Author’s Note: This is the storified version of a dream that I had on March 10, 2005. Yes, I actually do write these things down. 🙂

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I was so very tired; every part of me ached. I was sweaty and felt nearly ripped in two. The room still swam a bit and I felt too tired to lift a finger. I could hear voices around me, people moving around the room. Some leaving, others staying.

It was over. Finally.

I felt the doctor place a little blanketed bundle in my arms and they shook a little as I raised them to grasp it. It squirmed. I blinked to clear my vision and my breath was taken away for the umpteenth time that night.

He was perfect, absolutely perfect! Perfect little hands, perfect little nose, perfect little mouth. He clenched his little fists and squirmed again, opening his eyes. He looked right at me and seemed to almost visibly relax in my arms. Such clear, bright little eyes. I couldn’t believe it.

I felt lips kiss my forehead and a whisper of absolute amazement above me. I sighed. “Say hi to Daddy.” And lifted him into his father’s arms.

My pillow was soaking wet when I leaned my head back against it. The nurse said they would change my linens and bed after I’d caught my breath. She said he was a beautiful baby boy. We should be very proud. I assured her that we were.

I watched him hold our son, look into that brand-new face, so fresh from God’s presence. I found myself smiling, though I didn’t know what to say. But it was just the most beautiful moment.

After a minute, he placed him back in my arms. “I think he wants his mama.”

Mama. Me? It sounded so foreign to me, so impossible. And yet here he was. I held that precious, terrycloth-wrapped bundle and marveled all over again. Lips kissed my cheek and breath brushed my ear.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too…Daddy.” That didn’t sound foreign to me. I had always pictured him as a father, with a little boy or girl trailing after his heels. Playing with dogs, climbing trees, teaching his child to love the earth, the forests, and the fields that he had loved all his life. A little boy to teach how to open doors for a lady and to be simply charming, to play video games and knights and dragons with. A little girl—his own little princess—pelting around in the dirt after her grandfather’s chickens in her dress while her father laughs; a little girl to indulge in fairy tales and to teach to dream.

I determined then that our son would be encouraged in his wildness, to dash around the backyard, climbing trees, jumping rocks, and building forts in order to break every bone in his body. To dream of battle, of being a hero. He’d go camping and hiking and hunting with his father and grandfather, learn to love the land. I would read him bedtime stories full of heroes and quests, help him put together costumes for Halloween of superheroes. Campouts in the living room, safaris in the backyard. Yes, I knew there would be hard times, difficulties, shouting matches maybe, even. But we would make it through. God had placed him in our arms and we would give him back to into His hands.

I felt him smile against my temple as I set the little one to nurse.

“We still have to give him his name.”

I smiled, too. “Yes. But what do you say we tell Him thank-you first?”