I have a couple friends a season or so ahead of me in life - I call them mentors and friends. And when they are willing to somehow share openly a glimpse of what is going on in their life, I always walk away with a bit more perspective. What a gift to get to do now with an eye of what's right around the corner. I am beginning my 11th day of being a parent to a human in the outside world. John and I are constantly checking to make sure our son is breathing. We've poked him. We have no control over our schedules and end up botching most attempts to arrive at our doctor appointments with a well-fed, ready to just sleep baby.
To know that the worry doesn't end - that the concerns change from SIDS to college applications and then to a myriad of new developments in a blink is hopefully informing my very first attachments to my son.
We feel so grateful in these first days. Grateful for our child. Grateful for my body. Grateful for healing. Grateful for friends with 3 month olds who arrive with takeout at the hospital, because they remember just how sick you get of hospital food. And who tell you, sleep is near, we promise. Grateful for friends a few years ahead of that, who drive over to listen to your baby breathe and assure you it's normal - demonstrate how they bounce their baby to sleep - set up a sample sleeping arrangement that worked in real life for them - tell you, you are doing good. Check in on you. For those who offer to lend us swaddles, bouncers, clothes, etc. and tell us what worked for them. For those who show up with a cup of coffee.
Grateful for an unbelievable medical team and hospital staff. Grateful for giving birth in today's times. Grateful for epidurals (there I said it). For kind, funny, attentive nurses. For doctors who helped us manage our expectations, always kept us informed, listened to us, and worked with us as we tried every option we could, always keeping our son's safety first.
Grateful for family members who sat patiently in a hospital room, or anxiously by their phones all day and night and into the earliest hours of the next to hear he was here, and lay eyes on his perfect face with us. For grandmas who've held our son so we could sleep.
Grateful for those friends a season ahead to remind us - the days are long, but the years are short. You can never fail by..... this or that. Those who's children are newly grown and facing the challenges we ourselves just faced. Grown "children" - new adults we look at and think, I hope Nolan grows up to be something like that. And so, we drink up every word as we watch these friends hold our newborn child, telling us to be his cheerleader - raise him to hear the Lord, and then, trust him to. Find wisdom in him. We watch these friends hold our newborn child, and listen to them share a little about the joys and pains of the next season ahead, their current world, and we think, I hope I grow up to be something like that.
