If you are in the midst of having a baby, I am perhaps not the *best* person to accompany you into labor & delivery, but I am also not the *worst*. For instance, some people are psychotic. Some people have Ebola. When you invite me into your labor & delivery room, you can expect my behavior to be generally innocuous. I might panic and press the nurse’s call button when you stand to stretch your legs. I might be a little too interested in the snacks meant to keep your strength up. And I might keep gravitating toward your birthing jacuzzi because I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. But I am also super invested in making your birthing experience a beautiful one.
Even though the labor & delivery security band on my wrist entitles me to “free drinks” in the cafeteria upstairs, I will not start thinking of the hospital as an exclusive nightclub where “anything goes” because I have an “all-access pass.” I will not keep flashing my wristband to family members in the maternity ward lobby who are not in possession of wristbands, for I would hate for them to feel self conscious about not making the cut. I will not start thinking of the nurses as “bouncers” who “know me.” When asked how things are going beyond the security doors, I will not insinuate that there are mysteries occurring in labor & delivery that those without wristbands could never understand, and I will not compare my birthing room privileges to being backstage at a Jay-Z concert, drinking champagne with Beyonce and Blue Ivy while everyone else is getting their flasks confiscated in the cheap seats, because childbirth is a miracle and the miracle is not how cool I am all of a sudden.
I will not swear more than 50 times in front of your newborn. I will not blog about your private parts. (Even though no one reads this blog so it might be kind of liberating to have your vagina on here.)
But I will worship the ground you walk on for a long time to come. And I will wear my all-access wristband until the nurses turn on me and insist on cutting it off. They’ll take these precautions before I get carried away with love and try to steal your baby. At this point the bouncers know me all too well.
Welcome to the world, little nephew. I hope you dig crazy aunts. xo