My son and I moved residence on the same day. He decided to be born at 11.30pm on the very day that we moved to a new house. Both were traumatic for us boys! By the time he decided to make his appearance I was lying in the visitor’s room in the hospital asleep with a migraine. I had to be roused and hastily clad in gown and wellies for the emergency section.
In theatre, what I found peculiar was looking under the operating table and seeing the green wellies on the medical staff. And the very complicated machine which the anaethnatist was hovering over just by my wife’s head. But it paled into complete insignificance by comparison with the complex and magnificent beauty of our new born son. Those lettuce - like ears, the tiny perfectly working joints in his fingers. Long fingers, long toes, he is from my wife’s side of the family. After a clean-up and quick check he was remarkably calm when handed to me. Then he made a huge effort to open his eyes for the first time and having checked me out he then closed them and slept. I was the first person he ever set eyes on. What a thought!
We named him and found it very unusual calling him by his name. Not that it was an odd name but here we were – 3, no longer 2, with someone else in the house with his own name, personality, needs. “Name, though it seem but a superficial and outward matter, yet it carrieth much impression and enchantment” said Francis Bacon in 1625-ish. As he has grown he has certainly become his name. Hamish.
Later, well past midnight I scrambled home. In the midst of the birth experience – both Hamish and me moving house- I was left with a two day migraine.
