The Dad's Side of Babe's Birth.

So now that my wife has finished her Babe story, let me give my abbreviated one.

We had been trying to get pregnant from Day 1.  In fact, we were in La La Land just after we got hitched, going wherever anybody wanted to take a picture of us, when Anika's dad brusquely asked "don't you two have a room somewhere?"  Yeah, OK, Dad, we'll go there.  We'd talked about kids before, and both wanted them, but to have Anika's dad tell us to go was a bit of a shock.  It was the moment between sex being forbidden and sex being acceptable or even desired.  Dad's great with changes like that.  I'm OK.  Anika's a bit of a wus.

Four months later, I think she was freaking out.  Her mom got pregnant right away, and she figured it'd be easy.  Luckily, the Lord knows us pretty well.  He was right, again.  Her memory of me finding out that we were pregnant is pretty accurate.  A few of us knew she was pregnant before the test said so.  I don't know how to explain it, but my wife is just different when she's pregnant.  I know almost right away.  This was one of those times.  So yes, I did burst into the apartment after washing cars, and I saw the test, and I was excited, but I was also terrified.

You see, I grew up with a single mother.  She took me and ran from an abusive husband when I was a baby, and though she'd gotten married again when I was a teen, it was a short marriage.  So I'd never had any real father figure around me until I was a teen, and instead of it being my stepfather, it was a friend from church that didn't have kids younger than me.  So I'd never really been around kids.  I thought for sure I'd drop Analee and break her.

9 months later, and I'm starting to wonder if this baby will ever come.  Finally, on the day of my wife's inducement, my brother- and sister-in-law helped me with my paper route (one of them threw up along the way), and I got home quick enough to get my wife to the hospital at 6 AM.  ...and then we sat and waited.  Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked.  My wife had needles in her, so I sat quiet and bored as I waited and waited and waited.  Through a "What Not to Wear" marathon.

ALL.  DAY.  LONG. 

For lunch, I left to get some food.  Best.  Break.  EVER!  Wendy's frosties > What Not to Wear.  Seriously.

At around 5, the party started.  You hear a lot about how wives feel in the delivery room, but not much about husbands.  Let me tell you the husband side of the story.  Being a husband who can do nothing to help his wife is just about the worst position a man can ever see.  There are only so many times a wife can hear "can I help in any way?" before she wants to punch a husband in the face.  Likewise, I only continued asking because I never got an answer!

Labor was...well...labor.  Two steps forward for every one and a half steps back.  I remember Analee's head popping through (almost literally), and then the doctor telling my wife to stop pushing.  Her face gave a look of "Does not compute, divide by zero" as one could tell that her body wanted to push, still.  Finally, Analee was out.  Anika and I had talked about how the whole post-birth thing would go.  She would take a nap (she sure as heck deserved one!), and I would follow the baby.  Well at Stonewall Jackson Hospital, there really is no "follow the baby."  She stayed in our room.  And Anika didn't take a nap.  You could see the Oxytocin hit and her arms flew out and she said something along the lines of "gimme my baby!"

Me, being the knucklehead that I am, said something along the lines of "are you ready for #2?"  I wasn't the most favored person in that room that day.  (But I wasn't far from being accurate, as you'll find later if you don't already know.)  Such is the life of a new father.