Eight years ago I was languishing in the hospital bed that had been my home for over a month. I had argued successfully against a planned surgery, but this meant that we were all waiting for the crisis. That morning it finally happened; the baby flipped and I started to bleed. I asked to wait, asked for tests, and a quick evaluation showed that my infant was in fact not ready to be taken. But the risk was too severe, and I was too ill, and the baby was drowning in the blood.
They cut me fast, without surgical dressings to capture the blood, without appropriate anesthesia, slicing upward toward my belly button to save him.
It took an entire year for him to catch up and become the strapping fellow that he should have been at birth. It took another four years for the exquisite sensitivity of his premature arrival to fade.
Now he is eight. He stands as tall as my shoulder. He speaks in full vivid paragraphs. He rides his bicycle, reads books, creates fabulous structures with Lego, spends hours each day drawing in his journals. He is one of the most eccentric and interesting people I have had the privilege to know.
We celebrated the day with sushi for lunch and salmon for dinner. He opened a vast array of presents from family members far away and the visiting grandmother.
I gave him a proper bowler hat because he is obsessed with P. G. Wodehouse. He ran off to his closet to find a suit to wear. We all sat at the table laughing and eating chocolate cake and ice cream.