Letter To My First Born

Inspired by the 2pac song by the same name — a letter to you my son, Massimo. Love, baba.

The contractions started on a Tuesday night at one thirty in the morning.

Your mother wasn’t sure if it was the real deal yet. It’s best to try to relax in these early stages of labour — but she couldn’t sleep. The contractions continued so she downloaded an app to time them. They were about one minute long and five minutes apart, but not that strong. She decided to call our doula, EeVon — a cool, calm Malay lady from Sudbury.

Half-awake, I heard your mother talking about something that seemed really important. And it was. It was about you.

Once I pieced together what was going on, I leaped out of bed thinking, “OMG. This is it. The day my family gets a tiny third member!”. And just then I pulled an old kink under my right shoulder blade that pulsated down my hamstrings. Baba’s got some back issues, Massimo. As I reached for the Tylenol, I could already feel your big brown eyes rolling — sucking your teeth at me ten years from now when I need another break while we’re wrestling.

While your mother was breathing through her contractions, I spent the next few hours on a Persian rug with my legs elevated cursing my achy bones. The smell of Tiger Balm leaked up my nose hairs. I fibbed to your mother about how much it hurt and centred her.

Eevon said it still seemed early and told your mother to rest and relax — which to her of course meant: clean the home office while you still can!

At one point around three thirty, I was staring at the groove that joins the window to the window sill when I noticed a reddish-brown shape moving in the blurry background outside –a fox! Not a coyote — but a fox; I could tell from its cartoonishly thick tail. A rarity to see. It scanned left and right, sniffing the base of a sapling at the adjacent street corner. Patiently waiting and watching.

They’re highly adaptable, intuitive creatures. Foxes, I mean. They symbolize the need to adjust to new situations, to think fast and strategically — trust their gut.

The fox was there to protect your airstair — your path home, Massimo. It sensed you were close and stood guard as a reminder to make sure it all went smoothly — and it did.

The following day while harvesting the last peppers and lavender from our rooftop garden, I noticed a distant hawk circling our loft building in the cloudless sky. Hawks bring both creative energy and protection.

On the following night the contractions started again — this time much stronger. A chalky moon flooded the neighbourhood in an off-white hue. This phase represents completion, fertility, abundance — the blooming seeds under a full moon.

The indigo sky was peppered with the brightest stars I’ve ever seen in Toronto. Each star fighting against the white roar of the street lamps and office buildings far below just so we can see them. They too were waiting for you.

On Thursday night Eevon Ubered over to our loft. Now it was getting real. I felt numb between bouts of worry for your mother. I didn’t want anything to hurt her. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.

Your mother was exhausted. It was now her third day of labour and we decided that it was time to head to the hospital. We arrived on Friday morning at ten and that night, at half past midnight you were born. Your mother was incredible. She stunned Eevon, who proclaimed that this birth was both the strangest that she ever witnessed and that your mother was a warrior with a high pain tolerance. Accurate.

You burst out a healthy cry as they placed you on your mom’s chest immediately after birth. A great sign. We couldn’t believe you were finally here! But before we could soak in the moment, we had a problem: the placenta was stuck in mom’s uterus. She tried pushing it out with the heart of Xena The Warrior Princess but it didn’t work. The doctors urged that she be taken to the operating room right away to remove it. She lost a lot of blood.

Within minutes of hearing your voice, everyone cleared the room.

A nurse swaddled you in a blanket and placed you under a heat lamp since your skin-to-skin with mom was cut short. I couldn’t look away. You were so beautiful. If your face was on a bottle of poison, I’d down it happily. And as the venom engulfed my veins, I’d rip off the label and eat it too. I immediately loved you and wanted to take care of you forever.

And there we were. Just me and you.

You were calm, collecting your thoughts while tasting the air with your little tongue like a drunk newt.

I took stock of the situation and appreciated the jazz playlist that set the soundtrack to the first day of your life. The doctors said that you were slightly underweight as compared to the North American average so they wanted to take a blood sample every few hours to measure your sugar levels. When you cried at every pin prick on your little feet, my heart would fall apart but I admired how quickly you got over it. You passed all of their tests with flying colours and didn’t complain once.

I was terrified to hold you. I didn’t want to make a mistake and hurt you. The nurse helped to put you on my chest. She called it skin-to-skin. You were grabbing at my chest hair and burrowing your head in the warmth. Even though I was a fish out of water, I felt a very natural undertone to everything that was going on around me. In all the parts that mattered most.

It was surreal. To be alone with you, my heir — just minutes old in a blood-stained hospital room cluttered with our pillows, hospital blankets, gluten-free contraptions, figs and mysterious medical equipment. My shoulders cold, I felt you radiating my belly like a servo motor with a heart that pumped fast and strong like a zombie.

When we were driving away from the hospital with mom and you in the back, I felt like I just got away with grand larceny. A part of me couldn’t actually believe we got to take you home. I’ve never been responsible for anything so important as you.

And here you were, Massimo Gino Kaveh Ghaderi wrapped in a muslin cloth and an oversized gender-neutral toque. A little brown Persian-Italian concoction born in the urban anglo world.

Sorry for the long name baba, but trust me that you want your nonno and your mamani near you like that. Even at their age, the Gino and the Kaveh matriarch are a powerhouse. By now, I’m sure you realize this.

It felt so good when we brought you home. Your bisnonna, nonna and nonno arrived promptly to see you. Always on time. Four generations under one roof. I could finally let my guard down.

As I’m writing this letter to you, you’re making all sorts of diverse sounds never heard before. Beautiful and crazy screeches, grunts, wimpers, little yells, vocal yawns, vocal stretches and gasps all emitting from you—a little stranger — across a dark bedroom in the middle of the night.

You change everyday. You flex your whole little body to fart. It’s funny to think that the first step in parenthood has been showing you how to lift your legs to pass gas more effectively. And now you do it on your own. A father’s pride!

And sometimes when you stretch after a primal nap you sound like a cross between a classic Dr. Dre beat with that whining West Coast tone and a baby elephant. You blink like a robot and hiccup like a giant toad –and now, just a week old — you move the whole stroller when you do.

You’ve even developed your own trademark move when breastfeeding: the famous punching arm. It’s best described as a sudden jerk of the shoulder and a flailing of the arm in a striking motion. We always smile when we see that — and we see it often.

Within days of being born you were already crushing tummy time — being able to turn your head from one side to the other while lying on your stomach. We were floored. And you surpassed your birth weight way ahead of their schedule, gaining sixty grams a day when the average is twenty-five. Wow. Massimo The Great.

Now my son, show me what you’ll do with that strength. That’s your job. And my right hand will always be on your shoulder guiding you — even when it isn’t.

And always remember that you have a whole team of family and friends waiting in line just to love you baba. And you have a mother and father that’ll give you every opportunity and all the love you need to live fully. And always listen to your mother! We love you.

Your baba.