Welcoming another Billy into the world

The Billy Blog would like to take this opportunity to present to you the pinnacle of evolution, the result of billions of years of fate and chance:

Billy Cooper Wade, born June 15, 2011 at 5:25pm. 

Billy, weighing in at 8 lbs 13 oz and standing a towering 20.75" tall, sat so large in his mother's womb that the doctor was worried that if he was left for the full term (a predicted DOB of 6/22), he wouldn't be able to be delivered naturally.  So his mother and I checked into the Labor and Delivery ward of our hospital on Tuesday night (6/14), and began the process of inducing labor.  For those of you who don't know what this entails, it pretty much means just sitting around while hormones are pumped into the mother, stimulating uterine contractions and bringing about the birth. 

I was expecting that by beginning to administer the hormone at 8pm (in reality, around 10pm, after getting checked in and everything), we'd be the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy somewhere before or around noon.  Unfortunately, the birth canal decided not to play along, so around 4pm on Wednesday, we faced the inevitable c-section. 

I have to give credit to my wife; around 11 or noon, the doctor came in and said that because labor wasn't progressing as fast as it should be (or at all, really) that a c-section would be advisable, but wasn't a necessity yet because the baby was still doing fine.  I know that neither of us wanted for her to have a c-section, but she was the one who couldn't eat anything other than ice chips for the whole ordeal, and yet she signed on for another several hours of the same, until we gave in to the inevitable and had the c-section.

And so, around 4:45, they wheeled her off with me in tow (and I was wearing a pretty sexy set of medical coveralls), and I got to sit through the entire process.  A sheet was set up to keep me from watching the surgery, but when they were about to fish my boy out of the womb, I got to stand up and watch him be born.  Then, while they finished up with mother, I got to watch them clean the baby off and hold him myself.

So now, one day removed, both mother and child are doing great.  My wife is a bit sore from the surgery, which is to be expected, and little Billy is pretty much the cutest baby in the entire world (that's a fact, not just my opinion).  I have a plethora of additional pictures, but in true father-to-be fashion, I brought the camera but not the USB cable to get the pictures somewhere I can disseminate them.  At least it will give me something to write about later.  In the meantime, I'm camped out in the hospital with my wife and child, enjoying the best a family has to offer.

Thanks for all the well wishes!