The next day.

Wow.  Where do I start.  He is pretty awesome.  As you probably gathered from the lack of post in the later part of the day, he didn't come easy.  Jessica was pushing for a good 4 HOURS!  She is just amazing.  What a trooper.  Well, even with all the pushing, he was being pretty stubborn, and they had to bring in one of the baby vacuums.  This freaked us out a little bit, but the doctor assured us it was safe and make the process faster so onward we went.  

This was where it got a little crazy.... and by a little I mean a lot.  There were about 6 nurses in the room plus the doctor, all where cheering Jessica on.  Lots of commotion, people moving around, yelling for her to push, she was yelling at times, and I was just trying to focus on her.  After he finally arrived, it was a weird feeling.  There was a sense of relief...he was hear, and Jess was ok was the first feeling.  The second was a sense of completion... Yes!  We did it, now it's over! (I'm sure many of you are laughing at this one, but after spending a full day with one goal in mind and accomplishing it, I think that feeling was inevitable.)  And finally the third was "Wow that was gross!"  I always thought the 'gross' feeling would be the only feeling I would have, especially after watching the videos.  But like I said in a previous blog, the way you see life changes.  

When I first saw him, I saw a little version of my dad.  It was pretty cool.  There are pictures of my dad that I have seen when he was in high school and right after, and thats who I saw when I first saw my son.  Then I saw his awesome cone head.  After pushing for 4 hours, and using a vacuum, I guess that was expected.  

Next came the name.  I wanted to go out and tell the family he was here, but we needed a name first.  Earlier in the day Jessica had a dream that we had the cutest boy named Jason.  We have briefly talked about the name but having the dream seem like a good sign.  Jason Colson Gonzales, it sounds good.  Colson is Jessica's fathers middle name, as well as her great grandfathers and a few cousins.  The middle name was a known for quite some time.  It was the first name that we couldn't decide on.  For a while it was going to be Isaiah, then we liked Jacob, Tyler, and Ryan.  Jessica brought up the name Jason rather recently and we both liked it.   Jason is my brother's middle name and we obviously liked having that tie.  My middle name is Gabriel, after my mom's brother Johnny's middle name, so I really liked the idea of naming my son after my brother middle name.  Again come the love for our family, and so Jason Colson it is.

Telling my family the name was a great feeling.  They were so excited to finally have a name to call him.  Probably the coolest part was seeing Christin's face after I told them the name.  She looked directly at my brother with the biggest smile on her face.  They have obviously talked about the name being Jason, and seeing her face let me know how excited my brother must have been.  I didn't turn and look at him, I'm sure I would have said something either funny or stupid and ruin that moment, so seeing her face was all I need to see.  On the other hand I could have read that whole situation the wrong way, but I like the version I just told you

My sister and my parents were so incredibly excited hear the news.  I still cannot believe they drove 2 hours at 3 in the morning just to sit in a waiting room for 11 hours see the baby then drive home.  Poor Bella was great all day, stayed awake all the way until the very end then fell asleep before meeting Jason.  What an amazing little girl.  

There is much more to tell, but I don't have the time to sit and write like I want to with a newborn around.  This blog has taken all day already.  There will be more to come so stay tuned.

He's here!

Jason Colson Gonzales was born at 9:54 pm. There is so much to say
right now. It will have to wait. Thanks to everyone for the warm
wishes.

In for the long haul.

So its 4:37 and Jessica is now "9 and a fraction cm." and all I can
think is "SLOWER!" That's what we use to yell at the ref's during a
UT football game, when they would take for ever. We thought that was
funny.

Jessica is pretty tired, and hungry, and my poor family have been here
ALL DAY! I obviously feel most sorry for Jessica for having to go
through this all day, but next has got to be our family. They have
been sitting there so patiently, even little Bella, although she did
fall down and bust her lip a little. Again what a great family we
have. Jessica's mom is being honored at a retirement party right now,
and we had to make her go. It was sad to see her leave a little teary
eyed, I know she was afraid to miss anything. Well maybe our little
guy already loves his "nene" so much that he wants to wait for her.
Let's just hope its not a second later after that. ;-)

"9 cm. And the head is definitly lower."

