Though I skipped a few posts, let's go back a few weeks to the end of Bea's delivery of our son, Matthew. Mainly because it was so much fun and stress-free.

Last I wrote, it was 9:30am and Bea had her bag manually broken. A nurse had already asked her if her pain was "acceptable to her," which garnered some glances to one another from Bea and me, and we had other women arrive later and deliver earlier than us, which was a joy.

We had gone into Prentice Women's Hospital at 1:30am to get induced. They do this to you, by the way, if you have to get induced. Bring you in really early in the morning so that delivery might come late morning, early afternoon. For us, it came at 7pm that night. So here goes:

10am: Breathing through contractions, which are varying from 1.5 to 3 minutes between contractions.

When measuring the time between contractions, you measure from the start of one to the start of the next one. So if your contractions last one minute and they're 1.5 minutes apart, that means you have a whole 30 seconds to relax, work on your sudoku puzzle, watch The Price is Right. Whatever you want to do, really. Your options are endless.

10am (continued): One thing that has helped is squeezing pressure point in shoulder during contractions. Sitting up is the best position but still not comfortable at this point.

This squeezing I did during contractions is what Star Trek nerds might call the Vulcan death hold. I'm sure I'll get plenty of emails now from the Star Trek nerds on the correct terminology. Hopefully Paul Dailing will write about an upcoming convention of theirs to smooth things out.

10:40am: Nurse Bridget said she wants to keep an eye on Bea's fluids because some of it looks like it might be a little brown, so it could actually be baby poop. There's some possible concern that the baby might inhale some of it.

If you deliver your baby late, there's a chance he could poop while still in the womb, and inhaling their own poop can be dangerous. Great, my kid's not even born yet and he's already going to have a Jenkem addiction.

11am: Bea almost at 7cm and still no epidural. Nurse Bridget says she's "doing awesome."

I still can't believe how long she held off without one.

12:30pm: Doctor comes in to check Bea and says that actually, she's still at 5cm and labor could be another 4-5 hours. Bea's exhausted and leaning toward getting an epidural just so she can rest in the next few hours.

That was a setback. We felt like she was on the brink of delivering, and then all the sudden, nope, four more hours to go. It's like if you were driving to Detroit, and when you got there, some Star Trek nerds beamed you back to Chicago because you kept calling them nerds. Oh yeah, and pretend that your entire body is spasming in excruciating pain the whole time. Oh, and reverse that trip, too, because getting beamed back to Detroit would be much, much worse.

2pm: Epidural, Mark leaves to get lunch. Bea's not happy Mark has to leave. For food, Mark gets roasted pork, rice with curly parsley and artichoke hearts. Not bad, but pork is dry.

Let me explain why I got so detailed on the lunch menu. When you get an epidural, you have to stay perfectly still while a doctor sticks a long needle into your spine. It made me nervous to know that Bea would be in there getting that and I wouldn't be there to hold her hand. Detailing lunch items in my notebook helped me take my mind off the situation.

2:45pm: Go back to room. Bea has had the epidural and is very itchy all over (this is a common symptom). She has a contraction monitor attached directly to her uterus. Bea has a lot of tubes going in and out of her now. Seems rested, though, and relieved of pain. Eager to relax/nap/sleep.

Another note on the epidural: After you get it, you're bound to the bed. You can't get out. Before that, Bea could take walks around the room or in the hallway. No more.

And that, folks, are where my notes ended. I'm not sure exactly why I stopped taking them, although I think my exhaustion and worrying about Bea just caused me to stop caring about it, to be honest.

But basically what happened was:

Bea got some rest. The baby still didn't come down. The doctor suggested a C-section around 6pm. We agreed.

Everything after that happens in a flash. Bea gets wheeled away to the operating room. I take our belongings and carry them into a recovery room where we would go afterward. I don scrubs and a mask and get ready for my debut television appearance on "ER." A nurse informs me that actually we would be attending the birth of my own child, and proceeds to lead me into the operating room. Because of all the anesthesia, Bea is shaking like a leaf. Doctor slices into Bea's stomach like it's a roast of lamb. Matthew comes out all bloody and crying and, God, so beautiful. Doctor tells us that Matthew had three "necklaces" on, meaning the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times, although not tightly. I briefly think that during Fat Tuesday Matthew must have wanted to get in on the Mardi Gras action and decided to don his own beads.

It's 7:04pm on May 21, 2008 when Matthew comes out. It's 7:04pm on May 21, 2008 when I become a father.

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