A New Baby Boy

With our new home and new car, we were ready for our new baby boy to be born. We had been taking the new Lamaze classes to prepare for childbirth. Janene had mastered all the breathing exercises and we had practiced the efflourage (I liked that part), but when the day came to run to the hospital, I'm not sure we were really ready for this. Our doctor was the same doctor who had delivered Janene and he wasn't fully on board with the idea that the husbands should be an active part of the childbirth process. Nevertheless, we insisted that I be there for the whole thing. When it came time for the delivery, something went wrong and Shon's little baby heart stopped beating. The doctor came in and in a whirlwind of action, I was relegated to the corner of the room and told to stay there as they wheeled Janene out to the operating room. The last thing I had heard was "ceaserian". I was scared to death. My father had told me a few years before how much joy he had felt when I was born and how much it meant to him, but I don't think I really had understood what he meant until this moment. Right then, I saw all the anticipated joy disappear into the fog of fear and despair as I realized we might not be able to have this baby.

I was pacing in the hall when my father appeared in the doorway. I was never so glad to see my Dad. I needed him then and he was there with Mom, even though I think we hadn't asked them to be there. After what seemed like hours, a nurse came out to let me know Janene and baby were doing well and in a few minutes, Shon would be born normally. Our self centered life was about to change.

Janene and I were both firstborn children, so Shon was the first grandchild for Janene's family and the second in mine. Everyone wanted to see him and help us raise him. He was the cutest little thing with long curly blond hair and a smile that only quit when he was asleep or colicky. We read Janene's journal recently and were amazed at how often we had Shon at Janene's mom's house, or my parents and grandparents' homes. All of our siblings wanted to play with the new baby.

We even spent a lot of time with my littlest sister, Julia, who wanted to play with Shon more than I had ever remembered. We took Shon everywhere with us. When he was two weeks old, we took him to Lake Powell on a houseboat. We took him backpacking with us along with all his diapers. (cloth, of course). I learned to change diapers, a task that most men of the day wouldn't have any part of.

Shon brought more joy into our lives than we ever could have imagined. Here was this special little boy who we loved as much as we loved each other. I remember my Grandmother Morton saying that she loved all of her children and granchildren as much as she loved the first and I couldn't understand how that could be true, but with the birth of Shon, I felt like the Grinch whose heart had grown so many sizes in one day. I also realized that children are God's way of teaching us to be more Christlike as we sacrifice, and share our love for them. I can never look at Shon without remembering the joy that first came into our lives when we brought this little bundle into our home.