Still Here!

Hey! Hello!
I honestly do not know where you ladies get the time to write on these blogs. I think they should call "blogternity leave" now. Just kidding. Please, no hate mail. Let's keep it civil people. Anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about what's been going on. Let's see, I blogged last at the end of December so there has been Christmas, which was good, and bringing in the new year, and then, um, well, oh yeah, Jack Ellis Aboussie the First was born on February 12th! I don't know about Katie but that whole process wore me out! Kidding, Katie was amazing. The first epidural didn't take. Okay, stuff happens. On to the second one. The catheter comes out of her back. Okay, now we are in "she's going to give ME an episiotomy in my sleep for this" mode. So then number 3 still isn't doing the trick and with the blood pressure up and down and up and down she is STILL somehow keeping it together! I on the other hand am running on coffee and, well, coffee. I had so much that at one point I think I saw Juan Valdez wink at me after Jack was born. Anyway, I digress. So, finally after 21 hours of this, we (I say we just to make myself feel a little more involved) decide to go the C section route. So now, after being in the room with Katie all this time and having friends and family around, they take Katie away and take me into some little room and hand me something that looks like toilet seat covers and are like, "Okay, it's time. You ready? put these on!". TIME OUT. Where am I? Where is everyone else that has been here? Am I ready? Do I look ready? I think that the redness, shortness of breath and dizziness are all signs that could answer your question without the need for me to utter a syllable even if I could. Anyway, I figure out that the folded mess of paper towel stuff are my scrubs. (By the way, I am excited by little things so I was expecting, you know, scrubs. Real scrubs. Not some stuff that rips if you sneeze on it) So I put on the size "incorrect" scrubs on after I figure it all out (picture to follow probably around Jack's 18th birthday) and get dressed. After I am dressed I am just there. Alone. Thinking. Not good. So, I thought I would take a picture of myself to document this time right before Jack's arrival. So I take one and delete it and then on my second one, as it clicks and is taken I notice something at the door and it is the nurse with a look on her face saying, "I won't laugh at this guy out loud because he is about to have a child. I'll just laugh on the inside." Thank you nurse. So, now, we walk into the room and there's Katie, wasted as a frat boy at Mardi Gras. (They gave her double the dosage used for C sections) So Dr. Lamar does this and says medical things like "suction" and such and then, all of a sudden, I hear the only thing that has made my heart melt since Katie said "I do", Jack crying. Katie is asking, "what does he look like? What does he look like?" and all I could say, holding back the tears I am holding back right now just remembering it, was "Perfect. He's perfect." And then the nurse asked if I wanted to come see him and so I went over to the little baby tanning bed thing where they clean him up and just looked at him. I didn't stare at him as if he were a stranger but rather as if he were someone I knew and I had been waiting on him. What a moment. What a memory. What a miracle. Mom and baby were given a great bill of health and we went home a day or two later.

Now, as for events that have happened in exactly the past six months, well, stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it next time. Thanks for sharing in mine/our memories. A memory is like love, it's best when shared.

Daddy Aboussie