Tonight Keith and I go back to the hospital to see our new grandson, our first grandchild.
Our arms are full of gifts, fruits, and a blue balloon announcing, "It's a Boy!" We bring the blue blanket and tiny pajamas that our son had worn home from the hospital.
"Let's hand the gift bag with the baby wipes and preemie diapers to Todd, and we'll give the gift bag of baby clothes to Pam," I joke to Keith.
This morning at 4 a.m. while we were awaiting his entrance into this world, I tell my son,
"This will change your life in a way you can't imagine."
"My life has already changed, Mom," he says.
"Yes, your life has changed, but after he is born, you'll experience feelings that you've never felt before," I say. I remember well how my feelings for the new little life in my arms were so intense that I could have never imagined them.
Now I realize that the same can be said for this new generation. I'm a gramma -- doesn't have much meaning to me yet. I haven't done any grandmothering. The idea of the title somehow aging me beyond my years doesn't even enter into my mind.
What does enter my mind? A furry-headed human is lying under the warming lights after his birth. I watch the nurse take his temperature, his pulse, and listen to his heartbeat. A gold-shaped heart is taped to his chest. The nurse pulls the monitor off his chest, and he wriggles and screams.
"Ouch, that hurt", says the new Grampa.
The nurse wrestles his arms into a t-shirt, and then she makes a swaddling wrap from a blanket. He's all bundled up ready to see his Mommy. The room where he was born is dimly lighted, and I hate to use a flash to illuminate a photo. I take a couple of dozen photos of him in the nursery, and when the nurse brings him to the hallway, I ask,
"Do you think a flash would bother him?"
"No, he might blink, but it won't hurt him," she says.
The nurse poses and smiles while I snap a couple of photos. His eyes echo the fluttering of the flash, and he promptly settles back into his sleep.
Mommy and baby are busy now. Time for us to go home and wait until tomorrow to see him again.
Thanks, Heather,
for the adoption!
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