"Herrrrrrrrrrre's Jack!"
Here's the man of the hour....every hour....of the day....and night. This is your classic"breast drunk" pose.
Jack Domenic Scalisi was born on Tuesday, April 17th 2007 at 8:01am in San Francisco, CA. He was a svelte 7lbs, 4oz and 20in long. On Monday night, contractions were getting stronger and Lindsay was miz. The contractions however were not the five min apart for at least an hour varietal, which they (the hospital) want you to be at before coming in. They were 10, 13, 9, 6, all over the map. Finally Lindsay mentioned that she wasn't sure how long she could put up with them, which was as good a sign as any for me --we're calling.
We intitially thought that we'd go in and they'd give her something to sleep thru the night. We didn't sleep the night before because we were up timing the contractions (see 10, 13, 9, 6, scenario above) and knew that there wouldn't be any sleep this night as well. When we got to the hospital to help get thru the night and be sent home, Lindsay was examined and she was 3 cm dilated. She/we weren't going anywhere. When we were moved to the delivery room, she was examined and was 4cm. Lindsay was giving birth tonight.
Once everything settled and we were in the delivery room, it was around 12:30am. I now had 8hrs to contemplate how I was going to handle this. This was an excruitiating 8hrs for me. Mostly, I now believe because I had no clue when any of this was going to go down. I haven't been this nervous in a very long time. I remember thinking that if I only shut my eyes for a bit I might wake up without the knot in my stomach. Granted it was the middle of the night and my stomach had that "why are we up right night now" feeling, but suffuce it to say, I was buggin! Of course you have to keep it together for your wife who is the one that's actually going to go thru with the actual act of childbirth. I think I did my best masking my nerves, but when I'd look at her (and she was amazing the entire time), I couldn't help but think about what it was going to be like when the doctor first handed us our child. This was the most nervous I've been since freshman year in high school when I tried out for the wrestling team and was put into the varsity spot at 100lbs because noone else was that small.
When it was finally "go time" at 7:15am, something surprising happened. I felt like I was going to be able to do this. Lindsay, as I already stated, was a pro the whole time. Maybe it was her who was soothing me instead of vise-versa. She did have to rub my back during our birthing classes when we had to watch those nasty videos.
We started pushing at 7:20 or so... our doctor, who we love, Dr Chan arrived at about 7:45....the bed rose, Dr. Chan wheeled over all "scrubbed in" and this one was born at the top of the hour, 8:01 am.
We're home now and trying to navigate this parenthood ride. The nerves, while subsided, are still here. Are we feeding him too little? too much? should he burp? If he goes to sleep now, won't it just be feeding time anyway? Do humans really need sleep? All this and more will be answered in the coming 18yrs.
If you're interested in seeing a few more pic's, click here for a shutterfly link
Good looking dude, no?
posted by Alex at 9:59 PM
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