It's 1:50 and that is the news we just heard from the nurse. Were
getting close!

Family

Everyone knows we both love our family very much. I know everyone
loves their family, buy not like us. And yes I know everyone also
says that, but here's why I feel so.
When jessica's water broke, RJ and christin were staying at our
house. When we called them from the hospital they immediately went into family mode.  Ralph made sure we had everything we needed and Christin went into cleaning mode for us.  When we called Jessica's parents, they drove over at 2:00 AM to see how we were.  They knew things would take a while but they also knew how much we would appreciate seeing them.  

When I called my parents and sister in Victoria, they packed up and headed our way.

They all took off work today and brought my niece Bella, to make sure she could meet her new cousin.  

Now I know many families would do this, and everytime I see families step up in these situations, I think, "Well that's normal."  

This is that part where people says your life is about to change.  Now I don't doubt that, but I think the biggest thing that changes is the way you see life.  It is one thing to say you love your family, but to see love in action is the difference.  I saw that today and it means more now.

We are very blessed.  And to go back to why I feel like we love our family more.  My brother and his family are moving .1 mile down the road from us and we couldn't be happier.  To add to that, The Lee's are moving .5 miles down the road.  Awesome!  Now I know that this is not possible for every family, but the fact that we are making it possible for ours makes me feel like we're a little special.

Epidural's are AMAZING.....when they work. :(

During my last post, I mentioned that Jessica was beginning to feel
some pain on her left side. Well the pain continued until about
10:15. So to give a brief timeline of jessica's pain: She received
her first epidural at around 3:00 and felt great. We both took a nap
and about 5:15, she woke up because she started feeling pain again on
her left side. 7:45ish she was given another dose of drugs that
helped with the pain but she again started to feel a ton of pressure
which again turned into pain. I fell asleep on the couch, but her mom
was here holding her hand the entire time I was out. Yea Mom! When I
came to, the doctors decided to redo her epidural. This was about
10:15. Since then she has felt great and is now able to sleep. She
finally looks peaceful again. Even though I think she looks
beautiful, she disagrees so I told her I wouldn't post a picture of
her until she is ready. What you are seeing in the picture is the
monitor that shows the baby's heartbeat (top), and
time of her contractions (bottom). The big mountains are when she has
the contractions, and the bold vertical lines are each minute. As you
can see she was having them about every three minutes. So in other
words, every three minutes she was having the worst pain she has ever
felt. Thank God the epidural is working again, since then she hasn't
felt a thing. :-)

6:00 AM Update

Well we have been here a little over 5 hours and have actually gotten
some sleep now. In the picture you can see jessica laying next to the
baby monitors and at the bottom of her bed is my awesome fold out bed.
The Lee's have already been here to see how things are going, but
being that things have slowed down for a while, they went to get some
rest for the crazy day that lies ahead.

As for Jessica, she is now 5 cm dialated, and unfortunatly feeling the
contractions on the left side if her body. The nurse is checking on
her to see whats going on, so hopefully that stops soon.

Either way, my parents and sister are close to being her now, and
luckily my brother and Christin are already at our house. I'll post
again soon so keep checking.

Its time!

Jessica woke me up this morning at midnight and let me know she thinks
her water broke, and in typical Jessica style no mess was made.

So we called the pregnant hotline and they gave us the green light to
make our way to the hospital.

Random stats from the night.
Got in the car at 12:34.
Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - live at Luther College was in the cd
player.
Got to the hospital at 12:47.
Jessica was 3 cm. dialated upon arrival.
More info to come. Here is a picture of us entering the hospital.

"Now your kid can be gangsta like us."

This past Friday, we took the wind ensemble to play at the University
of Houston, and even though I came back early, all the kids got to go
to the Galleria before coming back. Either way, while they were there,
three of our students, tuba players at that, decided to get a gift for
my boy.

