Expectant Fathers
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December makes me think of pregnancy.
There were Mary and Elizabeth, whom we hear about in the nativity stories this time of year, but there was also my wife Dori, who was five months along and suffering a bad case of morning sickness when our son was carried off a big Northwest Airlines jet and delivered into our arms just a few days before Christmas.
Having wanted a baby for years, we suddenly had one C.O.D. and another on lay-away. It’s not the way we would have planned it, but that’s how it happened.
Important things in life have a funny way of arriving on their own schedule, despite what we do to prepare ourselves. My wife and I learned wonderful breathing exercises in a birthing class we attended with a roomful of other soon-to-be parents. Pick a spot, focus your attention, slow inhale, fast exhale. Would my panting make Dori’s labor one bit easier? Probably not. But it gave me something to take my mind off the disturbing fact that I had been totally removed from the chain of command. Powers greater than myself had been set in motion. I could pant or holler, stay calm or get hysterical, but it would not alter the outcome. God willing, and mother enduring, the baby would be born in its own sweet time.
Birth, death and most of the agony and ecstasy in between descend when they will. If that sounds scary, I can only offer the same advice the midwife probably gave to Joseph. Try to breathe into it. Trust life to do the rest.
From Green Mountain Spring and Other Leaps of Faith, by Rev. Gary Kowalski published by Skinner House in 1997. Available from the CLF library by contacting Beth Murray at bmurray@clfuu.org.
- Expectant Fathers - December 1, 2012
- Dog Days - August 1, 2011
