Madness #1--the "wow" factor

Everyone thinks their kid is the cutest baby to ever be born. Which means that no one but YOU thinks YOUR kid is the cutest baby to ever be born.

This caused me a lot of grief and concern during my last few months of pregnancy. I was so worried that my child would inherit my worst qualities and features, and that I would be the only person in the world that thought he was perfect.

I can remember a conversation I had with my tenth grade English teacher, who found out she was expecting her first child during our fall semester in her class. She had become a good friend of mine, and took me out to lunch to tell me that she was pregnant before I heard it from someone else. At one point, between bites of her Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger at Wendy's, she looked at me with a worried expression and said, "Becky, I'm so scared that my baby will be ugly and I'll think she's beautiful and no one will have the heart to tell me that I've given birth to an ogre!" So funny. Right then and there I promised to give her the bad news should her child be horrifyingly repulsive. Thank goodness I didn't have to do that. Her daughter was angelic.

But ever since she mentioned the idea, it stuck with me. I had never thought of motherhood in that way before. I mean, I've seen some pretty ugly babies in my time, but to their mothers, they are flawless. So Marty and I would stay up at night, rubbing my pregnant belly, and talk about our son, hoping he'd turn out alright.

Which leads me to my moment of madness. I had to have an emergency c-section (another story for another time), so my heart was pounding as I laid there in the OR waiting to hear that first little scream. Marty was there with me holding my hand, talking about rainbows and butterflies to get my mind off the fact that my abdomen was open and exposed and that my doctor was pushing my guts to the side trying to pull our baby out, when the anesthesiologist tapped my husband on the shoulder and said, "You might want to see this." Marty stood up and peered over the partition that seperated my torso from my bloody belly and watched as our baby emerged. Kind of gross but kind of cool. As soon as I heard our son's little whimper, my first words were, "Is he cute?"

I know, I know. I'm a bad mom. My concern was not whether he was healthy but whether he was adorable enough to elicit attention from other people. Adorable enough to convert a couple people into the belief that OUR son was the cutest baby to ever be born.

But you know what? I blame that moment of madness on the drugs. Because let's face it. My child really is the cutest ever and if you say otherwise, I'll just nod politely and pray for you to someday see the truth.