Congratulations!
That's what I'd call a hardcore coder, programming while the wife is getting a child
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Hahaha, first of all, thanks everyone for the good wishes et al...
as far as coding while she was "in labor"... people that don't have kids won't understand this, probably because the only exposure they have to childbirth is what they see on TV; some hysterical woman breathing oddly, and men being sent for hot water, and telling the woman to breathe... as if she could forget to.
The reality of it is like this...
Woman nudges man at 2am saying "I'm having a contraction..."
He says "OMG are you sure?"
She says "well it was a small one... "
and you wait... you wait until you have a 2nd, 3rd, 5th... 10th... you time them, see if they're coming at regular intervals... if they are, you pack up your stuff and head for the hospital.
You get to the hospital, not rushing through red lights or speeding like a madman, fearing for the upholstery getting ruined... You make your way there, perhaps calling the hospital on your way to let them know they have someone incoming. You do NOT go to the ER... they don't wanna deal with newborns...
So you get there, they spend about an hour doing all sorts of setup. Get her on the monitor (fetal and contraction monitors), set up a catheter, blood pressure cuff, etc... Ask about 300 questions, including "are you a victim of domestic abuse" when the man isn't around... they draw blood, take a urine sample, and send those off to the lab.
You settle in, wait for labs to get back, and maybe 2 hours later you get the "feel good" person in the room to do the epidural. Up to this point, woman is kinda in pain from the contractions, and it's getting worse. 20 minutes after that creepy "stabby in the spine" thing, she's resting comfortably.
And then you wait some more...
We actually left for the hospital at about 12:45am... got checked in by 1:30 or so... she got the epidural at about 3am. After about 2 hours of settling down, I actually went to bed for 5 hours.
See, the cervix has to dilate to 10cm before she can give birth... all of this prep work and waiting is really waiting for that to happen.
So, 5 hour nap for me... I get up, she's only at 5cm (she was at 4cm when we got there)... this is now 10am. Keep in mind, it wasn't until 6:21 that her water broke. That's 8 hours of relatively uneventful waiting. 8 hours! What else am I supposed to do when I have a laptop and a flaky internet connection?
The stuff you see on TV, where the woman is all red in the face and pushing is the "hard labor" part of delivery... being "in labor" includes the whole waiting phase. Hard labor only starts after dilation to 10cm, and after the water breaks typically.
But, whoever said I didn't program during my first baby's delivery... they're right. I didn't know what to expect then. I was utterly bored, too... Plus, I didn't have a laptop then.
