For those of you who have walked through this experience you’ll know what I’m about to describe. It’s the moment you arrive home from the hospital with your first born and you’re all alone with this thought running through your mind: “I can’t believe they let me bring the baby home – we have no idea what we’re doing? Where’s the manual?”

When Jason was born we were living in Listowel and though it was the early 1980’s the hospital felt more like the early 1950’s. Now that’s not to say the doctors or nurses didn’t know what they were doing but they were managing a much higher level of risk. Our friends who were having children were in cities where the experience seemed so much more modern with husbands in the room, full time doctors and specialists. Our small hospital was staffed by the family doctors of town and there were no specialists. So you can see that they were just more cautious.

It’s hard to believe that so many years have gone by…and guess what? He survived! So did we. We weren’t perfect parents, but we did our best, learned as we went, like most folks, and tried to make one thing clear to our children – that we loved them and were behind them all the way , even when we weren’t happy with their behaviour.

We still feel that way.

And because he was the first grandchild on either side of the family everyone wanted to see and hold him… here’s how that went…