In the worst snow storm of the year on Valentine’s Day, my grandson William slowly began his entrance to the world. We didn’t mind. School was cancelled, most businesses were shut but we shoveled ourselves out with a mission. We knew there would be a new member to our family by the end of the day.
True to McNicoll tradition, we packed up toys, two laptops, movies, sudoku puzzles, and lots of food and drinks (this is the way we always travel) to wait it out at the family centre at Joseph Brant Hospital.
Close to midnight we headed home convinced William didn’t want to begin his new life outside the womb ever. At 1:30 a text message on a phone told us differently. 2:00 AM we headed back, snuck through Emergency as the hospital was locked up to the general public now, begged for entrance and headed up to delivery. Again we waited in the family centre until another future grandmother told us she’d heard a baby cry. Since the only other patient was her daughter and she hadn’t had her baby, she felt by default it had to be ours.
We ran down the hall in time to see William wheeled out in his little glass gurney, his father Adam snapping photos as the nurse tilted it every way for a better view. He cried his desperate newborn cry which made me want to scoop him up immediately.
Wonderful! Perfect healthy fingers and toes, dark unfocussed eyes, a mat of brown hair.
We look forward to getting to know him better.
