This is the post I've meant to write, tried to write, for 38 days...8 past my 30 day commitment theory. This is what I am blessed with, what our daughter and son-in-law brought into the world and into our family on September 4. This is Cody Jackson Beyer. This is our grandson.So why the hesitation? Why the inability to put into words what this was like, what it was like during that day, that evening, that night. What it was like to stand by her side and watch her labor, watch her work, watch her look to her husband and her nurses and her doctor. Watch her bring her son into the world. Into our family.
I think I know. I think I know what it was, what it is that has held me back, stopped me from writing what it felt like that day. Not what it felt like to see him and hold him and hear him. That was the easy part. That was the joyous part. The hard part was my daughter. The hard part was her.
Childbirth is a universal experience. A common experience. A shared experience. But shared only to a point. A point that doesn't cross a line. A line that we hold deep within us, a line I've held deep within me.
In the moments before Cody's birth, those moments when I stood outside the door (right outside) I traveled. I traveled not from one place to another, but from one time to another. From one birth to another. From my grandson's birth to my daughter's, and in that travel, in that time I spent in her room and out of it, I had her to myself again. I had her like no one else has ever had her, not her father, her husband....no one. No one but me.
She is my first. That only happens once. She grew in my body and in my heart and when she was ready she slipped from my body and she joined the world.
I haven't cried for a long time. A very long time. Outside the door of my daughter's labor room, I cried. I cried for her pain. I cried for my pain. I cried for the loss I felt with her birth. I cried for the joy of Cody's birth. I cried.
He's a beautiful baby, our Cody. He was perfect and is perfect. They are beautiful parents, our Michelle and Jay. They love each other and love him.
I found my tears.
