Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda

We have a son!

In the interest of time, which is in very short supply these days, I'm publishing something I sent to friends and family a few days after his birth:

Everybody kept asking pregnant me whether I was "soooooo" excited to have a baby. And while standard protocol might be to reply "I am soooooo soooo sooooo excited" I could not tell that lie. My answer sounded more like: "Uh ... yeah, I guess ... and terrified."

What I realize now is that I've always hated the word "excited" for being sort of meaningless and I especially hate it in regard to having a baby because what I am is ... completely transported by joy.

I've also been told throughout the pregnancy "Nobody tells you how hard it is," a statement which immediately belies itself. But the truth is that nobody can possibly describe to you how good it feels. I mean, he's just a little blob of red flesh and farts with no motor control and no personality but I'd gladly put myself on the rack - which we have over the last five days ;) - for his sake.

So sorry to bore you with a mini-essay but I'm mostly writing to say that we're home and safe and your phone calls are more than welcome. We have to be careful about visitors because his little immune system is still under construction. And I can't guarantee that we'll actually answer the phone but we'd really really love to hear from you.

A few details ... we went into the hospital early because my blood pressure went up. He was five days late so the doctor decided to induce. Unfortunately he didn't tolerate labor well - I won't get into the medical details - so we ended up having a C-section after about twelve hours. And then both of us had fevers so he was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and I got put on massive amounts of antibiotics. He only had to stay in the NICU nursery for a day before his temperature stabilized and then he stayed with us the rest of the time we were in the hospital.