(I started this the day after littlebabygirl was born, but didn’t really get to finish it… so I’m going to try now)

There’s more story to tell, about all of this baby-birthing stuff, but there’s one thought that I’d like to capture before I forget. It’s not really sweet or life-changing, but it was an interesting realization I had during Sarah’s laboring.

In imagining what labor and delivery would be like, I had imagined everything much larger than life.

I believed that Sarah would be impervious to pain.
I believed I would be able to sooth her discomfort simply by laying my hand on her forehead.
I imagined that when standing by Sarah’s head, that the OB would be delivering the baby 10 feet away.

I think that by making everything so abstract, I was keeping myself from getting too scared.

As it turned out, everything was exactly life-sized. That was far, far scarier.

I was only the man I am and Sarah was only the woman she is. Which, happily, was more than enough.