Congratulations, it’s a boy!

I haven’t posted this yet. It is a shame that the purpose of my blog has taken a backseat to actually spending time with my son. Yes, he was born on Thursday June 3 at 631pm. He is really healthy and weighed 8 lbs. 12 oz. He is 21 inches long. My wife and I want to share our birth experience with you. We went into the hospital on Thursday morning and my wife was put on a regular dose of pitocin. She was taking pitocin until 440 in the afternoon when the midwife came in to break my wife’s water. At this point, my wife started to have serious contractions that looked like they hurt. She was grabbing my hand and squeezing really tight. I had made a Phish mix tape entitled “Eli’s Birth Phish Playlist.” It had about 80 songs on it ranging from 1993 to 2009 and had all kinds of tracks “From The Archives” and many other solid songs. My mother in law and our doula at first wondered about the music, but after several songs, they both seemed like the music was really helping Elizabeth relax and was definitely helping me stay relaxed, so that I could focus on my wife.

Here was the deal. After she had her water broken, she was in labor for 1 hour and 50 minutes. She pushed 3 times and baby Eli came out. I caught him with my bare hands. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever done in my life. When I put my son on Elizabeth’s chest, it was the proudest moment of my life, far surpassing graduating from Northwestern or from law school. I had birthed a son! Tears came to my eyes as I called my dad to let him know that Eli was born. It is so indescribable, this feeling that I had, but it made me more focused than I could possibly explain. I saw how simple life was in this moment that my son was born. His cries were my cries of joy. We were so happy. Aside from 20 minutes that Eli spent in the nursery with us, he never left our side. We were given an early leave from the hospital because my wife delivered Eli completely naturally—no epidurals or Stadol, nothing. She did it and I was there to help her, along with several other people. She was back on her feet in no time.

So, we spent the next 48 hours preparing to move. We got home from the hospital at 300pm on Friday. We did little on Friday, but we packed up the kitchen on Saturday and did a few things on Sunday. The movers showed up at the house on Monday at 1045am. They did not stop unpacking things at our new house until 1100pm Monday night. Our house was a wreck. We had a few days to get it together. Would it get done? Stay tuned for the rest of the story in my next post.