03 January 2009

A litter of one

The zimpup arrived yesterday
He came in the natural way
Young Griffin is strong
With feet that are long
The rest I see no need to say



Emily's 39-week wait has ended. Early on January 2nd, I awoke in bed, still not fully recovered from a stupid New Year's hangover. When I became aware of her, I realized she was using her laptop, tracking her contractions at contractionmaster.com. When they came at five-minute intervals, we calmly loaded the car and went to the hospital.



Emily was a goddess. I have never seen her, nor anyone, in so much pain. It hurt me seeing her like that, but by the end of labor, she said pushing was such a relieving outlet after waiting through the pain of intensifying contractions. At 12:08pm on January 2nd, she delivered our son, Griffin Porter Zimmerman: 7 pounds, 9 ounces (or 3.43 kg for those who prefer metric), with his parents' height (19.5 inches).



Those are the scissors I used to trim the cord. Someday, he gets to blame me if he doesn't like his innie/outie.



That's Griffin's "in utero life-support system" (or, the placenta). He no longer needs it now that he has the Earth's atmosphere for breath and his mom's breast milk to eat. The human organism is quite special.

As Emily lie writhing and making painful exhalations that made me cry, I kept wondering when the beauty of labor would become apparent to me. The whole process seemed more a form of torture than the wonderful experience people often recall. But when my son's head finished passing through the birth canal, and the rest of him came sliding out with the amniotic fluid, the reward for Emily's pain was clear.

But Emily wasn't the only one who had a rough day. The process of labor makes for a pretty sleepy baby...



... and proud parents too!