Part II

It's difficult to retell a baby story keeping male audiences in mind.  Nothing draws guy readers like diapers at the top of the page.

I swept my right arm to an empty spot in the bed at exactly 1:46 am. Part of me thought, Stay in bed you gotta be up in a few hours for work. Another part reminded, Better get out and check, she's probably having contractions. The sides were split even. I searched for another opinion to break the tie. The only one left with a thought was common sense. He chimed in: Only a selfish husband wouldn't care about his wife's cramping uterus at 1:46 am. Don't be one of them. 

I'm up. 

71 North is quiet at 3:15 in the morning. Only the crater-like pot holes on the highway slowed us down. Those and the possibility of Linndale police being out patrolling their 500 ft of holy interstate. I was in a hurry, but nothing felt urgent. The last time she was pregnant, we waited in the delivery room for 18 hours. I expected to get to the hospital and live-Tweet this experience. Not typical "4cm we're almost there!" kind of stuff. Just my interpretation of things. Hospitals always hurt my head and tweeting would be my self-imposed means of coping.

I started to throw some dumb tweets out there early on. For example...

Note the time. Also, be sure to follow me. You can count on half-minded attempts at wit and opinions on Cleveland sports.

After that, I only remember things in pieces. 

• This is taking a long time.
• "Ok, she's at 9 centimeters. We need to get her into delivery now."
• "Can I get an epidural?" - "I'm sorry, but I don't think that's going to happen."
• These hallways are bright for 4 in the morning. They should come with a dimmer.
• "This is going to move quick, I need you to push very hard!"
• The view from our room isn't very good. And the sun's not up yet.
• "Ok, I can see the head."
• Ok, I can see the floor moving at me very quickly.
• "Here you go dad, cut between the clamp and my finger. Be sure you don't cut the baby.
• I'm gonna accidentally cut the baby.
• "Congratulations, he's 6 pounds 12 ounces."

We spent exactly 15 minutes in the delivery room. There was little time to tweet anything. And it was difficult to concentrate with all the noise anyway. With no epidural, my wife went with natural birth (not her choice). Which I think means she's felt every bit of pain through the process. While I thought she was amazing during the delivery before, she raised the bar even higher this time.

_______________________________________________

Briefing my future crime-fighting team.

We've been home for a while. It's my two sons, wife, and myself all here trying to figure out a schedule that works. Only 14 months separates my boys. The dynamic is tough to adjust to. While one shoots streams of pee over his head, the other scoops the grease from the track of the sliding door to wipe on his face. They look good together though. Shouldn't be long until I post a pic of them burning leaves with a magnifying glass. 

Bash Brothers

The above image is of our newest baby. Taken today. 

For years I've seen ultrasound pictures of babies and pretended to know what I was looking at. "Oh that's cool," I'd say; when all I really saw was a Rorschach image of indefinable black and white shapes. 

Now I know what to look for. In today's case, we were looking for the gender.

To help those who still view rolls of ultrasound images as some kind of parents-only inside joke, I've added a creative border. In this case, the border is to aid in the announcement of our baby's gender. 

I thought about posting the picture of him with his legs spread and the ultrasound tech's caption that said "It's a Boy!" accented by a little tiny hand pointing at the definable quality. But I didn't want to start this kid's life off by posting a photo of his member online. 

We're very excited. Kicker has a little brother who has yet to earn a name. The evidence on the ultrasound picture was unmistakable, but we asked the doctor just to be sure.

"You're positive it's a boy?" We asked.
To which he answered, "If it ends up being a girl, it'll be a big surprise."

We've been surprised enough in the past year-and-a-half; don't push us.