My boy Avery is finally here!!!

 On September 17 at 4:46 am Mountain Time, my son Avery was born to very beleaguered and exhausted parents.  That is an ordeal that none of the parties involved will ever forget.

The adventure got underway at about 6:30 Saturday morning when my wife woke me up to tell me that her water had broke.  I knew that was a sure sign that the baby's birth was imminent so it was time to head out for the hospital.  There was literally no time for anything else.  We checked in and the doctors did their usual evaluation, looking at dilation of various parts and things.  We were initially sent home because we were told there were still hours to wait yet.  So we were back for for a small bit.  I took that time to have a shower.  Then, when her contractions were getting more intense and closer together, we were right back at that hospital again.

My wife assumed that this delivery would be quick because of previous experience.  When our daughter was born 14 years ago, there was only an hour between water breaking and full delivery.  She naturally thought that would happen again.  But nope.  This labour went on for hours and hours.  Of course, the maternity staff were busy with other babies being born at that time, so a lot of that time was just the both of us waiting on a bed in a room not knowing how any of this would go down.

When it was finally our turn, the staff was right there instructing my wife to "PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH".  I acted as a "human stirrup" in that endeavour by holding her leg up.  What else are husbands for?  Sadly, all of that pushing was to no avail.  All that came out was a small amount of poop, but no baby.  At that point, they used the dreaded phrase "C section".  We were both taken to another room full of big lights and beeping machines (none of which went PING to my disappointment).  I sat near my wife while they put a tarp over her lower part so that we couldn't see what they were doing.

In just a few short minutes it was done.  Little baby Avery was finally out of his mother's womb and amongst the rest of us.  It was a joyous and happy moment for me of course.  However, I really really felt so bad for Avery.  Upon being birthed, he was placed on a small bed surrounded by people wearing yellow gowns and face masks (me being one of them).  One nurse felt there was still too much amniotic fluid in his system.  So, to alleviate that problem, she inserted a hose very far into his nose in order to suck it all out.  Then proceeded to insert another hose into his mouth to catch what she missed.  To me, that looked like a nightmare scenario, especially for someone who has just entered to world having no idea what anything is.  Yes, I know that all of that needed to be done in order to ensure survival, but Avery didn't know that and there's no way he could've known.  He was having a miserable time at that point.

It didn't stop there either.  They let my wife hold him for a bit.  Then, while he wasn't looking, a nurse gave him a quick Vitamin K shot in his leg and slipped away before he knew what was happening.  I'll never forget Avery's reaction to that.  He didn't just cry.  He had gotten a lot of his crying out during the previous ordeal I mentioned.  No, this was more of an angry cry.  I was reminded of every Al Pacino performance I had ever seen.  Avery's cry seemed to be saying "HEY! WHO DID THAT?!  WHO STUCK ME?!  I WANT ANSWERS!!  WAS IT FREDO?!  THIS WHOLE SYSTEM'S OUT OF ORDER!!! ATTICA!!! ATTICA!!!"  That's my interpretation anyway.

Thankfully for Avery, things calmed down very quickly and he could finally relax.  That's when I was given a chance to hold him for the first (and definitely not the last) time.  The look he gave me was the greatest look.  For about half a second, his look seemed to say "who's this guy?".  But, it immediately changed to a "oh ok, I recognize him now.  He's good people."  I was at first puzzled by how he could've known me so fast.  But then I remembered something my wife kept telling me during the final few months of the pregnancy.  Apparently, while in the womb, Avery would always react whenever he heard my voice.  So, that's how he recognized me then.  He knew my voice.

I think Avery still has a memory of his tumultuous first few minutes of his life.  We were discharged from the hospital two days later after had deemed both baby and mom to be healthy enough to survive out in the world.  So, we went straight home and put little Avery into his new sleeping quarters: his bassinet. Just a few days after that though, a nurse came right to our house to check up on us to make sure Avery was still healthy and that our home environment was ideal for a baby.  After the nurse was done giving Avery a check up, I put him back in his bassinet while she gave my wife instructions about caring for newborns.  The look on Avery's face was not a friendly one.  He had a "get her out of here" kind of face.  He was NOT in the mood to be dealing with medical professionals at that point and I can't blame him.  No, I'm not going to help him with a vigilante quest to "punish" all medicos.  I'll simply say that Avery has already learned a valuable lesson about the world: there are people you cannot trust.  That's a lesson everyone should learn.

I'm ending this post with my first glance at Avery the moment he was born.  This is what he looked like to me:

Most parents get freaked out by this site and nearly faint.  They consider the baby to be "hideous" at this stage.  However, to me, he just looked cool.  If he stayed looking like this, I'd be fine.

If anyone out there reading this has a baby in their lives, keep being good to that baby.  To anyone out there who doesn't, I recommend it.  Happy parenting!