The story of Grif. {PART 3}

We got the phone call Tuesday morning that she had gone into labor. He was born six minutes after she was admitted to the hospital! He was born just twenty minutes earlier; we needed to head to the hospital to meet our son.

He was here.

The whole drive there seemed surreal I just kept looking all around, trying to take mental photographs of the whole drive. I wanted to remember everything about our experience. His home. I wanted to capture it all, and keep it. I felt the need to remember every detail, so that I could tell Grif all about it...

You would have never known she just had a baby. She was flawless. Beautiful. Captivating. Immediately after the baby was born, he was whisked away to the NICU, because he was having a hard time breathing. She never even got to see him. She wanted us to be there with her.

The wait began to meet our son...

Hours and hours passed, each promising to deliver the boy to the anxious room. While my heart was yearning to meet him, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to get to know M. We had about four hours to ourselves, just us and her. She was gracious, and I was enthralled with her.

The exact moment I saw his little bed round the corner into our room, will never fade in my memory: the feeling of complete rapture will never dull; the euphoria from that instant, will follow me through life. It is impossible to not become emotional when discussing the moment.

I felt my actual spirit leap.

My heart whispered to my soul: There he is.

And a peaceful confirmation that he was ours, wrapped me tight.

I knew him.

They wheeled him straight up to M’s bed. I was more than willing to wait my turn, and simply felt honored to be in the same room. M reached into the bed and pulled him to her chest. She kissed him firmly, and for an instant, seemed to inhale his presence.

And then she turned and placed him directly into my arms and said, “Meet your son.”