3 years is a long time

It was my son's birthday yesterday.

He's 3 years old.

I can't believe I've been a father for 3 years. It's kind of overwhelming. The sheer responsibilities that come with being a parent.

Let me be honest to all out there. While my .... the mother of my child was pregnant with Francisco I was a moron.

To be honest, I was scared shitless of being a father. We had lost 2 babies previously due to miscarriages so the chances of us having a child were slim. But apparently my little swimmers are stronger than the docs thought, so F (my ex, whatever) got pregnant.

But I got scared. When the actual reality of being a father presented itself I freaked out. I would spend as much time away from home as possible, at work, at University, out with friends, anything to not face the reality of F's growing womb.

So for about 4 months I was a complete ass. Then we went to have the first Ultrasound sonogram, and I saw my son.

Oh God, never have I seen anything so beautiful, ever.

Obviously being an Ultrasound you could see outlines instead of features, but he was beautiful. That was actually the first moment we found out it was a boy. Up until then we were sure that we were going to have a girl. We hadn't even picked out any boy names.

We ended up naming him Francisco Nicolas. Francisco after my paternal grandfather and Nicolas is just a beautiful name we love.

After that I was in love with my son. Maybe I loved him more than I loved her.

I spent every waking moment trying to make up for my idiocies of the past. I don't know if I succeeded, but I did my best.

Then came the day of September 26, 2002. We weren't expecting him for almost another 2 weeks, but F had been under a lot of stress since my great-aunt had passed away 10 days before. The worst part was that my dad and I found my great-aunt. I still can't face that memory, and it's something we'll have to carry for the rest of our lives.

The morning of the 26th I went to work as usual, and as usual, I called F every 2 hours to see how she and the baby were doing. That morning on my second call, she told me that she was "leaking".

This scared me because one of the previous miscarriages had been preceded by a loss of amniotic fluid in the morning. I told her to get her ass to the doctor's office ASAP. To grab a cab and get down there.

I went and told my bosses that I had to leave that my wife was having problem's with the baby. My bosses allowed me to leave and actually gave me a gift of U$S 500 for the baby (in Uruguay this is a huge amount of money).

I raced down to the doctor's office and found F there. She was being admitted to the labour ward!

WTF??????? I went and talked to the head nurse and she explained that the fluid loss was quite normal when a woman's water breaks. I almost laughed out loud!

My wife was going to have the baby!

So I went in to see her, this was about 11 am. She gave me instructions on what to get from home.

I raced out, grabbed a cab and got home in maybe 30 mins. From there I called every freaking person I knew!

I was going to be a dad!

I got back to the hospital at about 2pm and found at least 20 people there waiting for me. Even my best friend in Uruguay had shown up.

It was a long wait. Filled with anticipation and fear. There was pain, a whole hell of a lot of it, and she went through alot of it too. It was a great night.

Then, at 10:20 pm, Uruguayan time, my son was born. The umbilical cord was cut by me and then I held my beautiful baby boy. I was in love with him, he was so gorgeous. He had steely blue eyes and a full head of hair and a tiny pimple on his right cheek. He looked at me and I held him. He had this creamy white gunk on him, but he was gorgeous.

I gave him to the nurse and I went to tell everyone. When I saw Enzo, my friend, I literally ran into his arms crying.

I was joyous. And I let everyone know that Francisco Nicolas Gonzalez had been born.

And now 3 years later.

I talked to him last night and sang Happy Birthday to him in English and Spanish. Then he asked me "Papa venis a casa pronto?" "Papa, are you coming home soon?"

I almost cried right there.

I said "Yes, Frankie, I'm coming home very soon, and we're never going to be apart again".

I'm going home. And my son's waiting for me. Anything else is superfluous.

I love my son and he loves me. God, is there anything more wonderful?