I got a river of life flowing out of me

I enjoyed the pun involved there. At about 1:30 in the morning Doris' water broke and we high tailed it to Winnipeg. Apparently we were considered to be low risk so we were told to go to Health Science Centre because St B was closed to low risk until later in the day. We decided to go to McDonalds and wait it out. Fun fact, McDonalds doesnt serve breakfast until 5 am. So Doris had a salad and I had a burger and we sat in the car listening to adel and essentially just killing time. Eventually we got a call from St B saying we should come in for an assessment and then they would decide whether to send us to the Health Science Center. We went to St B and they admitted us pretty promptly and by 10:42am they applied the drug to induce Doris. I would describe Doris' mood at this point as quite amiable and positive overall. After an hour or two I started seeing a consistent pattern in her contractions. We had a nice nurse named Collete. Doris had had prelabour a week earlier and she had been dialated about 2 cm. She probably dialated at roughly 1 cm an hour. Pretty text book. About midway through it became pretty difficult and she and I decided we should put her on fentynol, which is a lighter version of morphine. Doris was almost completley dialated at about 7pm, but there was a small amount that had not gone and that was a bit of a struggle. During the contractions there was a shift change and an older nurse named betty was there. She was helpful during the contractions, but was not very helpful during pushing. A shift change happened and the next nurse was very blunt and to the point and this helped Doris a lot more. While she was laboring Doris would grab my hand and try and push and pull me around. I essentially arm wrestled my wife for the better part of 5 hours. My wife is strong, just fyi. Doris pushed for about 3 hours and during this time the babies heart beat dropped and they determined that they would need to do an intervention. They opted to use suction and if that failed they would c-section the baby. They took Doris to the room and I was brought in later. I was very scared. Seeing your wife in agony for hours is tough, combine that with being exhausted and it can be down right terrifying. Add into this mix that your baby might be at risk....wow....birthing can be very emotional across the board. I came in. They stated "I can see the head." I was shocked at the speed of this process. I looked down to see a small circle coming out and then eventually the whole body of my baby. They told us, "you have a boy." They cut the chrod and brought him to the table to get him fixed up and suctioned.

I watched this happened and he started crying. They brought him to Doris and set him on her chest. They asked us what would you like to name him. Doris asked me what I wanted to name him and I told her Azariah and she agreed whole heartdly. Azariah is a name of a number of characters in the Bible, one is from 2 chronicles 15. He was a priest and brought reform to Israel. We named him Azariah John Vogt. Azariah means God helped, John means God is generous. John was the name of my father and my grandfather. It has been the name given to the eldest male (my brothers name is also John), my brother kindly allowed me this honour. He weighed in at 8.6 lbs and was 20 in long. He was rated a 9 out of 10 by the dr, which is typically their highest rating.

I held him while they fixed Doris up and I prayed and commited him to the Lord and asked God to watch over my son and raise him.

He was quiet about a minute after I held him. We are grateful that, like the name of our son, God helped. Doris' labour was about 12 hours, which is pretty short by most standards. Our baby is healthy and, for the moment, mild mannered. God provided us a means to not pay a cent for parking. I had an excellent month at work, which meant I lost very little by missing work. The Lord helped us and was very generous. Azariah John Vogt was a generous gift to us, given to us by God, on November 19, 2011 at 10:42 pm; may his way be commited to the Lord and may compassion, trust and humility be the mark of his life. I love you more then my own life my son and though I am most of unworthy of such a great trust I will try as hard as I know how to be the best child of God, husband to your mother and father as I can be (and I know Doris would say ditto to this).