Descriptive Essay Once in a Life Time Event

A once-in-a-life-time event can be good or bad depending on the person or it can be phenomenal or it can be catastrophic. My once-in-a-life-time event is when my daughter was born.
The feeling that was going through me was that of anticipation. The call from the Red Cross telling me that my beautiful, pregnant wife wants me to come home to see our baby be born. At this moment I was in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama still in my training for the army. At first Red Cross would not send the message to me because, my wife had to be either “dying or having complications with the birth,” as the Red Cross told me. When I had finally gotten the message my heart starting pounding as like the beat of an African Tribe’s drum, with the highs and lows and the fast thudding of my heart banging the walls of my chest. I waited outside the Sergeant on duty to pick me up and take me to the airport. He arrived in what used to be a snow white van but because of the dust and dirt it looked more like a leopard’s print. Inside the van reeked of sweaty soldiers, rotten food and gasoline. It was cramped and my knees were tightly pressed against the back of the driver’s seat.
As I ride in the dirty tannish looking van, I had my window rolled down. The air coming in through the half-way rolled down window was hot and humid like standing in the bathroom after taking a shower with a blow dryer blowing in your face. The constant flowing air was actually a relief considering the fact I was sweating profusely. I was under tremendous amount of stress but also joy and anxiety of having a child. It seemed as if time was enjoying life without me and at the same time it couldn’t keep up with me. On arriving to the airport my upper right breast pocket on my uniform starting pounding rapidly. I couldn’t figure out why my heart had started beating faster. After I had realized that it was only my cell phone vibrating, and not my heart erupting through my chest. I fumbled through the velcrowed pocket and answered the phone. When the devise that I admired so much reached my ear, I managed to mumble out a hello. The voice on the other line was a loving, concerned voice. She spoke in a familiar soft tone, when I realized it was my mother.
Unexpectedly, I was told by the women who gave me life that my five pound, three ounce and red headed baby girl had arrived. My heart dropped, like a cinderblock sinking into the ocean. The joy I felt was like no other and then again I was so upset because I wasn’t there to see the infant born. My mothers’ words couldn’t explain how beautiful I had imagined her to be. Her delicate round face, her skin white as milk, hair as vibrant and red as the brightest fire, and a peaceful sleeping expression. I eventually arrived at the hospital sprinting through the door the room, to find my beautiful wife and sleeping daughter waiting for me on the hospital bed in the up right position. My wife’s face lit up at the fact that I was finally there to see our daughter. I gently grabbed her from her mother’s arms, her tiny body almost weighing nothing in my arms. She smelled of fresh baby powder and similac formula. Was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. My body was tense and stiff as a board, at the thought of making the slightest movement might break her. The small little body that I was holding was no bigger than a football. When I had first gotten the call that my daughter had already arrived, my heart shattered in tiny pieces. Once I held her in my arms the pieces immediately put them selves back together. That day I was filled with so many emotions, but at the end of the day the only emotion I could feel was how could I love someone so much that I just met.