Last night, the phone rang at midnight and I had a pretty good idea what it was going to be about. My sister who had been pregnant for the past nine months and past her due date called us earlier saying she might be going into labour. She went to the hospital and the doctor sent her back home where she phoned again to say she was back home with no baby. Then, like, three hours later the aforementioned phone call came telling us that she gave birth. Not only did that seem very quick but Jules, on the phone (cell phone of course. This was in the operating room a half hour later) seemed extremely calm like she was just sitting on the sofa watching an episode of Friends.
Now when I say calm, I do not mean disinterested. She was definitely happy but just calm. I'm not sure what I was expecting the scene to be like after a birth. Maybe it's always like this. If I had been in the room, things might have been a little more frantic. However Jules did assure me that an hour before, she definitely wasn't this calm. Then, there was this crying in the background and when I asked if that was the baby (dumb question on my part, perhaps), she said yes and that she was holding it. She said, in her calm manner, that she would soon try breast feeding. All this was surreal for me as babies aren't really part of my life (though now, they seem to be more than ever). And yet, my sister had just given birth and already sounded like a professional mother with her half-hour old child. Needless to say, it was one of the coolest phone calls I ever got from anyone. And now I'm an uncle and my parents are grandparents and my sister is a mother and her husband Francis is a father.
So what about details? Well, it's a girl which is probably a good thing as they did not have a name ready for a boy (and they did not know what the sex was going to be beforehand). And the name they chose is very cool. Jana Page Bourque. Now Jana (maybe there are two 'n's, I'm not sure. Jana? Janna?) is half my mother Janet's name and half of Francis' mother's name Anna. Page is my mother's maiden name and also my sister's middle name. I like it quite a lot.
Some of my women readers are probably wondering how much the baby weighed. I was, indeed, given a precise weight but now I forget. There was a seven somewhere and a decimal point and another number I can't remember. The relevance of this has never made sense to me and I asked Lindsay if she knew why people (I assume mostly women) always seem to ask and tell this information. I mean babies are just baby size, aren't they? She said she wasn't sure but maybe for the pain factor. Could women actually ask this to find out how painful the birth was for the mother? This I find weird but perhaps it is why (females are more sympathetic than men). I guess if you are going to pass something the size of a watermelon through a very small passageway a seven pound watermelon wouldn't be as painful as a ten pound watermelon.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. The watermelon in question is now my little niece and I'm going to see her on Monday and I can't wait. I'm more excited than the first time I saw Jerry Garcia walk out on stage at the old Boston Garden. For those of you who know me well, you know how excited I must be. Congrats, Jules! I can already tell that my niece has an awesome mom.
love,
Uncle Geoff
Here she is. Very cute.
