(Meeting my son Lee for the first time 06/30/12. )
It's always hard to know what to say when you meet a friend's newborn baby that looks... well... like he or she has gone through battle. "Oh he is so...big!" You hold your tongue, heaven forbid you break the love stuck trance of your friend who can't take her eyes off the little alien-like creature. Despite the cone shaped head, jaundiced skin, and old man hands that newborns are famous for, there is nothing more beautiful to a parent then the sight of their own flesh and blood.
I know the feeling. I vividly remember the first time I saw Lee. I was anxious, my stomach was in knots and my heart was racing--I was about to meet my son. I was robbed of meeting him immediately after his birth due to his failure to breathe on his own. Out of habit, my hands caressed my belly over a green hospital gown - but there was no baby there anymore. I was wheeled in my hospital bed from recovery to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) after my emergency C-section.
As I came into the NICU, my eyes immediately scanned the room. Finally I saw my baby. He was laying quietly in a tiny bed, just ahead. His piercing bright blue eyes, beautiful pale face, and dark hair were the first things I noticed. Everything else faded away--I was in love. He was looking up and around, trying to make sense of this new world. His first few hours of life were traumatic--a complicated labor which led to a C-section and a 2 hour post-birth intubation. As my hospital bed stopped in front of his cradle the nurse lifted him up so he could see me. He started crying, then I cried. I started to talk to him, he stopped, listened, and looked at me. In that moment I knew he was the most perfect baby in the world, and no one could tell me different. Aside from the IV cords in his tiny hands, his gourd shaped head that couldn't keep his cap on, and the tape residue left on his face from being intubated he was perfect. Nothing compares to a parents bias.
So you can imagine my bias when entering Lee into a "cute" baby contest. "Of course he will win, he is the cutest baby ever." And yes, I do know my son is the cutest, but apparently so do 730 other parents. After voting for my son, I surveyed Lee's rivals on the Star 94.1 website. (btw feel free to vote for Lee at http://www.star941fm.com/pages/star-baby/vote-entrants.php?ag=&gid=3#10) Then I thought, "wow each one of these parents entered their baby because they truly believed their precious one is the cutest." Then, I wanted to cry--cry because they are all so cute. And cry because I know how much each parent adores their little one. I wanted to cry because they have a story, a life--I wanted them all to win. Then, in that moment, I was overwhelmed.
I am told all parents are biased--stop and think about that. How beautiful, that most everyone is so utterly taken with their children. How amazing that our children never earned our adoration. Unconditional love took on a whole new meaning in my life when I met Lee. Looking at him for the first time, I knew I had never loved another so deeply and intensely. With Easter Sunday coming tomorrow, it is impossible not to ponder on the Lord's great sacrifice of His own son for us. He felt a perfect, passionate, and intense love for His son--yet he deemed us worthy of the sacrifice. I can't imagine giving Lee's life for another, especially one that is undeserving. It is unfathomable. I have a whole new thankfulness to the Lord.
What a beautiful gift the Lord gave us, the capacity to love another purely. It leaves me completely breathless that Lee came into this world and stole my heart immedately without doing anything--just by simply being. To think that this intense love is something that was never earned or deserved, it simply was. No wonder a parent's bias is so strong and lasting. And that, my friends, is love at first sight.
( Make sure to vote for Lee ! http://www.star941fm.com/pages/star-baby/vote-entrants.php?ag=&gid=3#10 )
