Arrival

On Tuesday evening, full of a sense of imminence, L and I listened to the most imminent piece of classical music I know: the first section on Handel's Messiah. It's concerned, of course, with the coming of a son, rather than a daughter - and, really, with much more than a son, at that. But you get the picture.

On Wednesday morning, L awoke at 2 in the morning, feeling faint contractions during a violent thunderstorm. By 9, we were at the hospital, and by 11:30 in a room, where L began 13 hours of labor.

On Thursday morning, at about 12:15 a.m., our daughter was born. Small - 5 pounds, 13 oz. - but a fighter: she struggled with the umbilical cord, which was wrapped around her neck, and then let the delivery room know that she'd arrived with a brief cry, before quietly looking about her.

And the alto and the chorus sang, at Dublin's New Music Hall in 1742, "O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain..."

Name to follow.