I am ready

It's been 40 weeks, and now I'm three days away from becoming a father. I can say this with relative certainty because this child of ours shares her father's distaste of being upside-down. With head up and butt down, good ol' fashioned labor is out of the question. We've given her as much time as possible to flip on her own, but since she seems quite content where she is, we're going to have to go in and get her. Tuesday, at 12:30pm, we have scheduled the c-section. Jo is of course quite nervous. Pregnancy and the upcoming birth obviously has--and will have--a much larger effect on her body and mind that it ever could on mine. I can understand and empathize with the fear and concern, but I don't feel any of it myself. I can honestly say I am completely and totally ready for this. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is to wrench the absolute most positive aspect of a terminal cancer patient who has completely given herself over to fate. I have done all I can do up to this point, and now all of the details are out of my hands. I have given my life over to this little girl. There is a kind of beauty and peace to this thought that I have never experienced before and can hardly describe. Unconditional love seems like an understatement. I have never even seen her face and I am already in thrall.

I am a skydiver in free-fall, a soldier in the onset of war.

I have no fear of the end of this life.

I see only heaven beyond.