Now I did not get to see them until today, but as soon as they came in
the band hall, they were so excited to give it to me. The exact quote
was "Mr. G, Mr. G, look what we got you. Now your kid can be gansta
like us!"

What an awesome group of guys Jay, Adrian, and Robert are. Its not
everyday our kids get to go to a mall like the galleria, and for them
to be so excited and thoughtful to get a present for my son when I
wasn't even there, makes me speechless. I'm not so sure it is
something Jessica would have picked out, ok, I know its not, but she
was so impressed with such a thoughtful gesture from my "gangsta" kids.
Thanks again guys.

Taking one for the team

So you know how you will see a great parking spot, and someone will
say, "Hey, go lay in the spot while I go get my car." No? Haven't
heard that? Well I say it all the time. Either way, we went to eat
at Olive Garden for Justin's birthday and I did just that.

So apparently I couldn't hold it, or amy just spilled her beer on me.

Ok, I am at this Irish pub called called Fado on 4th street, drinking
and having a good time, and Amy decides to spill her beer on me. Here
is a picture of my pants.

Dumb but awesome brother stuff.

So my brother RJ is currently living with us while his family is in
transition in the move to the Austin area. We haven't lived together
for about 8 years and it is as fun now as it was then.
For example, we play in a community band that me and my buddy Chris
put together and we meet every Thursday. Afterwards, we normally go
to Plucker's for beer and good times. We'll when we were leaving
Plucker's tonight it was raining pretty good. This is normally not a
big deal, but with Ralph's new job, he has to drive around with
thousands of dollars of glasses with him. It also means if he parks
outside, he has to move his inventory inside.
Needless to say it would be a lot easier for him if he could park in
my garage tonight so he wouldn't have to unload his car in the rain.
The only problem is that I would have to park outside be walk through
the rain.
Well I came up with the idea that he could only park inside the garage
if once in the garage, he would have to go outside in the rain, and
touch the street with his hand. As dumb as this sounds, It was the
random crap we used to do all the time back in Victoria.
This is the picture of him soaking wet and about to to outside again
to touch the street. Good times.

Birthing Class part 3 - The revenge!

So Jessica and I are in our 2nd birthing class which is supposed to
 be our third, but we missed the first one.
Either way, it is amazing to me how the human race has survived
being that we have to go through the most violent of ways to enter
this world. All the pain, and screaming (from the mom and the
baby), the blood and possibility of things tearing. If all that is
not bad enough someone thought it was a great idea for me to watch
videos about all of it.
While Shelly, our instructor, is awesome, she actually said "and now
you get to watch someone giving birth to the placenta." I was like,
who gives birth to the what? I know I just found out about this
placenta business, but if you ask me the mom only gives birth to the
baby, everything else is just "pushed out". And again, why is it
important that I see it. It is not like the doctor is going of pass
out, as well as all the nurses, and I have to man up and run the
show. Let's just hope everyhing works out and I get to stay both of
the boarder. Then again if Zach Morris can give to Mrs. Beldings baby in an elevator, I could probably do it.

New mobile blog.

So I decided to make a new blog that I might actually post on. When I
made our website, I thought I would post a lot on our blog, but after
a year now Jessica is the only one who adds to it.
With this new blog, I can post from anywhere using my iPhone. In
theory, it should work great. I always felt pressured to write a some
thought provoking manifesto everytime I sat in front of my computer,
but now that I'm posting from my phone, everyone will just expect a
cool picture that I took and wanted to talk about it right then. Plus
it gives me another reason to play with my phone. (Jessica just
rolled her eyes as she read that.)
Either way, this blog will also let me communicate what's going on,
when Jessica goes into labor. Our friends Niki and JR recently had a
baby, and JR gave me this great idea on how he kept all their loved
ones informed while Jag was being born.

Well I hope you enjoy reading about the random crap I see on a daily
basis and being that I don't have a particular photo to go along with
this post, here is a cool pic I took with my iPhone of my niece and
nephew on Easter. They're pretty cool, huh?