Coming Home Whole

March 2026 — I wrote this in April 2012, the day I brought my son Ashe home from Baptist Downtown in Jacksonville. I’m republishing it as is here mostly because it deserves to exist somewhere. The writing is a little raw in places as I was 12 hours out from the hospital but I’ve left it alone. Ashe turns 14 next month.

Originally written April 23, 2012

Today Jessica and I brought home our day-and-a-half-old son, Ashe Thomas. Born at 8-pounds 6-ounces and, perhaps, looking a bit like his namesake and my father Thomas Olberding, he’s healthy and looking like a t-rex.

Jessica was watching an episode of Game of Thrones an hour before I woke up at 8:30am on Saturday morning. Once I did, she told me that she thought that her water had broke. The hospital told us to come in, I took a shower and added some things to our ‘go’ bag and drove us to the maternity ward.

I didn’t post this on Twitter, on Facebook. I assumed we’d see the nurse, they’d tell us that we still had weeks or days ahead of us. Even after the signs were there, I simply didn’t believe that I would have a son within 12-hours.

After a series of painful contractions Jessica opted for the epidermal, after which, for the most part, pain was out of the equation. Hours and contractions went by unnoticed by all. The nurse that had been working with us and another came in telling us that it was time to start pushing. It was around 6pm.

With the epidermal, pushing was a matter of form and faith instead of pain and mind over matter. As a ballet dancer, Jessica attempted a few highly flexible positions before the nurse assured her that she was doing just fine with her hands behind her knees.

Once the OB came in Ashe was delivered about 20 minutes later. He was so close at the end of each contraction that the time between seemed to last forever, each time thinking that the he would be born on the next. He came out still, skin white, covered in a white substance, misshapen head - my heart dropped. Even though the monitors were showing a heart rate just a second before, I didn’t believe it. This belief was shattered with his first piercing cry. I had a son. Instantly my eyes watered but were held back by the awareness of presence of the four nurses and doctors in the room. Jessica was crying. I took a deep breath, awkwardly leaned over the bed rail and kissed her.

That night and the next day Jessica and I marveled at this inconceivable puppet, thing, human, baby - how it was ours. Over the next two days we ordered and ate too much pizza, crap food, I cheated and had an amazing rare burger from the Loop, the three of us crammed into the hospital bed, struggled to sleep when we could, and welcomed the amazing support of family and friends who visited. We got scared, got tired, got lovey, got overwhelmed, got everything.

Acutely aware that I was not the first person to ever be a father, I marveled not at the perceived uniqueness of the life-changing event unfolding minute by minute before me, but at its universality. That the feeling of first seeing your first child look up at you is not one that is rare, but is one rarely profound moment that is extremely common, that this is a moment shared by literally billions.

During a food run, an old friend texted me ‘how it felt to be a father’? I initially typed out ‘amazing and trippy’. I erased that and tried to think beyond the initial cliches. I ended up writing him that it felt ‘right’, that I felt ‘inspired’ to be better than I am.

The nurses and staff at Baptist Downtown were absolutely amazing. Attentive, patient, interested - the whole package. We were ready to go home when the time came. We arrived home to a clean apartment courtesy of Jessica’s mother. I moved things up into the apartment, went out for food, got things in order.

Realizing that I hadn’t showered since we left for the hospital days earlier, I drew a bath. I laid back, began reading the pregnancy book’s chapter on new parents. Halfway through the chapter, tears unbidden came to my eyes. I put down the book, and wept. Realizing that I had never had a moment to myself to reflect, to relax, I wept for my healthy son, for my amazing wife who showed just how amazing she can be, not only in the labor and delivery of the baby, but in how she handled everything exactly in the way that I would want the person I want to be the mother to my child to handle things. As someone who is inherently a pessimist, I, for once in my life, felt amazingly lucky and blessed.