Hello World.

Our first baby, Attikis Emrys Pearian, arrived 5-29 at 8:18pm, but it was a long road to meet him.

My wife’s water broke the night of the 27th as we were going to bed, but contractions did not set in regularly until the following morning. By 8am, they were less than 5 minutes apart.

We spent the first four hours of labor at home. We placed cute butterfly and flower temporary tattoos on her belly and packed the last of the things into the car. We would have labored longer at home, but she began vomitting, and we were concerned about dehydration.

Around noon, we went to the hospital. As she progressed further into labor, she utilized some nitrous, and we watched Howl’s Moving Castle. At almost exactly 12 hours in, she was declared 8 cm dialated and 100% effaced, and we looked forward to meeting our new baby soon.

I was very excited. And while I was stressed (how can you not be in the situation?), I had not been worried at all. I remember thinking that my day job was more stressful than the labor, but I spoke too soon.

At around 11pm, she was 9.5cm dialated, and the baby had settled into position 0, though he was turned sunny-side up. We pushed for 3 hours. At that time, we had seen little progress, and my wife had had enough pain, so we chose to get an Epidural. That slowed everything down, and we had to start Pitocin to get started again.

We continued to try to rotate the baby for several hours. By 29 hours in, we began to push again. The baby’s numbers were good the whole time, and our delivery team was phenonemonal and so encouraging. But he did not want to come out.

After 6 more hours of pushing, we were completely exhausted. Neither of us had slept or eaten much. So despite our best intentions and detailed birth plan, we agreed to a c-section.

Everything went well, and we met our son at 8:18pm. He was 8lb, 9 oz and a little more than 21 inches in length.

He is (mostly) easily calmed, feeding well, and clearly adorable.

It was one of the worst experiences of my life, and I am so relieved it is over.

We are all doing well, and we should be headed home by the end of Sunday.

I know I am biased, but my son is beautiful, and I already feel so protective of him. I am reminded of Brooklyn 99‘s Rosa, and I cannot wait to watch him grow up.