Our Birth Story: Part Eight
This is the final part (part eight) of the story of the birth of our daughter.
Read Part: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
He leaves, and my wife looks at me with panic in her eyes. I am feeling terrified (and not just because I have dirty dishes around the house and my underwear hasn’t been put in the hamper) but tell her everything will be OK. We’ll figure it out. Foolishly, she believes me.
We call my in-laws to come help with the process. In the end, they wheel my wife’s wheelchair down while I carry my daughter in her infant car seat. I leave my daughter inside the hospital with them and go get the van. Doh. It is snowing heavily outside. The snow is not staying on the ground, but it is not melting either. It is making a thick slushy paste that is both slippery as anything and able to saturate the entire lower half of my jeans.
I roll the van forward and hop out to place my daughter in her seat base. By the time I get around to my wife she is in the van safely. I thank my in-laws and tell them to meet us at the house. I get in the car and squeeze my wife’s hand.
The normally five minute drive home takes almost fifteen that night. It is dark, visibility is next to nothing, and the brakes on the van seem to be more like the hand brake on a “big wheel”, designed more for spinning you into a skid than stopping. Later I would look for grip marks on the steering wheel, convinced I had held it that tightly.
I get home and carry my daughter into the house. My wife is assisted by her parents. Amazingly, no one slips and falls, and we are finally a family in our home.
You can read more SciFi Dad at Tales From The Dad Side.
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