My daughter, Baby E, was due on July 2. The 2nd came and went with still no baby. This didn’t surprise us since I have yet to hear of a single child born on their due date. My wife had a doctor appointment on the 6th to check on her condition. I had to work, so I was unable to go with her. At my first break I received a text from her stating that the Dr. was ordering a test, but, unless labor started before then, he was not going to induce her until the 12th. This made her mad. She was, at this point, very tired of being pregnant. After the text with the news, I received another text telling me how the doctor’s decision to wait until the 12th was bullshit and that he didn’t know what he was talking about. I, at this point, thanked God that I was a guy and didn’t ever have to go through pregnancy, then went back to work.

Lunch time came and, two seconds after I clocked out, my phone started ringing. It was my wife. Her test results were back and while they weren’t scary, they were troubling enough to order her induction. I ran to my boss’ office, opened the door, yelled “It’s time,”  and, without waiting for a reply, got out of there. Because she wasn’t expecting to go to the hospital that day, my wife didn’t have her stuff with her when she went in for her test, so I had to stop by our house on my way to pick up our bags. Somehow, I managed to remember to grab everything and continued rushing to the hospital. When I got there (around 4 in the afternoon), my wife rolled her eyes at me for hurrying to her side, as inductions tend to take quite a bit of time.  She was right. After giving her a room, she sat there for quite a while as our family and friends came in.

Midnight hit and it was officially the 7th. My wife and I, along with about 10 other people were sitting around waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. At 2, everyone else went home to get some sleep. We tried to get some too. It didn’t work out too well for me as that fold out bed was hard as hell and I already have a bad back. At 5:30 my wife starts feeling increasingly strong contractions. We called the nurse to order the epidural. At 6:30, still no pain killers. Since it was so early in the morning, they only had one person to do the injections and that person was having trouble with the patient they were working on. My wife starts freaking out because they won’t give you the injection if you’ve dilated past a certain point. She was afraid that by the time the person got down to her, it would be too late. Thankfully, they got to her just in time and I was asked to leave the room while they gave her the shot. My job was to call everyone who had left at 2 and tell them to get their asses back up to the hospital.

Everyone made it back and somewhere between 10 and 10:30, everyone but those who were to witness the birth were asked to leave the room. My mother and my wife’s sister stayed with us and watched. For the next hour or so, I did everything I could to keep my wife’s spirits up. Even with the epidural, she was in incredible pain. The only thing worse than seeing her in that much pain was knowing there was nothing I could do to ease it. So, I tried to take her mind off of it as much as I could. I would make jokes, bring up past experiences, or anything else I could think of to try to distract her. She said later I did a good job, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better.

Baby E was born at 11:30 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz. She was 19 and 1/2 in long. She was, and still is, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. She spent the first 6-8 hours of her life wide awake, which I’m told is very odd. It was during this time that she gave me what is my favorite memory of her…..well, so far.

They had her all bundled up and I was holding her. All of the sudden, she lets out a huge fart. She looks at me with wide eyes and the “What the hell was that?” look on her face. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Baby E is already a princess. She is the only girl on my side of the family, so she will be spoiled rotten. All she needs to do now is figure out how to get another hand so she has enough fingers to wrap people around.