure
thing. Enveloped tightly within that swaddle blanket was the heartbeat of MY world.
The one around me could wait.
