They're not kidding when they call it "the miracle of birth." In addition to the obvious astonishments, it's a miracle that any woman who's experienced the agony once could ever suffer enough memory loss to say, "Yeah! I'd like to do that again!!!"
It's a miracle that new fathers readily accept congratulations for doing little more than hanging around a delivery room and getting into everyone's way while trying to remember when it is, exactly, they're supposed to yell, "Push!"
As a child is being born, it seems a miracle that you ever thought there was anything more exciting or fulfilling or important or frightening.
It's a miracle that any human being so purple and wrinkly and messy and loud and demanding and so closely resembling Edward G. Robinson can seem so beautiful, and can be so instantly loved.
It's a miracle that, ten minutes after you've been introduced to this new person who's invaded your world, you can barely remember what life was like before you met.
When you come home from the hospital, it somehow seems miraculous that, while your entire life has been suddenly and radically and permanently altered, your house is precisely as messy as when you left it.
It's a miracle that someone soooo tiny who eats soooo little can fill soooo many diapers without going into negative body weight right before your eyes. And it's a miracle that babies are born with a canny sixth sense that tells them MD120to spit up on your shoulder only when you've forgotten to cover it with a "burp rag."
It's a miracle when new parents who normally could sleep through a combination earthquake/nuclear attack are awakened by the absolute silence of a baby who hasn't yet learned that breathing is supposed to be rhythmic.
When you take a newborn baby for a walk, it's a miracle that strangers who normally wouldn't make eye contact with you suddenly turn into old friends who want all the details of your latest accomplishment. And it's a miracle that while everyone compliments you on how sweet and perfect and wonderful your offspring is, nobody--not a soul--offers to raise it for you.
It's a miracle that even the most curmudgeonly grandfather never, ever says, "Here, you take her for a while."
It's a miracle that a big brother can so quickly adapt to the double standard that, while his teensy new sister gets to stay home all day with Mommy, he still has to go to school. (Of course, it helps when Grandma gives him a box of celebratory cupcakes with pink icing to share with his classmates.)
And finally, it will be the greatest miracle of all if my four-year-old son doesn't grow up thinking all babies get their names from newspaper contests.
