IT'S A BOY!!!

What up everybody!!! Sorry about the delay in posting, but I am back at it, and I am happy to announce the birth of the sprout! On Thursday, January 25th, my lovely wife and I had a BEAUTIFUL baby boy. He was born at 6:56 a.m., weighing just 4lb. 14oz., and just 171/2 inches long.
Man, is he little!
Everything the day BEFORE his birth started off pretty routinely, and I had no clue as to what would soon occur. We got up at our usual 8:00 Wednesday time, had our usual hard time emerging from our warm bed, and got the dogs ready for their usual morning walk. The day started out pretty boring.
While on our walk, the dogs did what they normally do- pulling, sniffing, leg lifting, and butt crouching, and I was under the assumption that there was nothing that was out of the ordinary. That is, until the last three blocks of our walk. The lovely wife began to notice a "wet" feeling, and a progressively achy back. By the time we got home, her back was really hurting, and she told me she felt like she was leaking.
LEAKING?!?!
Thinking her water had broken, I suggested we call the baby doc after I called and consulted with a co-worker who has had quite a bit of practice with birthing babies. Baby doc, after hearing all the details, prompted us to come to her office right then. "Come now" she said, "Don't worry about makeup, and doing your hair, just get in as soon as possible"
Oh oh.
AFTER the wife showered AND washed her hair, we headed to baby doc's office. Upon arrival, they whisked her in, gave her a quick checkup, and then led her into a room with an ugly forest green leather recliner, a couple of magazines, and a machine that suspiciously looked like an old school polygraph machine.
"Do they think we're lying about your water breaking?" I half joked, half seriously. The machine was used to conduct stress tests. After strapping disc-shaped gauges to my wife with elastic sports bandage type material, the machine then recorded the sprout's heart rate, and the strength and frequency of contractions, if any.
There were none.
So, then a swab test was run to determine whether the wife's water had broken.
It had.
MY WIFE'S WATER HAD BROKEN!!!
Baby doc informed us that the "leakage" was in fact, the wife's continual breaking of water.
Continual was the most appropriate word baby doc could have used. The lovely wife was like a faulty faucet (I know I'm gonna get it for that one) from 8:30 a.m., until around 11:30-12:00 that evening, and this made her equally uncomfortable and upset. Lucky for HER there was a Buckeye basketball game on to keep her mind off the waterworks.
After we were admitted to the hospital, we got acclimated to our new digs, unpacking, and just getting as comfy as possible.
Soon after, the nurse came in, answered all our questions, and then hooked the wife up to yet Another "Polygraph machine". (This one looked super futuristic, and it was connected to some cool speakers, and a computer monitor)
After a long period of waiting for a contraction to happen, and getting no result, the wife was given some Petosin to prompt contractions. Lucky for ME, there was a Buckeye basketball game on, because we did a LOT of waiting around for a contraction. Finally, at around 11:00, the wife started feeling some pretty good contractions. (Early on, she felt some, but despite the VERY high readings of the space age contraction monitor, she continued to watch the game relatively unfazed)
Soon after, she requested an epidural. Now I know she had to be in some SERIOUS pain to request, cuz she is hard core when it comes to pain tolerance. I'm not going to go into detail about the epidural procedure, because I didn't see any of it. They made me sit facing her, so I just held her hand. From what I do know, they stick a good sized needle into your spine and inject a drug which numbs you from the waist down to alleviate some of the pain of the contractions.
It worked.
But with a price. It must have really killed the wife to go through it, because while holding her hand,she nearly broke a couple of my fingers when the shot was administered.
After that, she and I slept from around 12:00 to 5:15 a.m.
When she awoke, our nurse did a couple of readings, and boosted morale.
The wife was feeling the contractions quite a bit more than she would have liked, and requested another pain killer.
The nurse then informed her the she could have a much milder one, but doubted it would do any good this late in the game.
At around 6:20, the nurse did a check on the wife after her contraction pains became more pronounced.
"Oh" she said, "I think you are ready to go" she then said, grabbing instruments to be used during the birth. (They looked like torture tools to me)
"WAIT A MINUTE!!!" I screamed inside, "What the #@$* do you mean ready to go?!?!"
"I'M not!"
"Yes", she said after a little further investigation. "I can see the head starting to make it's way down." "Here jay, take a look!"
...
"Umm..."
...
I really did NOT plan on being anywhere near the area where my wife would be ejecting our baby from her body, much less peering into it's escape route, but I handled it like a champ! When I looked, I did in fact see a small bit of the top of our son's head, and it was covered in hair. The nurse then ran out of the room to call the baby doc, and when she returned, I was then instructed to grab one of the wife's legs and push toward her chest while she did the same with the other. While the nurse and I pushed, we cheered my wife on, telling her to push against us, and then praising her for the good job she was doing.
Then baby doc showed up, and the three of us continued to push while baby doc cleared the way for a smooth baby landing.
The craziest/most beautiful/humbling sight I will ever see then occurred. I watched our son's head, shoulders, and his cute lil' bony butt emerge from my OH SO LOVELY WIFE, and then be placed in her arms.
WOW MAN.
So, after roughly 35-40 mins. of pushing the wife bore me an heir to my/our last name.
I am more grateful to her than there are words to express for helping me create such a beautiful being who is a combination of the two of us, and yet a complete individual unlike any before him or any who will follow.
Thank you so very much my love.
And thank you so much for coming into my life Sprout. I promise to you that I will do everything in my power to keep you safe from harm, to instill in you a strong understanding of Honor, and Respect, and to expose you to all I can in order to help make your parameters of acceptance and tolerance limitless.
I love you my son, and PEACE to you.