Lillebror arrived just after midnight (12:27am) on March 19, weighing in at 4085g (9 lbs) and 54 cm (21.25 inches), nine days over his due date but right on time in terms of waiting for our family to be ready for his arrival. On the day he was supposed to be born, March 10, I experienced a traumatic episode at work - undoubtedly the worst in my eleven years of teaching - that set in motion a week of long, intense, highly stressful days and nights.
Thank God for Mormor, who came to our rescue on March 14 and stayed with us all week long, caring for Sunniva, making food and providing immense moral and practical support to us all. As Anette half-joked to me the night before Johannes was finally born, "I'm not sure you would have been able to be emotionally present had he been born on time."
But like the prodigal son of the Paul Simon song Jake and I are so fond of singing, Johannes Kyvik-Klose was born at the right time. I finally wrapped up all the complex threads of the incident on Thursday, March 17, a week after it happened, and took Friday off to recover and refocus. Sure enough, when I returned with Sunniva from barnehage pick-up at 15:30, Anette said that it was time to go the hospital.
Uncle Andre and Aunt Elise, who had been waiting for over a month for that middle-of-the-night phone call, were already on their way to Drammen to spend the night and take over for Mormor, who had to leave in the morning. So the three of them ended up having dinner (fredagstaco) with Sunniva while Anette was going into labor, slowly this time. The intimacy of that process will forever remain between the two of us, as it should; the only thing I need to record here is my profound awe and respect for the strong, self-aware woman she is.
And so, at 12:27 am, Lillebror (for we were still debating names - Sebastian, Robin, Johannes??) entered the world, quiet and calm enough to make us wonder whether he shouldn't be making more noise! And the less-than-ideal luck of the past week immediately turned, for we were given a family room, and I was able to spend the first night with them, knowing that Sunniva was sleeping soundly in her own bed with Mormor, Uncle and Tante there to break the news when she awoke.
At 9:00am that morning, the four of them arrived at the hospital to greet the newest member of the family. I brought Sunniva into our room so that she could meet her little brother alone before proudly wheeling him out to the others who were waiting in the TV lounge. A very special hour of shared time, presents and picture-taking followed, and then Mormor had to be on her way back to Haugesund to get ready for her work week and upcoming trial. Little did we realize how living far away from family would affect us at times like these, which is why her presence was all the more meaningful.
Andre, Elise, Sunniva and I then went back home, where they played with her in the backyard sunshine while I got to take a shower. Shortly thereafter, they headed off in their new station wagon(!) for Bjorli, and Sunniva and I returned to the hospital. Sunday and Monday followed this pattern as well, with lots of Daddy-Daughter time and visits to Mommy and Lillebror (still unnamed) at the hospital. On Tuesday at noon we were finally able to bring them home, and a new chapter of our family life began.
It took a day or so for us to get into the new routine with two kids, and we wonder how we ever spent every moment of those first days with Sunniva just fawning over her and checking to see if she was breathing! During this time I was following up with the Norwegian American Genealogical Center in Wisconsin, which I had called the night before the birth to ask if they could help me trace one of Wenke's ancestors - Johannes Høviskeland, her father's uncle.
On Wednesday, our first full day at home, I got the response I was hoping for: Johannes had emigrated from the Høviskeland homestead in Tysnes and traveled to America in 1924, where he stayed for the rest of his days, becoming a citizen in 1931, and captaining a Standard Oil tanker on the Great Lakes until 1964, after which he retired and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he passed away at the ripe old age of 95 in 1999. The photograph that we received along with this story looked exactly like Oldefar, who actually thought it was a picture of his own father. So this was the deciding factor, and Lillebror officially became Johannes, aka Baby Joe.
Bestowing the name, with all its history, helped us to feel more connected to Lillebror and to give him more of an identity. It was a catharsis, channeling all the emotions of the week before his arrival, the birth, the hospital stay and the homecoming, and it allowed me to move forward and fully embrace my role as father of two (fathers always have to play catch-up - Anette is already nine months ahead in her relationship with her son).
These past two days have been absolute bliss, as the portrait of Johannes and Sunniva asleep on Anette clearly shows. We have been so in love with Sunniva for two years and ten months that we weren't sure it would be possible to love another person - a different personality - as fully, but it seems that this is the true gift of parenthood: indescribable joy, unconditional love and total satisfaction at being able to spend the little moments of life together with your own little tribe - playing, talking, baking, swimming, hiding, dancing, singing, discovering, laughing, inside-joking.
And I'll close with an inside joke that Sunniva had us in stitches with today at dinner. She has developed a habit of trying to stand on her chair while eating, to which we always say no, despite her irresistibly mischievous smile. Today I told her that all good dolphins had to eat their pasta after swimming, and that dolphins didn't stand on their chairs. And then she looked at us both and fired back, instantaneously - 'dolphins don't have feet!' And in that moment of side-splitting laughter, born of mutual understanding and shared humor, each of knows that there is no better feeling on earth.
Welcome to your tribe, Johannes.
