The new arrival

Subject: The new arrival 

The sight of mother, father, grandmother and grandfather all focused on this special moment, the culmination of a 9th month incubation when at long last new life appears, soon to blossom into someone with a name and a definite identity.
As a father one feels for ones daughter, her exposure to the stress of carrying the baby and the inevitable pain of bringing it into the world. Its a process we can't do anything about but watch and wait and in some ways it's a turning point, a moment  of relegation.
It's a moment when your daughter truly becomes her own woman when she embarks on a journey you can only partially walk, a journey she has chosen and at this moment, lying prone and helpless is experiencing something men will never experience. Her pain and the fundamental anguish of giving birth, an anguish also mixed with joy  is so far beyond what we men can conceptualise, it's a price which few men would consider and for a father who has always tried to shield his child from danger or pain one feels particularly redundant as the professionals take her into their care under the watchful eye of her partner. In my minds eye I saw my little girl, vulnerable and a  frightened at the prospect of what was happening to her. I had wanted to hold her hand and say what ever I could to sooth her pain but it was not my place to interfere and instead we took ourselves home to wait and wonder.
Sitting in the lounge or propped up in bed, one try's to imagine the drama, a drama which can in some cases  be a life and death struggle but which will take its course without your presence or your input. If it's a car crash or a patient recovering from an operation then a chair beside the sleeping patient is accepted but somehow childbirth is private and for the parents, the waiting has to be done at home.
It's 2am. Have the contraction stopped or started again, this mystical force of nature which takes over the process of giving birth reminds us that we are but the outcome of nature and it's routine, that nature takes its own time. Is the baby delivered yet and laying in its mother's exhausted arms, has a grin emerged out of the pain, with ones very own bundle of life, a carbon copy of events 41 years ago, a replica with which to guide and protect, to love and to nurture long after we, the parents have departed. 
It's a process of renewal, a fresh start, a new beginning and for that we should all be grateful.
This morning speaking to someone on the Labour Ward I asked if the baby had been born yet.  She replied, In that strange Kafkaesque double speak so favoured by today's information conscious bureaucracy, "she couldn't confirm if my daughter was there or her condition but if she was, she would ask her to give me a ring". 
The call came she had got through the night and whilst the baby was being stubborn (it's in the genes) mother and as yet unborn baby are doing well. 
Hurrah, hurrah she landed a smashing 9 lbs plus baby girl with all its bells and whistles. I think tonight she will sleep the sleep of an angel, both angels in their own separate space, communicating in a way which will go on until she tells mum, she's off to Australia to visit her Uncle Andrew.