And just like that (click) it all changes

 The birth of my son shelled me and softened me. Before you start your tirade of how much harder it was for Cambrie:

    1) I know.
    2) I am invested in this. We're in this together.
    3) Don't minimize the role of a partner. It doesn't help.

Now you can go ahead with your tirade, I'll listen.

Here were some thoughts I had along with a bit of a journal entry.
9 months (and one week) in the making but he was finally on his way Monday morning at 5am. We only had a few hours of sleep that night (what fools we were then. What children! Throwing away precious sleep like some piece of over-burnt toast. Cherish that sleep-toast past-Bryce. Cherish it like the sweet, scarce commodity that it is!). The contractions slowly increased in intensity and regularity until 11am when we decided to go to the hospital. 

Cambrie is tough. 

I had my phone ready to call a taxi and Cambrie stopped me. 

"I want to take the bus."

"Excuse me, did you say you want to take the bus while you're in LABOR?"

"The contractions are less painful when I stand."

"..."

So we took the bus.

At the hospital she went through contractions until two. The midwife (really great people, midwives) and I did our best to support her and try every possible position. This went on every few minutes or so until 2 when it was time to start pushing. The midwife's shift ended and a couple more came to take over. That's when you know this is taking too long.

She pushed for 1.5 hours. Tears poured down her reddened face between contractions. She did all of this with no medication. 

Finally it was determined that the baby was in the wrong position and couldn't be corrected. After all her struggle, a c-section was strongly recommended.

"A c-section was sweet release after what I went through" -Cambrie
I sat near her and held her hand in the operating room. By this time they had stopped the contractions and numbed her lower half. She was splayed on the operating table in such a manner that the verse in John "Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again". At that instant there was more in those words than I had ever seen. Suffering and pain of both parties is inescapable in the beginning of life.

My mind was flooded with emotions and fears, but in the middle of these hard times life becomes much clearer somehow. The most important things in the world to me were right here. I prayed to God that he would watch over my wife and child.

I watched as the doctors cut open my wife and pulled my son from her. The first time I held him in my arms there was an immediate change in me. I can't explain it except that I guess biologically this is what I am meant to do. To protect him and love him. I held him in my right hand and held Cambrie's now violently trembling hand with my left. 

I watched as the doctors massaged her organs and put them back inside her body. It is still insane to me that a human can have that happen to them. That she was cut open, another human was pulled out, then she was stapled back together.

After the surgery we all went back to our room and the whirlwind continued. Tests, cuddles, more tests, skin-to-skin, instructions on how to keep him alive. That's basically how the next several days went. We had never been happier, more exhausted, more in pain (Cambrie), or more overwhelmed before.

The hospital is situated across the Aare river from our house with a beautiful view of Bern. I couldn't stop taking pictures of the view, of my new son. I felt so cliché and predictable doing it, but I couldn't help it. It doesn't often snow in Bern, but it seemed like the clouds opened up and snow drifted down just for our new little boy.

Thoughts on scarcity

"Not the blood, sir. But all of a man's water, ultimately, belongs to his people-to his tribe...the human body is composed of some seventy percent water by weight. A dead man, surely, no longer requires that water" -Dune, by Frank Herbert

A roommate from college challenged me to read the book in 2008. I made some dismissive gesture with one of my eyebrows (especially after seeing a clip from the 1984 movie). Now, 12 years later I finally took the challenge. The book brings home some hard truths (it's also kind of strange, but that's neither here nor there). 

Here on planet Earth we face Dune's problem. 790 Million People. That is 1 in 10 people who don't have consistent access to clean water. Such a basic aspect of life that I so often take for granted. The last time I was truly thirsty is actually documented in this blog. I complained incessantly and have rarely felt so miserable. 

I can't help thinking about how much excess I have without necessarily appreciating it. How much of that excess should I morally/ethically keep for myself? If I believe that every human is equal (I think I do), then when do I start acting like I believe that? At what point am I comfortable enough with my life that I start reaching outside my own bubble? Looking beyond those right in front of my own face?

In the later stages of Cambrie's pregnancy, and with the ever-present pandemic lurking in the shadows of my thoughts I have not travelled around Switzerland as much. But that has not stopped me from trying to get to know the city I live in. Bern has so many things. One is water. There are 100+ fountains scattered around the city. Think of it. 1 in 10 people in the world don't have access to clean water, yet here it is pouring out of fountains and down channels in the street. Clean, cold, potable water. 

Here are a few of them:

This one is right outside my house. Yes, that's a tiny bear with a gun. Switzerland.

Out of these the most disturbing is perhaps the third picture. One of a man eating babies. Again, Switzerland.

Beyond the fountains, on the backdrop of the city runs the river Aare. The life of this city. Ask a Bernese citizen about the Aare and a dreamy look sweeps across their face. Tradition pulls people into the water in the summers to float down the river. 

This is along my favorite run near my house:

This is comes out as a jumbled mess of my thoughts on scarcity as I experience it (or rather, don't experience it). What I'm trying to get at is that I realize that I live in a bubble. Not just living in a place with access to water, but having access to health care, a stable job in the middle of a worldwide pandemic that has torn the lives of millions to tiny shreds of worry. I want to commit myself to looking farther than 2 inches from my nose. Looking past the Netflix lineup for the month. 

As I write this at my desk, I look outside my window. Snow is falling on the Berner Munster. A homeless woman drags her cart to the doors of the church many days and sits under the awning. Someone needs help so close to me I could yell to her, Ebenezer Scrooge style. But I don't know the German word for 'goose'. Fear continues to hold me back. 

Fear is the mind-killer. -Dune, by Frank Herbert