and the beat don't stop for nothin'...

In order to appreciate this entry, let me remind you that in my last post I made the following comment: "when the time comes...we'll be far less prepared than we are now." That pearl of wisdom was penned nine days prior to the doctor's visit that landed us in the hospital two days before the birth of our son and couldn't have been more true if it had left the lips of God himself.

Here's how I expected our trip to the hospital to go:

Wife: "Honey, I think my water just broke."
Me: "What?"
Wife: "My water broke--we need to go, now!"
Me: "Are you sure--do you really think it's time?"
Wife: "Would I be faking it, jackass?"
Me: "You don't have to be rude, but I'll let it slide since you're in labor--you grab the diaper bag. I'll get the overnight bag. Do we have everything?"
Wife: "Yes. Let's go."

We would then race to the hospital, wait nervously for a few hours, pop open a champagne bottle, and toast Jasper's arrival. Then we'd go home and live happily ever after.

But, as it so often goes, the scene in my head was miles from actuality. Here's how it all went down (in bullet-point fashion):

• We arrive at the doctor's office for our weekly visit to formulate our "game plan." We fully expected to leave with orders to report to the hospital that following Thursday since that's the day he has set aside for scheduled deliveries. That is not what happened.
  
• Dr. C sends us to the hospital that afternoon. The wife is elated. I experience a small meltdown from the general lack of preparedness that was our lives at that moment.
• We arrive at the hospital with no overnight bag, no diaper bag, no paperwork, and no clue what we're doing.
• We're admitted and sent to Labor & Delivery where we wait in triage for a millennium.
  
• Just before midnight, we're moved to an actual delivery room where the wife gets hooked up to a pump that administers her, as Dr. C calls it, "labor juice."
• The wife's sister has joined us at this point and has been declared a saint for driving an hour out of her way to pick up everything we left at home, loading our dishwasher, and smuggling in Diet Coke and crackers.
• We survive the night, but barely. Our room was cold enough to replenish the melting ice caps--I was tempted to hack up the rocking chair and start a fire. We thawed out at daybreak, and Dr. C decides to break the wife's water.
  
• The hours pass without progress and the wife is paralyzed by the labor. This is where I accept the idea that God truly is all-knowing for if men were expected to give birth, his chosen race would cease to exist.
  
• After a long afternoon, it is decided that the wife is a good candidate for an early epidural. The anesthesiologist arrives, administers the drugs, and the world is a happy place.
• The night progresses and all is well until the wife begins to experience what's know as a "hot spot" from the epidural. She suffers hours of what I imagine is the worst pain she's ever encountered. Her mother helps nurse the pain, her sister is threatening a lawsuit, and I'm pacing the room praying to God the anesthesiologist doesn't show up so as not to be thrown in jail for attempted murder--I would have bludgeoned the man with a bedpan had I the opportunity. By the time he did show up, the pain had ceased and the world was again a happy place.
• Morning arrives, and the exhausted lot of us prepare for what Dr. C called "pushin' time." He arrived geared up for battle, but the delivery only lasted about 35 minutes--a blink compared to the labor. A friend of mine summed up the birth of her daughter "in one word: Fluids." My experience as a bystander was much the same. Seriously--no one should forfeit that much hydration in one sitting. It's just not right.
  
• Our son was delivered at 10:40 that morning. Soon after, I cut the umbilical cord, which again was not how I imagined it. It was tougher than I thought--more akin to cutting a tire. They checked his vitals, cleaned him up, and handed him over as if saying, "Here's the rest of your life, good luck with that!"

And that was it. We were soon moved to a post-delivery room where we settled in as a family for the first time. A mother, a father, and their child. As each day passes, the three-day event begins to lose it's sharpness. It becomes more rounded and singular. Even now I have trouble recalling how I felt and how we responded to the significance of what was happening. I do recall a few of the more acute feelings. I remember realizing that, prior to this moment, I only thought I loved my wife. I remember thinking that she was giving birth to a sasquatch when I saw the hair on the child's head. I remember being thankful that her mother was there when she needed her. I remember thinking that the damn nurse who wasn't as cute as she thought she was needed to find a new profession, and I remember thinking that it wasn't possible for me to be a part of the perfection I held in my arms. Then, when it was all said and done, I remember being terrified of what would happen next.

The wife, of course, has her story. I didn't work nearly as hard as she did, so my experience is lacking at best. Nonetheless, this is how I'll remember it. We've been home 1 week and 6 days, and in that time we've all managed to survive--in fact, we're doing pretty damn well. Jasper hasn't tried to run away, but that might be due to his lack of knee caps and motor skills. We're not eager to give him up or anything, so the future is lookin' bright.

To top it all off, the wife and I will celebrate 5 years of marriage this week. We figure baby J is gift enough, so we're not planning anything over the top. We got the Statement of Benefits from our insurance company last week, and trust me, he's the most expensive gift either of us will ever receive--we're talking new Mercedes, people. Nope--we'll forgo a leisure trip somewhere tropical, and settle for something a bit truer to our style. Old Crow Medicine Show is playing in Augusta, and it just so happens that I have tickets with our names all over 'em. I imagine we'll have a few beers, and since we weren't able to toast champagne at the hospital, we'll toast Miller High Life and sing along to "We're All in This Together." And if they play "Caroline," I'll squeeze the wife's hand and give her a wink when they sing my favorite part: "These are different days, and the pace of the world has us thinking there’s no time to turn the other way. Take my hand and we’ll walk on down the line. Though we may be a thousand miles apart, a brother and a sister have a single heart and the beat don’t stop for nothin’..."