If I may I’d like to share a couple of thoughts which I believe extend beyond the great pleasure and delight our family experienced yesterday in welcoming our second grandchild.
My wife and (especially) I have never taken anything for granted—with our own four kids and with our two grandkids. While delivery in today’s hospitals is very, very safe for baby and mother, I am always a wreck the last 48 hours.
When it looked like a C-Section might be in the offing, my anxiety ratcheted up a couple more notches. (Thankfully, Jean was able to deliver 9 pound, 2 ounce Ethan Gabriel vaginally.)
But the other side of safety is that while most of these precious babies are greeted in love and bathed in the cooing of adoring grandparents, others are abandoned. We have a story today about a child who miraculously survived, but that is the exception. Usually these little ones are deposited in plastic bags, dumped in toilet tanks, or thrown in sewers and garbage dumps.
If only for the briefest moment, I could not help but think of the contrast as we officially welcomed the newest Andrusko to the world.
One other dimension of yesterday’s arrival..
We are ultra-careful about allowing little children to hold babies, but three-year-old Emma had already prepared—literally for hours and hours—by holding a plastic doll ever-so-carefully in her arms. With an adult nestled on either side, Emma went about greeting her baby brother.
However they were not strangers. Throughout much of Jean’s pregnancy, Ethan’s big sister talked and sang to him.
While the adults were chattering, Emma had more important business. My son caught my eye and nodded in Emma’s direction. She was singing softly to her brother, and I am not exaggerating when I said Ethan knew her voice.
It was one of those moments you don’t forget.
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Emma, her folks, her grandparents knew this baby before he made his appearance. Our little circle of care and affection made real the lyric from one of my all-time favorite songs (with a slight twist):
“I knew I loved you before I officially met you.”
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in his National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.e
