the flight of the fenix

He is here!

Finally! 40 weeks and 3 days after the chosen spermy penetrated the sanctity of the egg, we have Fenix Mateo Jarry!

He is here!

He burps, poos, pees, sleeps, eats, cries, and makes funny faces and I enjoy it and find it fascinating!!! The world is a different place now that my little man is a part of it. I feel more like a protector and a provider. I am a watcher and a warrior. I am more of a lover and a leader. When all is said and done, without his mom and I... lets just say that he needs us big time.

So I want to chat a little bit about the birth of this little guy. As you may know that the traditionally the birth of the phoenix is from the flames and the whole process takes three days. I can see a lot of parallels for my own little Fenix. We were in the hospital for three long days and his arrival probably could only have been more shocking than if he leapt from the flames! (slight exaggeration but it goes well with the story)

My wife went through a lot of pain. Her labor pains started days before we even got to the hospital. For three days leading up to our departure to the hospital, she could barely walk and was left fairly incapacitated. Once we were in the hospital there were all kinds of precautions that needed to be taken. Claudia had tubes running in and out of her. Literally! I mean literally, literally! She had so much clear tubing running out of her she looked as though she was trapped in Spiderman's web. Then when it came to the actualy labor she was pushing for over three and a half hours! She put Lance Armstrong to shame with that show of endurance. Our baby did not want to come out!

But there was that magical moment when we did. When his head popped out and the doctor turned and asked:

"Would dad like to deliver this baby?"

You have to understand that I never hold babies. They are too fragile and precious and a huge responsibility. You want to hold them, but you worry about dropping them. So now the doctor is actually asking me to catch this metaphorical crystal vase that is covered in slimy goo-ness to complicate things even further. So the guy that never holds babies is now stepping up to the plate. I am also not real good at dealing with other people's physical pains. When my wife was getting the epidural put in, I had to sit down (yeah, I was a wuss!). So now I am between her legs (a great place for all husbands to be and how we got into this situation in the first place) and the first person he sees and feels is me. I am not wearing any kind of apron or gloves, so I am covered in life giving slime. I felt like Bill Murray in Ghostbusters 1 when he first meets Slimer.

But I grabbed him, gave him to my wife, and burst into tears. The best present my wife or I ever got.