I find myself holding a minutes old newborn and am in awe. My wife lay beside me delivering the afterbirth.  With midwife assistance in a hospital-attached birthing center, my wife just naturally delivered our daughter complication free, drug free.  We chose to water birth, and I had the privilege of catching her; the first hands to hold her were her father’s. I lock eyes with my wife.  One intimate journey completes and another begins.

How we came to this moment was a not granola path, but rather a conscious series of informed choices we both made.  But none of that matters now.  I am holding my daughter.  Magic.  Humbling.  I was just entrusted by this tiny human baby to care for it during it’s journey.  We begin.