That's my boy!
It has been a long time since my last post. For that I apologize. Truthfully, more has happened in my life in the last 2 months than has happened in a long time. Some of it wonderful, some of it not so great. I guess the good news is that there is plenty to write about, and I intend to do just that.
On November 8th 2008, at 5:44 AM my son was born. This experience was like nothing else. I cannot equate it to anything. It is truly something you have to experience to understand. As you may or may not know there are certain “guidelines” or “rules” associated with labor and child birth. These are the things you read about in books while you or your wife is preganant. This is where my story begins.
My wife and I explored the option of natural child birth while she was preganant. After discussing it with friends and reading up on it, we determined that this was the route we wanted to go. We both recomend it for several reasons, and we’d be glad to discuss it with anyone who is interested. After we decided to go this route, we read up on the Bradley Method. This method teaches you physical and emotional sign posts to look for during labor to help you know what stage you are at and therefore know how to deal with what you are feeling. I felt like I knew the signs pretty well, and I was confident in my ability as a coach. Little did I know how much my confindence would be shaken.
I got home from work on Friday November 7th and thought it would be like any other night. My wife had to work late and didn’t get home until about 8:30. I was still getting over a cold I had come down with the weekend before, so after a less than eventful evening I took some cold medicine and went to bed at about 10 pm. My went to bed too, minus the cold medicine. At 1:30 am my wife coereces me out of a nyquil induced sleep, and she tells me she has been having contractions since 11:30 PM. My first reaction was “when were you going to tell me?” “Okay, time to put Bradley to work here,” I thought. We learned that if labor started in the middle of the night the best thing to do is try to go back sleep. Afterall you are only at the beginning of a long difficult journey and you need as much rest as you can get. So me being the coach I told my wife she should try to go back to sleep. Going back to sleep was the only thing I wanted to do because the nyquil was still very much doing it’s thing. Well this really didn’t work. My wife could not go back to sleep. So I started to time her contractions. Another thing we learned to look for was a pattern of contractions that were 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long and held that pattern for an hour. This is the cue to go to the hospital. Well this pattern never came. That made strike 2 for Bradley. My wife’s water had already broke and somewhere around 3:30 AM she began to doubt her ability to go all the way through labor without pain medication of some kind. This is a post i recognized, but it is not supposed to come until close to the end of labor. It was at this moment that I had a bit of a freak out of my own. I went down stairs to feed our pets and I thought ”if she is already doubting herself, how can I possibly coach her through 15 more hours of this and convince her that she can do it?”
Since nothing was happening the way we had learned it would, and my wife was clearly in a lot of pain we decided to go to the hospital. Being only a few hours into labor I was convinced this was still the beginning. I thought we would end up going with the epidural after all. It was not what we wanted, but it was okay. Most women choose this route and they are fine. At 4:30 AM we were in the car and on the road. I took great care driving and didn’t drive any faster than normal. Had I known exactly what was going on I may driven a little differently, but it was for the best I am sure. At 5:00 AM we were at the hospital and theu took us to the labor triage room. This is where they decide if you are really in full blown labor, how far along you are etc. My wife changed into a very fashionable hospital gown and the nurse proceeded to check her. We had told her what had happened up until that point and she didn’t really act to concerned. When she checked her though, she said “you are fully dialated” with a bit of an alarmed tone in her voice. “WHAT?!?” I thought. That is crazy. My wife had been in labor for about 6 hours and it was time to push! This is unheard of for a first baby. The nurses couldn’t believe it either, but started moving quickly and immediately took us back to a delivery room. My wife hadn’t broken under the pain, she had made it all the way and she didn’t even know it! She is Super Woman! I always knew it! My wife was anxious about the pushing part, but she made that look easy too. At 5:44 AM, a whopping 44 minutes after we had arrived at the hospital, Jake was here!
The team of nurses took him away and got him all cleaned up then one of the nurses said something I will never forget. She looked at me and said “Dad, come get your boy.” 1st I was officially a dad! 2nd Jake was my boy! I took him into my arms and held him while the doctors and nurses finished tending to my wife. I looked at him and thought he is absolutely amazing. The world as we know it seems to be falling apart around us. The economy is in shambles, there is fighting and turmoil around the world, but in that moment the very walls of the building we were in could have been falling down around me and it wouldn’t have mattered. “This is my boy, and he is perfect…” “His mom, my wife, has never looked so beautiful…” I didn’t know my heart was capable of holding so much love. And that love keeps growing everyday!
Thats only the beginning. I’ll keep posting updates about the life of the cutest baby in the world, and the adventures of his parents. But for now it’s time for bed. Sleep is a precious commodity these days 
