The power of a woman (a child is born)

Tonight, we welcomed into the world our beautiful son James. He's here, he's safe, and right now, he sleeping. It won't be that way for long so Libby's also making the most of it. She's out cold, too.

That leaves me.

I'm sitting here in Room 9 at Calvary Private. It's a huge room, and apart from the gentle heaving of Libby's breath as she sleeps, and the even gentler version that is James', it's silent. And that gives me time to sit on the couch and reflect on what happened today.

What happened to today was noting short of amazing. When my wife said to me, not fifteen minutes ago, "Thank you for being there today", I had to return by saying "Thank you for spending ten months of your life bringing me a son".

There is nothing pleasant about bearing a child. Nothing at all. Every book you read about birth wraps it in some beautiful, life changing experience. It's all bullshit.

It's long, incredibly painful and in some cases can be a compromise to your dignity. It amazes me how a person could rationally answer in the positive this question:

Would you like spend nine months of your life getting ever fatter, giving up pretty much everything you like to eat, see or do, then spend half a day compacting your insides into the size a tennis ball and back 30 times an hour, only to finally punch a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon?

For us, I think I worked it out. It's love. Love brought us here. Love sometimes throws reason to the wind and makes rational the irrational. I have love to thank for the journey I have taken so far with Lib. And I will have love to thank for the journey that will continue now with James.

I hope I make the most of that journey. Not only for me but for those I love most: my wife Libby, my beautiful son Thomas, and our brand new traveller, James.

A new course starts today. G'day little fella.