Alexandra
By Joe C Comb 2nd
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Joe C Comb 2nd
Front Cover Copyright
Joe C Combs 2nd
ISBN: 978-1-4581-7259-4
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Alexandra
Children and bachelors are an odd combination. You know that eventually you will be a father, but you still do not know what to think of kids. People always want to hand you their newborns and ask you when you will have one of your own. You look at this little human being, it starts to get wet and you hand it back to mom or dad. You tell them how beautiful their baby is, it is only a little white lie. Babies are kind of cute, but to you they all look the same. The daughters of a friend adopt you as their uncle and it gives you a good feeling inside. You enjoy buying gifts for them on your many travels and the hugs are great, but they are not your children. Still, this is as close as you will get. By now, you are married again, but too much time has passed and you know it. You accept it, it is not too bad, you can do many things that people with kids cannot.
Then one day, when you are forty-one, your wife tells you, “We are going to have a baby”. You go through a rush of thoughts and emotions. For the first time you experience self-doubt. What kind of dad will I be? Can I do this? What if I crush my baby the first time I hold her, what if I drop her, what if she does not like me? Then the shopping begins, by now you start to feel good about being a dad, soon after that the excitement hits. You take all that old junk out of a spare bedroom and with a couple gallons of paint, some wallpaper borders of teddy bear angels and a whole lot of love you and your wife create a nursery. You bring home a dresser, a changing table, a baby scale (you did not know they made such things), and a crib you are missing one thing. Furniture store after furniture store, and then finally your wife finds just the right rocker and footstool for the nursery.
By now all the doctor’s visits and sonograms start. You are going to be the proud father of a baby girl. You and your wife settle on Alexandra for her first name, you want to honor your father-in-law Alexander. Your wife and you both like Elizabeth and so that will be her middle name. It is only after you decide on the names that you find out there is a long list of women named Elizabeth in both families. Things are looking good. You have one more local hospital visit before going to the big city hospital for an amniocentesis. While the nurse is doing the sonogram your daughter shoves her open right hand up at the intrusion.
“Daddy, you just got a high five,” says the nurse.
You will remember that little hand with its five perfect fingers for the rest of your life. You could not feel prouder at this very moment.
A few days later, you are at the big city hospital, an hour from home. They explain there is some risk with an amniocentesis, about six percent. You are not worried. Then you are in the operating room and you start to worry. You see the most detailed sonogram you have ever seen. Your daughter is so beautiful and you think to yourself we do not need to do this, Alexandra is fine; she is more than fine she is perfect and beautiful and your little girl. You start to think of your wife and you know this operation will give her peace of mind, so you give your consent to go on. The operation goes off with no problems, not a bad Monday. You are glad that Friday is Good Friday; you will not have to work any over time or go to work that night.