How you met your father

(See below for mom's side.)

Wednesday, 9:00 AM: Joo's weekly OB visit. We're now past due, and Dr. Born (yes, seriously) decides to schedule an induction. She calls in the order while Joo is strapped to the fetal monitor. We guess it will happen the following Monday, since that's Joo's birthday, and her mom's.

"You're going in tomorrow." Uhh... okay, then. Time to finish packing.

Thursday, 7:00 AM: We check into our labor and delivery room. Hospital gown, IV, blood samples. Joo hasn't been a patient in a hospital since... infancy? Still not a fan of the lifestyle. The fetal monitor is hooked up. We'll be hearing his heartbeat all day.

8:15 AM: Dr. Born arrives to break Joo's water and start the induction. Contractions start shortly thereafter, and Joo is definitely looking uncomfortable. "Don't be a hero," the doctor advises, offering an epidural. Joo will ride it out for now.

9:00 AM: My family arrives. They'll be in and out of the room all day.

10:30 AM: The pain is "a solid five". Joo requests the epidural. The anesthesiologist talks her through it while the nurse tries to position her. "Dad, you have to sit over there." Joo is mid-contraction -- a big one -- and they keep trying to tell her to move. I've never seen my wife in this much pain. I can't even hold her hand. This sucks.

11:00 AM: The epidural is now working. Joo will be connected to it until the following morning. She's not cold, but she's shivering uncontrollably. Normal, apparently, but still scary.

1:00 PM: The doctor checks in on Joo again, and decides to put her on oxygen. We don't think a lot about it.

3:15 PM: One of the obstetric nurses drops in. Actually, three. That's different. They turn Joo on her side. His heartbeat slows down noticably. On her back again. Sounds fine. On her other side. Slow again. On her back again. Heartbeat picks back up. A contraction starts, and it slows down again. Two more nurses show up. Lots of chatter. I'm just trying not to be in the way. Now they're disconnecting things. Now they're saying we need to get him out. Now they're wheeling her bed out of the room. Now one of them is shoving a set of scrubs into my arms. What just happened?

3:20 PM: They let me into the OR. Dr. Born fills us in. Labor isn't progressing well, and part of the umbilical cord is stuck in front of (beneath) his head. Every time Joo has a contraction, it's getting squished; oxygen is getting cut off. The doctor tells us we could let the labor play out, but it would be "dramatic". Okay, Joo and I agree. Let's get him out of there.

3:25 PM: Back outside. Joo is getting prepped. Longest twenty minutes of my life.

3:45 PM: By her side again. I can hold her hand.

3:50 PM: "We just made the incision."

3:53 PM: ...and there he is. Joo can only hear him, but I get a peak over the curtain. I get a few snapshots as he's cleaned off and measured, then brought to Mommy.

4:15 PM: I wheel him to the nursery, and he meets his grandparents. Lots of pictures are snapped. He's taken inside for more tests/cleanup. Family is glued to the window. I need to get back to my wife.

4:30 PM: Recovery room. Dark. Silent. Joo is shivering again. She's numb from the chest down. We make a few phone calls.

5:30 PM: Off to our postpartum room. I make a quick trip with my stepdad to get all our stuff out of the labor room. Never recovered: one pair of pink pants. Joo is inconsolable; okay, not really.

8:00 PM: Our son is brought to us, and gets his first feeding. My mom and I change his first diaper. When I say that his feet were splashing in a pool of toxic sludge, I'm really not exaggerating. :)

9:00 PM: My folks leave for the night. Just the three of us now. Okay, we need to give this kid a name.

Back in April -- before we knew we were having a boy -- I dreamt that we had a son named Sean. We collected a list of names over the following months, but I was always attached to that one. And Timothy was always Joo's favorite. We knew it would be those two names; we just didn't know the order. We wanted to meet him first.

Hi, Sean Timothy. This is your family, and you're way more amazing than we ever imagined.