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There's nothing like it.
There is nothing in the world that will ever amount to the moment when a newborn baby is handed to its parents for the first time. There's always this moment in the room, where breath hitches and the air stills as the world falls into place. The expressions don't vary as much as one would think, it's always the same wide eyes glistening with tears, bridge of the nose flushed pink, lips bitten with anticipation. And when the tiny bundle is finally transferred into the waiting arms, shaky breath rattles and everything else disappears and it's pure connection.
Generally the first precious moments are spent with the mother. After the babe is given a prefatory wipe with a lukewarm towelette, it is laid carefully over the her breast for the most crucial introduction of their life. This bit is magical, the easiest love Louis has ever witnessed. With few exceptions, the first contact between mother and child is beautiful and instantaneous.
But in a way, Louis likes the next part the very best. Because unlike with the mother, where it's as if a falling in love is as natural as taking a breath, the father's first moments are more violent. It's a visible explosion of emotion, always a shock and always so so massive. Whether it happens internally, with only the wounded awe in their eyes, or external, with the trembling and the tears, it's the most sublime thing to be permitted witness to.
To most of his peers, birth is an alien and even repellant thing. But Louis' been attending births since before he can remember, and has never been fazed by the messier elements involved. As a single mother without child support Johannah had no choice but to bring her toddler to work. So as a young child he'd accompanied his mother into the homes of her clients, throughout pregnancies for appointments and consultations, as well as the big events. When he was old enough she'd even put him to use fetching clean water, handing her cloths, making tea to calm anyone who needed it. A normally rambunctious child, Louis in the delivery room transformed into a serious, competent assistant.
When he was six years old he helped deliver his baby sister, and he was the one to clean her up to present to their mum. And then did the same with the three precious girls that followed, handing each to his stepfather with a fluttering heart and twisting stomach.
Louis likes to think he remembers the first time he helped his mum with a delivery. There are hazy images in his head of a warmly lit room, pressing palms to the foggy window to stare at the snow swirling outside. In his mind he's giggling with another child, being hushed by him mum and tugged over to sit quietly at her side. He remembers thinking that the labouring mother was beautiful even in her pain, with black hair and a pale face like Snow White. He remembers after the baby came, waiting by the crib while his mum finished up with the parents.
But it's hard to tell if he actually does remember or if he's fabricated the memories from the many times Jay has told the story. She likes to tell it, about how the baby boy born that day had been the quietest she'd ever delivered. He was awake, she'd explain, big eyes already bright and green, blinking his first glimpses of the world. But he didn't make a noise, even when Jay held him up and rubbed his tiny chest to activate the lungs.
"But I did it!" Louis would interrupt, too excited to stay silent. "I made him laugh! Right?"
"You did." Jay would beam fondly, "you went right up to him in his mum's arms and you introduced yourself. Do you know what you said?"
"I said 'hello'." Louis would recite, "I said 'my name is Louis. You are very small. Shall we be friends?'"
"You did." Jay would chuck his cheek, "and then the most wonderful thing I've ever seen happened. The darling babe laughed. Swear on my life I've never seen a newborn smile in the first day, normally they don't start making actual expressions until a few months. But that child opened his mouth and grinned at you, and he laughed. I never would have believed it if I didn't see it with my eyes."
"He liked me!" Louis would brag, chest puffed out proudly. "I charmed him right?"
"That's right my love. Five minutes in this world and he couldn't resist you. He could see how good and special you were."
Louis would smile giddily, bounce in her lap and ask to see the picture. It was a photo snapped a while later, after the baby boy had been passed to his father, and then to his older sister, and had a more thorough bath. Swaddled up in a fuzzy blanket, the teeny lad was placed in a nest of pillows for his first nap after the exhausting task of being born. The photo shows two year-old Louis curled up beside the baby, chin in his hands, gazing adoringly as the little fellow. The image is poorly lit, grainy and dim. The frame is half blocked by the back of the sister's head. But Louis loved to look at it anyway, at how tiny the baby looks next to him, at the fat curve of his features. Even in sleep the delicate bow of his lips appear to be set in a small smile.
Whether he actually remember or not, even if he's just dreamed the memories up between the photo and the story, it's a moment Louis holds inside of him for years. While his classmates boast dreams of being firemen or astronauts, pilots of veterinarians, Louis wants to be a midwife for most of his childhood. And even when that desire tempers with age and he drifts to grander aspirations of football forward, movie star, and pop singer sensation, there's a piece of him that hangs on.
He'll realize at some point that he hasn't looked at the photo in years. By then his life has moved across the country, and he doesn't have time to pull it out and reminisce. But he thinks about it. When Lux is born, when he holds Brooklyn for the first time, when Jay announces that she's pregnant again. And later, when the roles are upturned and it's him waiting with the hitched breath and flushed nose and wet eyes and terror for his own child to be placed in his arms.
There's nothing like it.