Ollie, your first year of life on this here earth (Day 24)

Sonny boy,

Imagine this. It was Sunday, the 17th of February, in the wee hours of the morning. I woke up to some very startling leakage. (No, not pee, although the thought had crossed my mind.) Instead of breaking in a whoosh, my water broke in a trickle, and it continued through those early morning hours and well past breakfast.

Of course, I freaked out, as mommy has a tendency to do. We raced over to Hinchingbrooke where I was told that my waters broke. Indeed. Your daddy and I sat there in the maternity ward listening to the screams of other women's labors. And then I was given an appointment to induce my very own labor. The next day.

That was that, then. You were coming tomorrow morning whether you wanted to or not. And, crap, was mommy nervous. Mommy has heard tell of some laboring ladies who find inner strength or peace during those hard hours of labor. They let the pain take them deep into a place of calm where the wood nymphs dance with the sylvan elves. Mommy strongly suspects that if she were to have come into contact with any such other-worldly beings she would have begged them for a dram of morphine or beat them senseless. You know, just 'cause...

Anyway. Mommy and daddy made their way out of the hospital and decided to go grocery shopping. I mean, why not? We were close to Alconbury, and we needed food.

I was in a bit of a nervous pre-labor induced fugue. For example. I remember a Girl Scout asking us if we wanted to buy a box of cookies, but I don't remember the verbal bitch slap I gave the poor kid. I thought I politely said, "No," but apparently I said, "Noooooooo!" with fat lady fanged fury.

For the life of me, I can't remember what we had for dinner that night. I do remember your daddy going off to bed, leaving me to late Sunday night TV viewing. I thought, "Father Ted? That's it? That's all I have to distract me from imminent labor? Great, just great."

I waddled off to bed, and, yes, at that point, I waddled. I had such a difficult time closing my eyes that night, as I was terrified to wake up in actual labor. Yes, true. All through my pregnancy I had this fear of going into labor in the middle of the night. I had this bizarre conviction that if I went into labor during the day, I would have more control over everything.

In any event. About an hour later, I woke up. In labor.

Since the pain wasn't so bad, I thought, "Well, might just let Stu sleep and go into the other room and shave my legs." Which I did.

But then THE contractions came.

And got worse.

Fucking wood nymphs. Where's your Goddamn fairy dust now??!!

Mommy put on her trusty leggings. (Bless those leggings, they served mommy's expanding tuches well.) And her green top and her suede boots. Daddy thought the backroads through The Offords and Godmanchester would be faster than the A1. So, off we went, at a rip-roaring 30 mph.

And the speed bumps! I remember them well...

We arrived at the hospital, at which point mommy was absolutely certain she wanted drugs. In the form of an epidural. Lovely, lovely numbing...Daddy managed sleep and mommy managed a cup of tea and some toast. Drugs. I sing a celebration of thee.

And then. Then, the most horrible, unthinkable thing happened...

The epidural slipped. And MOMMY KNEW PAIN.

There was a lot of ugly cussing and apologies to the midwives for said cussing, so I will leave that to your imagination. (Throw your imagination far and wide because mommy sure did. Mommy was both dirty and creative. That takes some mad skills.)

After a lot of pushing and MORE PAIN, out you came. My God, there you were. A real live person. Our Oliver.

The nurses swaddled you, helped me into a wheelchair, and took us both back to the Ward. You slept for a total of...five minutes? Enough time for mommy to leaf through her copy of Vanity Fair with Harrison Ford on the cover. (I remember that as well.)

And there we were and that's that.

The beginning of everything.