Oh Baby

I was in the middle of a Very Hectic Day at work this afternoon, rushing from the ICU to another floor, or maybe even from one ICU to a different ICU, my head swimming in a sea of death and dying and strokes and ventilators and cancers and nursing homes and heart-breaking patients and insane families, when I saw a man cradling an infant on his shoulder. Just pacing quietly in a circle, making the most minute of rocking motions, his face dominated by the most serene and contented smile I'd seen all day, maybe even all Fall.

And I thought to myself, Man, how easily do we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of Living and Working and Moving and Shaking - whether in my line of work, or accounting, or teaching, or taxidermy - that we forget that the highest forms of contentment and fulfillment and meaningfulness can actually be gained from something as simple as holding a newborn baby?

This led quickly to the realization that I must have or adopt or steal a baby as soon as possible, and then quit my job and stay home rocking it in circles all day long. Then my social work gene kicked in and I started down the Thalidamide Amputee Crack Baby road. Then I apologized to the orderly for not hearing him the first three times he asked me to get out of the way as I stood in the middle of the hallway staring vacantly into space.

My point, though, is this. Points, actually:

1. Workplace morale would be significantly improved if there was some sort of infant rental agency that could strategically plant babies around the office, or have them pop out of the ceiling on swings at critically intense conference call junctures, or provide them in packs of twelve to hold down papers or cradle phone receivers or carry beepers.

2. I don't know that I will ever be truly fulfilled or complete until I have a baby of my own. As in, thinking about having a baby, or not having one, causes a tightness and swelling in my chest which comes and goes depending on the moon cycle or how much sleep I have gotten or how many babies I've seen on a given day, but which is always there to some degree, and which can clearly only be alleviated by the consistently applied pressure of 8 pounds of newborn baby.

3. Clearly, someone planted that baby in the hallway today in an effort to thwart my designated evening project of completing our magnetic Save-the-Dates. To which I can only say, touché.