I wrote this early in the pre-dawn morning of September 10, 1989.  Two days before I had gotten up and gone to work, and late that evening we were about to go to bed when Karen’s water broke and we rushed off to the hospital.  The labor lasted nearly 24 hours, on top of the 16 hour day we had already put in.  Then I was at the hospital for another few hours before I was sent home to sleep.  

But I could not sleep.  I put on some music on endless replay, and filled to overflowing I wrote the following, finishing up around dawn.  The world around me was asleep, but I had to get this down.

Babies are born every hour, of every day.  But it is never less miraculous for all that.  I am glad I have this writing to remember that evening, that moment, in detail.  

Conor’s Song

Yesterday my son was born.

He came into the world after a long day of labor—on the part of his mother and himself.  The cord was caught around his head; each time Karen had a contraction, the baby’s heart slowed.  After twelve hours of labor, the heart marly stopped for about five minutes, dropping form a regular beat of about 150 to 30.  The doctors started to do an emergency C-section there in the labor room, but the baby was strong, the heart returned to normal, and so their labor continued.  At some point the stress caused the baby to defecate, and of course the waste got into the baby’s respiratory system.  After twenty-four hours, at 9:37 pm, Friday September 8, 1989, the doctors finally took the baby by C-section.

I was with Karen in the operating room.  She was drugged, struggling after so long to stay alert, but losing.  I heard the baby’s short cry behind the partition, then it was muffled, one of the doctors immediately starting to suction the baby’s throat.  I heard the doctors as they clued triumphantly:
“It’s a boy!  What’s his name?”
“Conor Joseph  Eifler,” I shouted even louder to be heard over the monitors, the suction, the general noise and commotion of the room.  To be heard by the world.  I shouted the three full names, over and over and over.  As they were cleaning him up frantically, another doctor asked what kind of “American History name” was Conor.  “It’s not from the book I remember,” he said.  “It’s from a chapter yet to be written,” I answered.

Yesterday my son was born.

Karen, after a difficult day that had begun at the end of an already full day, after a full day of pain and anxiety, after all that struggle, did not at the last se her child.  The pain had finally been very bad, her intestines would not go back in; they put her under, and sent me out the door after the nurse who had my son.  We rushed him to the special care nursery, to search for any dangerous infection. Out in the hall, the nurse and I saw all the people who had prayed, sweated, waited there.  Virginia and Earl Livingston.  Marilyn and Clyde Perlenfein.  Katie and Tim Munroe.  Kristi Debevoise.  Lisa and Ty Billings.  Mark Ann Thomas.  Kelly Anderson.  Kathy Gerhardt and her sleepy son Matthew. They wanted to know, had waited in the hall anxiously for at least six hours.  The Perlenfeins had been there off and on twelve hours.  All helped bring this child into the world, but the nurse ran past them, baby bundled, and I ran with her.  They cried out to stop, but we couldn’t, they all shouted questions, but we didn’t answer.  Finally Kristi called above the rest, “At least tell us what it is!”  “It’s a boy,” I shouted, ripping the mask off my face as the nurse and I ran down the hall.  I heard them cheer behind me.  But then the nurse and I turned a corner and they were gone, and the cheering was gone, and all I heard was our hurried, worried footsteps.

Yesterday my son was born.

After the child was safely under the special care of the nurses,
after I went back to check on Karen,
after I announced his name proudly, tearfully to all those spiritual co-pilots in the hall,
after the co-pilots viewed the baby two-by-two,
scrubbed and gowned, in the intensive care nursery,
hugged me, cheered with me,
and went home,
after Karen went into the recovery room, came out, cried in my arms
in joy, relief, pain, anxiety, love,
so much love,
more than I could ever hope to hold in just my arms,
and then at last dropped off to fitful sleep,

after the hospital was quiet, and darkened,

I went to the nursery alone.

Yesterday my son was born.

Nine pounds, even.
Twenty-one and one-half inches long.
Perfect proportions; big, not fat.
Dark, dark eyes, with a hint of silvery-blue
(they will be dark brown, beautiful, dreamy, like his mother’s).
Full head of rich, brown hair.
Round face, not like a new-born, but like a two week old.
His father’s ample, ruddy cheeks.
His mother’s tucked little chin.
His own tiny button nose.

In the quiet, wee hours of the morning, when almost every one else was asleep, Conor and I kept each other company

The nurses left us alone.  I spoke softly to him.  Was I imagining that he heard and even recognized my voice, out of all the confusion of new sensory perceptions he was experiencing?  When everything was new, did he hear a voice that, though without understanding it, was reassuringly familiar?  I don’t really know.

But I heard a voice that, even though I didn’t understand it, spoke the only unmistakable language.  The baby’s sighs and murmurs, grunts and coughs, frowns and gasps and yawns, bleatings and cries, all subdued but alive, echoed from somewhere outside and before this world, echoed from a world he and I had both been in before.  Though I had forgotten it, my son reminded me of its mystery.

My Son Sang the Song of Birth, of Transition, of Hard Struggle, Courage, and Openness.  I touched his cheek, stroked his forehead, felt his fingers.  And we sang his song together.

His voice was stronger and more confident, but he carried me.

Soon I will be teaching him new songs, songs I know well and sing with gusto, and songs I am still trying to learn and am wobbly on.  I know we won’t always sing together.  He’s got a beautiful voice of his own, a voice that will find its own levels.  Sometimes he’ll sing accompaniments to me, instead of helping me with the main melody.  Sometimes he’ll sing his own counter-melodies.  Sometimes he’ll sing songs that I won’t be able to sing with him at all.  Sometimes he’ll sing alone.  But I hope my ears are well enough tuned to hear his song,

the way I heard it, in the wee hours of the morning, when most of the world was asleep,

when Conor and I held each other’s hands and explored each other’s worlds.

Yesterday my son was born.