How long since you’ve seen somebody who is fifteen whole minutes old?

This is Miles, who is kicking back as he celebrates his first-quarter hour of life in the world–and Allie, his mother, who is just amazed by him. If you’ve ever had a baby, you know just what she is thinking: So this is who has been kicking my ribs for the past few months! It’s YOU!

You can see that they’ve already pretty much committed to each other and are in love…and I, who got to be present during the labor and birth, helping Mike, her husband, as we both held her elbows and said things like, “You can do it! You’re almost there!” have finally been able to stop sniffling every time I think of that moment when he came out into the world, looking around in surprise at everyone there to meet him: his mom, his father, the midwife, the nurse, and me.

He is the first person, besides my own children, that I got to see actually being born. Words are so inadequate to describe what it was like. Just so stunning and humbling and unbelievable…see? I should stop with the words. There aren’t words. 

Let’s just say that I cried. Later I got to sit in the rocking chair there in the birthing center and rock him for a while, and he stared up at me with those hazy big navy blue eyes, and he was calm and serene. He seemed to bring with him his own sense of peace and quiet. 

Already he’s showing signs of being a wise person. For one thing, he came one week early, just so he could avoid what in our family is the April Birthday Logjam taking place next week, when four of us have our birthdays all piled on top of each other. (People always have teased us for being very clever in managing to all be born right at the same time, but in fact who needs a whole week in which you have to make–and eat–at least four birthday cakes! I know, I know…some people will complain about anything, won’t they?) 

But little Miles picked April 14th, which was a sunny spring day in New York City. Tulips and magnolia trees and forsythia were blooming everywhere. Then, the next day, once he’d gotten safely home, a huge nor’easter raged outside. We hardly noticed.  

So life is good, and I am home again, back to work on my book–wasn’t I writing a book before all this happened? I think so!

I think I’m going to give all my characters new babies.