First day

I admired his face and body from afar. He looks so fragile, so small, so frail... How I wish to feel and hear his breathing, to listen to the sounds he makes, to feel the warmth of his little, little fingers and toes...

I called brother and finally managed to reach him. It was a smooth birth, from labour to my nephew entering the world took around two hours or so. All very quickly, he said, and he was there to greet the little life with his own hands. "Very touching", he said. I listened and imagined the scene, the beautiful scene...

All vital signs are normal, ten little fingers, ten little toes, weighing at  some 2950grams, which as I suspected from seeing pictures, is a little on the low side. But the child is healthy, and the mother is relatively well too, despite obviously being exhausted from the labour pains and giving birth.

My brother said the baby and mother are home now, discharged after just a day. He tried to change the diapers, and apparently my nephew's pee sprayed all over the freshly painted wall. My brother wasn't upset, as he normally would be, but found it amusing. And I reminded him of a story mum once recounted when my brother peed all over my mum's (or was it my dad's...?) face just a few days after he was born.

From the conversation, I could hear the excitement , but also a little fatigue, in brother's voice. He said he did not sleep much over the past two days, especially since the baby got home, as they are still adjusting to his cries at night and waking up at random hours. "It's always hard in the beginning," I said, but eventually they'll get used to it.

More and more, I am tempted to hop on a plane and fly to Europe to visit them, and to take this little being in my own arms....