FIRST DAY!

Outside, it’s dreary and raining. The rush hour traffic inches
along, a slow procession of drivers staring ahead blankly,
wishing they were home.
Inside Labor and Delivery Room 15, the television brings
news of a plane accident in Chicago. A winter storm blan￾kets the Northeast. A boy has been murdered in a Tampa
park. A local soldier has died in Iraq.
Already David and Anastasia are wondering how they will
protect their firstborn from the world outside this hospital
room. They worry, as only parents can, how they will handle
all that lies ahead.
In the day’s few quiet moments - between contractions and
nurses checking blood pressure and doctors asking ques￾tions - they talk about the daughter who is about to arrive.
Will she know right from wrong? Will she turn out shy?
Patient? Compassionate? Will she have blue eyes like her
father? Will she grow taller than her mother?
Will she tell them about her first kiss?
Will she fall in love, the way they did? Will she have her
heart broken, the way they did? Will she have a child of her
own someday and worry, the way they are now?
They wonder all this before they have ever laid eyes on her.
They have heard only the sound of her heartbeat, and that
was enough.
And then the clock ticks past 7 p.m., and the thoughts of the
world and its perils slip away. The months of waiting, the
days of wondering, the hours of labor - it all fades.
In that moment, there is only this:
One final, painful push.
A baby girl, 6 pounds, 14 ounces, flawless.
Her first cry, innocent and primal.
A mother’s weary smile.
A father’s eyes filled with tears.
A family beginning