| I Helped Make Him. He Is Perfect. | The Best Day of My Life |

Jimmy Johnson
7/20/2013
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We awoke that morning like we have ever other day . We got out of bed wiped the sleep from our eyes and slowly made our way to the kitchen. I asked my wife if she wanted to go get some breakfast, knowing she didn’t want to cook and neither did I.

“Sure”, my wife Catherine said.
“Alright, let’s get dress and Ill load up the car and we will go.” I told her. We decided on just going to Big Boy’s because it was on the way. We ordered our food and made small talk while we waited for it to be brought to the table.
“Do you think when our baby boy is born you will cry?” Catherine asked. I looked at her with a smile on my face and told her, “You know I don’t cry. Not that there is nothing wrong with that. I just don’t get emotional like that.”
“I figure you would say that. Well I am probably going to cry just so you know”, she said back to me and then smiled.
“I know you will, it’s going to be a great day.”

Our food arrived and we sat there and ate. We were making more small talk both knowing that later that day she would be in labor, and it wasn’t going to be fun for her.

Walking into the hospital knowing that in roughly 24 hours I would be responsible for another human beings life really hadn’t sunk in yet. My wife and I decided a week earlier after carefully consideration from her doctor that she would undergo a procedure to induce labor. As we walked through the hospital doors, we saw a little old lady sitting at the front desk.
“Name and reason you are here”, the white haired older woman said.
“We are here so my wife can be induced. We have an appointment,” I replied and then smiled from ear to ear.
“Here, fill out these forms and have a seat. We will call you forward in a bit.” I flew though the forms, wanting to get the show on the road and was not really aware of what I was signing or even filling out. The excitement starting to boil up inside of me. I was like a giddy school boy who received a shiny new bike for Christmas and had to wait for the first nice day to take it outside.
“Johnson,” the white haired lady called out. I handed her the forms I filled, out and she showed us to a nurse who took us up to the birthing floor. As I walked through the big double doors to the floor where babies are born I could smell baby powder. The whole floor smelt clean. The nurse showed us to our room and told us this was where Catherine would be giving birth. The first thing I noticed was that there were huge lights in the celling and I was thinking to myself. “Is there going to be a crowd of people in here? Why did they need so many lights?”

A little while after we arrived a nurse came in and gave my wife some medicine to help induce her labor. It didn’t take to long for it to kick in. She started having contractions and the doctor came in and administered an epidermal. We had heard from friends who had babies lately that this was one of the worst parts. It really wasn’t too bad for her. She took it like a champ.

We were on the road to having this baby. She still wasn’t dilated enough to do anything yet, and what seemed like forever (15 hours), she was finally ready to go. Her doctor and nurse came in and flicked on the big stadium style lights. They asked me where I wanted to stand as they prepared to deliver my son. I chose to stand at her head. As I was standing there lightly rubbing her hair and offering words of encouragement (such as you can do this, “women do this all the time and you got this”) she Yells at me to shut up that “You’re not helping.” After pushing for almost 3 hours, the doctor decided that they are going to have to do an emergency C-section, because my wife was just too small to deliver a baby.

They whisked her off to the operating room to prepare her for surgery and told me after she was ready I would be able to come in. The nurse got me and took me to a little room where I had to put on a hospital gown, hair net and booties and scrub my hands down with soap that smelt more like bleach than anything else. I was taken into the room where my wife was already drugged up and feeling no pain. The doctors put up a portion from her waist down so I couldn’t see anything and also to prevent any unwanted germs.

I sat there telling her how much I loved her and reassuring her that everything was going to be alright. After only about thirty minutes, I heard the doctor say “Here he is.” Then I heard my son cry. Tears instantly come rolling down my cheeks. My wife in her drug induced state, looked over at me with the biggest grin on her face and said. “Thought you were not going to cry?” I was sobbing like a baby myself I replied to her “Thought you were going to?” Then after a brief pause I tell her “You better not tell anyone because I will deny it till I die.”

This was truly the happiest day of my entire life. Here was this little boy covered in slime, crying and all I could do was cry with him. He was and still is so beautiful. I still look at him and think to myself, “I helped make him. He is perfect.”