Maestro Jr. Arrives

I moved this post here because it seemed more appropriate -

So, here I am at Beachtown Memorial Hospital, in a private room with a spectacular view... My son was born just days ago. I got the call at work.

When I got there. I thought I would be helping my wife (as best I could) through 8+ hours of labor, but it turned out that she needed to go in for a C-section almost immediately. They were seeing signs of baby distress and decided not to take the chance. Well, it wasn't a decision, really. The doctors hadn't even finished discussing it -the nurses were already preparing my wife for surgery.

Maestro Jr. had managed to knot his umbilical cord - a potentially fatal situation. Despite that, the room was calm. The doctors and nurses were chatting casually - like co-workers bantering back and forth across cubicle walls about golf scores and housing prices. (I know how this is - my Dad is a retired doctor and he used to bring home the jokes he heard from the operating room).

I stayed up near my wife's head. I didn't want to see the incision because I have this thing about blood and I didn't want to be another concern in the operating room. From behind the little barrier they had erected, I heard my son cry fpr the first time. That's when I got up to look. Up until then I was solely concerned about my wife's well-being, but when I heard that cry I had a sudden surge in my eyes and for a moment I forgot to breathe.

And so there were three of us.

They cleaned him up, put a little beanie on him and sent him out to the recovery room. I followed. They told me that they like to have immediate "skin-on-skin" contact between the infant and mother... only Mrs. Maestro was busy being sewn back up. So it fell upon me to make the first contact. I took off my shirt and they handed Maestro Jr. to me... I held him to my chest and they wrapped us in a warm blanket.

Wow.

(More to come.....)