I think I will start with my children because my husbands story will take some major thought. I have two grown children, a male child and a female child. The kids are both in their thirties. What a life experience it is to have children! No one can understand parenting until they experience it first hand. For women its a totally different event. Now remember I'm speaking from a viewpoint of someone who was born in 1950. I wasn't knowledgeable about pregnancy, labor, childbirth or recovery. I was very naive about the entire subject. My Mother had four more children after I was born but never spoke to me about the experience. There were no ultrasounds, so the gender of the child was a surprise also.
From the moment I saw my son.....from a mirror mounted on the ceiling of the delivery room, my life would never be the same. I was instantly changed. Nothing in that room meant anything except that tiny little person who was all mine. Before this moment I thought I knew what love was but I was wrong, this moment was love. The pain and uncomfortable hours in labor no longer existed in my memory. My first child - a son named Nino, turned out to be a handful. He was one of those children that did not require much sleep. It was fortunate for me that I was a "stay at home" Mom at the time. He had a great disposition and was happy most of the time, he just didn't want to waste time sleeping. He would wake up in the middle of the night and act like it was morning. I would walk into his room and there he stood in his crib, ready to tackle the day. I pretty much took it in stride, not really knowing this wasn't normal. Your first child is like an experiment, so we kept some odd hours, Nino & I, while his Daddy slept. After all Dad had to go to work in the morning!
