EQ Reflection: Emma’s Birth
May 18, 1999
In the last 12 days since Emma Rose Freedman was born, I’ve had a million ideas for an EQ News… but from before 12 days ago, I remember that it was somewhat annoying for others to listen to parents dote on their magnificent children… and I’ve been a little busy learning how to sleep in short stretches! So, I hope you will indulge me in a little new-parent-ecstasy, and in exchange I promise to write other EQ News that isn’t about Emma!
On May 5, Patty went into labour at about 9 pm. I now have a new idea of why women frequently go into labor at night — forget all that hormone research — the real reason is to make the whole thing surreal. As the first hours passed, we began to focus not on time-outside-of-us, but on time between contractions. It is the beginning of reshaping time.
The drive to the hospital, and the rest of the night, are time out of time. The road seems to go on forever, trying to sing Indigo Girls to relax ourselves, restless guitar punctuated by earthy moans of pain-that-should-be. Two minutes at a time, two miles at a time, the world is only right between us and maybe as far as the headlights search.
Then in the morning, time begins again. 4:56 am. The first second. The first breath. The first touch. A life where before there was possibility.
The next second.
Gradually, seconds turn into minutes. She is ten minutes old. Ten minutes new. There is so much packed into those minutes. A whole lifetime unfolding.
Before long, an hour has passed… and soon several hours. Time is slowly speeding up. “How old is your baby?” “Only three days old!” Now Emma is 12 days old. Almost a teenager! In two more days, we will start to count in weeks. And in a flash it will be months. I count by decades already — I am in my 30’s, one year or another hardly mattered before May 6th.
So what happens to all those seconds? What happens to those whole lifetimes we could live between heartbeats? What happens to exulting in each moment, each moment that will never come again, each moment made precious because it is now, here, real, alive?
I feel so alive now. Tired and a little groggy. And my wife and I look at our daughter and it takes nothing to bring tears welling up, even as I write this my heart is overflowing with wonder and wishes, hopes and fears, with love. Not just for Emma and Patty. For us, for you. Because life is a miracle — together we are a miracle. And I am so proud to be a part of it, to feel it.
Thanks for making the world a better place for our children.
– Josh
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