10:30 pm.
I settle into my comfortable chair and started reading a Chinese sci-fi, not my typical choice but it's turning out to be pretty interesting. It was an exhausting 13 hour day of work starting early and ending late. Cambrie is getting ready for bed. I hear her call my name across the apartment. Not uncommon, she loves attention. I lazily respond, "What?". She yells again, but this time I detect a hint of worry in her voice. Not a lot, just enough to real in my attention.
I get up to investigate further.
"Bryce, I fell."
"Are you ok? How did you fall?"
"I feel fine." Uncomfortably long pause, "I fell on my back, so not on my belly. What do we do?"
My fingers grip my phone and ask the parenting gurus of the internet for help. This is what hours of Instagram scrolling has trained me for. Cue Rocky soundtrack as my fingers sweep across the phone with the dexterity of a teenager. It only takes a few seconds.
"Call the midwife. Definitely since you're in the third trimester."
During the call my brain is waking up again. For the first time in my life I feel pangs of worry for my child. Wait, let me re-punctuate that last part...MY child! I can't help but worry that this seemingly small incident hurt him, possibly seriously. As my mind spins through worst case scenarios, eventually I can't help but realize how woefully unprepared I am for what's coming.
Even in the best case scenario, I am in for a lifetime of these kinds of worries. Every time he trips and bumps his head. Every time I carry him around and risk dropping him. Every time he leaves my sight. No matter how careful I am, this little guy is going to get hurt sometimes. He's going to feel pain, from the very beginning.
If you would like to live your life not knowing an uncomfortable truth, skip this next paragraph. If you read on you will lose just a little bit of that childish innocence you still cling to. It will haunt you. I wash my hands of this and you have been warned.
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I recently learned that babies born via Caesarean section don't come into contact with essential bacteria from the mothers' vaginas and that causes problems with developing healthy gut bacteria. This has been solved by swabbing the baby's face with the bacteria after birth. However recently doctors have discovered that bacteria from the mothers' feces is missing. Researchers have started feeding a dose of it to babies and it seems to be helping. My point of delving so deep into the disgusting reality of human genesis is that our very beginning of life is horrifying. So much that it's hard for people to even think about. I mean, did you enjoy reading that little fact? NO!
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I am brought back. We make our way to the hospital. The midwife is wonderful. So cheerful, peaceful, calming. She asks many questions. We listen to our child's heart for thirty minutes. He is fine. We go home. We are exhausted.
A few days pass. Now as I sit in bed I can see his shape moving on Cambrie's belly. A thought occurs to me and I play Pachelbel's Canon in D, holding my phone to her belly so maybe he can hear. He kicks and wiggles. We laugh.
"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." -Max Ehrmann
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