Just over three months ago now, actually, and NOT like on TV (i.e. "tee hee, my water broke (though there is so little evidence my partner must hear it twice) 2 hours later oh, look what a fine baby sleeps peacefully in my arms!" It was more like:

At 4AM Christmas Day, intermittent contractions commenced, complemented by The Leaking. My wife initially thought this just an unfortunate side effect from four kilos of humanity uncomfortably perched atop her bladder, but her third shower in twice as many hours convinced her it was amniotic fluid and the new status quo. It was mid-morning by then, so she called the hospital, which said to come in around 7PM if it continued till then; it did, so we did. The water DID finally break while the nurse was strapping on a fetal heart monitor, so of course our newborn was only a few hours away, right?

HELL, no: After those few hours, it was clear nothing would change anytime soon, so they sent us home with instructions to come back the next morning. We dutifully returned around 8AM, as did semi-regular contractions. Back to the fetal heart monitor and revealing hospital wear, but, yet again, a few hours of that passed uneventfully, so they sent us home AGAIN with instructions to return at 8 the NEXT day or if anything changed.

Around 2AM (it is December 27th now,) contractions got VERY regular, frequent and insistent, though after so many false alarms my wife waited till 4AM to haul me out of bed, phone a cab and make our third hospital trip; it would not be long now—if by "not long" we mean "half a day more." They strapped on our old friend Mr. Fetal Heart Monitor and waited for contractions to progress to a couple minutes apart: Then the real fun began. My wife still speaks fondly of epidural and probably always will; it made what was already excruciating merely annoying, and probably prevented her ripping my arm off when things intensified until it hurt even despite epidural. There was a lot of pushing, and the horde of hospital staffers seemed intent on discovering just how MANY positions from which my wife could push (answer: Four, some better than others; apparently doggy style is not nearly so good for childbearing as some doctors believe.)

Now, having never been exposed to anything but fictional Hollywood versions of childbirth, I figured once the head was at least halfway out, the worst was behind us, baby imminent. No. That halfway mark took little effort (or so it seemed from my admittedly limited perspective) but then it was almost literally two steps forward and one back for an hour or more: At each contraction, our daughter emerged to impressive degrees as my wife pushed for heroically long periods—and each time vacuum pressure undid it all when she finally relaxed.

Finally, the moment I had long dreaded arrived: Since—despite truly exceptional effort—my wife clearly could not deliver unaided, she was aided. This was another good news/bad news situation; while forceps went out with banishing fathers to smoke-filled waiting rooms (because, dear heaven, it is a baby, not a melon—melons have tougher rinds,) mechanical suction cups replaced them. I knew this, and had (and have) deep reservations about how THAT affects a newborns cartilage-encased brain, but there was no alternative; my wife was rapidly exhausting with no significant progress to show for the last hour of labor, and, despite her temptation to ask, she knew it was too late to change her mind about the whole "birth thing." So out came the suction and, almost instantly, so did our daughter. The doctors said they only briefly needed the suction before there was an audible plop and our little girl slid right out into a world with which she immediately expressed her extreme disapproval.

She is, um, rather good at that, it seems; either everything is perfect, wonderful and worthy of cooing grins—or everything is THE ABSOLUTE WORST EVER AND WILL NEVER EVER NEVER BE ALRIGHT AGAIN NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO111 I worry she got the worst mix of my wifes ease of irritation but quick recovery and my long fuse with a huge bang at the end; ideally, she would have a long fuse and quickly get over things, but a short fuse that ends in spree killings looks more likely.

On the plus side, she only looked like Zippy the Pinhead for a couple weeks after delivery. On that note, I am NOT posting pics here, having noted warnings any picture posted online remains there till the end of time, free for use and tracking by every pedophile and marketer who chances to see it: My daughter is only three months old, too young for any of us to have to deal with that crap. We ARE posting pics at a password-protected site; interested parties may NB me and (if I like you) receive access.