My Son’s Favourite Story

As parents we all have our favourite stories we tell people. This isn’t one of the stories I like tell, although SO (my wife) and I have told it a couple of times, it’s actually a story that J, our son, likes to tell people. And he’s told it to pretty much everyone who’s not a complete stranger.

Considering he was less than a week old when it happened I don’t think he actually remembers it happening, but he does find it highly amusing.

And so sets the scene. He was, if I remember correctly, and SO would probably say I don’t, but she’s not writing this, I am, so I shall for this time ignore her voice in my head and say that J was all of five days old at the time the story takes place.

For those who haven’t read our story of adopting J, you can read it here. This is only so that you understand why I didn’t see my son until he was 5 days old. I’m not that bad a father, I would have seen him earlier but we had just returned from a holiday and needed to get more time off from work before we could go and retrieve him from the hospital and take him as our own. Which makes sense if you read the other story.

So, we flew to Yogyakarta, where he was born, quickly checked into the hotel, and made off to the hospital to meet for the first time the baby who would be our son.

Once at the hospital we finally got to see him, lying there peacefully asleep and the most amazing thing I have ever seen. My son.

Of course we haven’t reached the part of the story J likes to tell everyone. Oh no, that comes next. What preceded is not important to the mind of a 7-year old. Not enough humour there, you see.

So anyway, after seeing him for the first time, and SO holding him for a bit, SO, the birth mother, and a couple of nuns from the hospital sat down in an office to discuss the handover process. As well as completing some documents we would also go through a traditional (Javanese) ceremony where the birth mother and her family would hand over the baby (J if you’ve lost track by now) to SO and myself and we would be his new parents (not legally at this stage but culturally at least).

And while they discussed this process they left me in the waiting area holding the baby, literally as it were. This is where J starts the story, he has no care for the stories build up, merely wants to get to the punchline in the shortest way possible.

It is here, sitting holding my son for the first time, that I feel a warmth on chest underneath his body. I move him slightly, to see, without much surprise, that he has peed on me, marking me as his property, so that it is not that he is my son, but more so that he has chosen me to be his father.