You want to throw up.

Your wife, your beautiful wife, is in agony, pushing and crying and gulping down air and there's nothing you can do but hold her hand and hold her head and count off the time. "Breathe," you remind her. "Big breath."

And the doctor and the delivery nurse and the student they always drag in are all telling you that just one more push is going to do it, just one more, one more, for fifteen minutes, just one more. And all you want to do is throw up.

But then: he's here. He's here. Your wife collapses back, sweat beaded on her forehead and tears streaming down her face, and she laughs. She laughs. And you laugh. And the room spins in a blur because he's here. And from somewhere, somewhere, there's a very, very small cry.

And they lift him up and put him into your wife's arms and your chest can't contain your heart and you're shaking so badly that you have trouble grabbing the scissors to cut the cord.

And you love him, instantly and competely. Eyes swollen shut and bullet-headed and messy and bloody and the most beautiful thing you have ever seen, you love him, you love him, you love him.

He cries a little, shaking, in his mother's arms and you laugh again and things are as good, as wonderful, as perfect as they can possibly be.