Welcome, Lily

Well this morning, sometime before 1:36am, my first grandchild was born into this world. I was asleep but my husband took our son’s middle-of-the-night call. He told me first thing when I woke up. Specifically he told me that I was “an old lady now,” having become a grandmother. Well, I don’t feel like an old lady, and anyway, I know people who are 35 and grandmothers and they’re hardly old women.

A few hours later I noticed a message on the answering machine after I’d come in from hanging out the laundry. Instead of it being a new call, though, it turned out to be the one from my son in the middle of the night. As he finished speaking (“Are you guys asleep?”) I could hear Lily’s cooing, quite close to the phone. It sounded like he might have been holding her, because right after the coo I heard his soft, delighted chuckle. Then he spoke again and she started fussing and about that time my husband must have picked up the phone, because it all ended.

Having heard that, of course I had to call immediately to congratulate the new parents. They were still in the birthing center, where they had a room that sounded like a hotel room with a king sized bed and private bathroom and shower… My son is staying there with them and has gotten two weeks off work for the birth.

Things have come a long way since my husband and I were new parents. Because I had to have a C-section I ended up in a hospital room, which I shared with another woman (I think there might have been two in succession — I was there for seven days, whereas most people were not). My hubby didn’t get any time off work, and because our son was in intensive care (on account of being premature) he (DH) had his hands full. He’d come home from a full day of work, take care of our animals — dogs, turkeys, and maybe chickens… I can’t recall when we got rid of the latter.

Anyway, he had to take care of them, then rush to the hospital to see me in the maternity ward, then our son in Neonatal Intensive Care, and somehow squeeze in a visit to the hospital cafeteria as well. Years later he told me that every day he had arrived at the hospital dreading bad news, certain that our son was on death’s doorstep. I on the other hand, who got to talk to the doctor and nurses and see DS often, never thought anything of the sort and was surprised and dismayed to learn of DH’s perspective only after the fact when we were reminiscing.

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone and it makes sense for the man to be with his wife and child from the beginning, so I’m happy to hear my son will be able to.

And I’m happy to be a grandmother as well. Can’t wait to see little Miss Lily in person. We’d planned a trip in October but that seems an awful long time to wait…

7 thoughts on “Welcome, Lily

  1. Gayle Coble

    Oh, Karen, there is nothing like a grandchild. Congrats!!! I have granddaughters also. One is a freshman in college…and no, I do not feel old and the other is four years old. Cy, the guy of the group is a freshman in high school. I texted him a few weeks ago on his birthday. The message back to me…”Who is this”? My answer, “Mime”…his reply. “Oh thanks [of course he used texting short hand]…I asked, “How is high school”? His reply, “Really high”! Like I said grand kids are like nothing else in this life.

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  2. Dorothy

    “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh fown from the Father of lights ,with whom there is no variables, neither shadow of turning” James 1:17. Congratulation, with love and prayers.

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