A miracle baby - they all are

The Boston Herald

We walked four-and-a-half miles the day before he was born. We didn't intend to walk this far. But city blocks go by fast because they're crowded with people and things, and before we knew it my daughter and I were sitting on a bench in Central Park, tired but not exhausted, though she should have been.

But she was pumped then, and ready to burst like the forsythia and magnolia trees with their buds. Like the daffodils and the hyacinth, like all the unfurling things, she and they partners in creation, waiting for the sun, for warmth, for time, for whatever it is that coaxes new life into being. Waiting and waiting and waiting. `

`I don't think he's ever coming,'' my daughter said. Spring and Adam. When would they arrive? Thirty hours later Adam was born, and though babies are born every day and spring shows up ever year, you're still stunned by it. You're still awed.

Adam has blond hair, lots of it, and we think hazel eyes, though they look blue in some lights and greenish brown in others. And he has his father's nose and lips and cheeks and forehead, and in his father's arms, it's all you see - how alike they are. And you're awed by this, too.

We study Adam because that's what you do with babies, isn't it? For months we imagined him, invented him, but not him, not his curls, not the contour of his cheeks, not the feel or the weight or the breadth of him. His parts are all standard, so how different can they be? How different can an infant's hand look? Or his foot? Or forehead?

And yet here they are - here he is - Adam already. Distinct. Unique. No one else like him. Not like the forsythia or the magnolia or the daffodils.

Adam studies us, too. He opens his eyes and he looks bewildered as if he went to bed a healthy man in control of his arms, his legs and his destiny and woke up without his consent, trapped in a baby's body. We joke about this. We joke that you can almost hear him thinking, ``Where am I?'' and ``Who am I?''

His mother nurses him. His father rocks him. Asleep, his forehead is smooth. But awake he frowns and asks questions with his eyes. ``It's OK, Adam,'' we say. But he doesn't look as if he believes us.

We lay his cousin Lucy next to him. She's been here nearly 10 months now. She knows the ropes. And she knows that where she is isn't a bad a place to be. She turns and looks at him. Then she takes his hand and smiles. It will be like this always, we tell Adam. People who love you, holding your hand.

There is a poem: ``Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into the here.'' Where do they come from? You see a tree bloom. You see specks of green peeking out of the soil. You feel the ground soften and the air getting warmer and the sun growing stronger and the days getting longer. And you can give names to these things. Seasons. Cycles. Photosynthesis. Life regenerating.

But the names are just words. Where do they come from - the seeds, the cells, the tiny toes, the shine in a baby's hair? It has all happened before, and it will all happen again. In Central Park the forsythias are in bloom now. Daffodils line the walkways. The magnolias have petals. And down the street some 40 blocks away, a new baby eats and sleeps and cries, routine things, as routine as the blossoming trees.

But a miracle every time.