Elias Luther Larson was born on 4/9/9 at 7:41pm. It's been a week, I've been laying low since then. Here he is, he was 9 lbs 3ozs at birth, and my wife went all Sarah Conner on me and didn't take any pain medicine for the birth so she could focus. That's right... focus. It was intense, and she was grateful to not be under any influences when he was born. Here he is:

While we were going to have a home birth, we ended up having a hospital birth (University of Colorado Hospital rocks!) after getting some poor medical advice that freaked a few people out. Elias was perfectly healthy and there were no complications, so in retrospect we wish we would have not done ultrasounds and went with the natural home birth. Next time we will, I'm sure-- we've had nothing but bad experiences with ultrasounds. But I digress, that is another story for another day. 

For me, the best thing about our son's birth is that I got to catch him. He's the second child I've caught, 2 of the greatest experiences I've ever had, something that can never be topped. With my bare hands I caught both of our children... there's nothing quite like it. There's nothing like holding your son or daughter as they are born... my hands are the first things they ever touched outside the womb. Incredible...

Here we are, a little cleaned up (but not rested up) ready to come home. Our daughter Violet was off with Gramma when we took this picture, but she was there right after the birth.

We waited a long time for Elias-- we originally thought Sallina was going to give birth around 39 weeks, so for about 3 weeks I was on edge waiting for him. This time, we ended up doing a few rounds of Cytotec and then about 2.5 hours of Pitocin right around 42 weeks, but we do wish we would have waited a few more days for labor to start naturally. But either way-- Elias is here now, and that's all that matters.

What's in a name?

Elias is the Greek form of the name "Elijah", used in some translations (KJV) in the Gospel of Matthew. It's also the name of my great aunt's father, a great man who left a great legacy through a small store he ran in Van Nuys through the great depression. Elias shares his middle name Luther with Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr. Larson-- well, that name he's stuck with. :)