John 3.16 Seconds

She reached over to my side of the bed, grasped my shoulders and shook. I was in a deep sleep and the sudden intrusion into that sleep startled me. I jumped out of bed as if there was an acetylene torch attached to my wife's fingers.

My reaction startled her and she began to scream, together our noise level exceeded the decibels allowed in a residential neighborhood. Both of us stood facing each other red faced and hysterical. Then she clutched her extended stomach and said, "Oh my God, its coming, we better get going." During those five seconds I went from deep sleep, to being torched, to hysterical screaming, and now imminent fatherhood. You bet your booty. I began to hurry.

The wife and I had carefully planned out this moment. She had packed a bag of needed items. I had hung a car key on a hook by the door. She grabbed the bag and started for the door.

I was already there staring at an empty hook where the spare car key was to hang. She blasted right past me clenching her teeth and sucking out the words 30 seconds apart, 30 seconds apart. I was just going to ask her if she had taken the keys when I heard the scream.

I figured now I would have another 30 seconds before the next outcry. I decided not to ask about the key because at that precise moment another screech spewed from her mouth. I clutched her shoulder and she let out a sound different from those before. She said, "Why are you stabbing me with those keys?" I did not have the heart to tell her that those keys were, in my state of hysteria, lost.

The car had been backed into the drive to enable a quick drive straight out to the hospital. That was part of the plan. So far so good. She was next to me, I checked just to make sure. There she was, panting out the seconds. "One-hundred, two one-hundred, three one-hundred, four one-hundred, . . . twenty one-hundred, AEYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" That last one was not in the script.

Somewhere within her vociferation I heard her say that the time is now. The time is now? Oh my God, there goes that welder's torch again, right through my senses. "AEYEEEEEE- EEEEEEEE!" Sounds like she is getting serious. The next mutter was something like this. "There is no time left the baby is coming out right now." I screeched the car to a halt, only to realize that we had barely left the driveway. This kid was in a hurry and there was nothing I could do to slow it down.

My wife had loosened her seatbelt and was now laying across the seat, her back leaning on the car door. I was searching the files of my brain to find that one on how to deliver a baby. Just then I heard the siren close behind and then the paramedics shouting for me to get out of the way.

I climbed out they climbed in and the next thing I heard was the healthy cry of my new baby boy. The paramedics asked if I wanted to ride to the hospital with them and I readily agreed. Climbing in the back end of the ambulance, I got my first view of that little boy who was in such a hurry to be born. She was holding him to her chest while he wiggled and squirmed as if he wanted to jump out and start the rest of his life right away.

I took her hand and she asked what will we name this little guy who appears to be so impatient. Without hesitation I said, "name him John."