How it all went down

So how did it all go down, you ask?

For a couple of weeks we were expecting Lina to come early, as suggested by Liz's doctor. However, by last Friday, we had stopped expecting her to come early. After having dinner at Hong Kong Cafe on Sawtelle and Olympic on Friday night, we came home and watched "Without a Trace" and "Cold Case" on the DVR until the wee hours of the night, fully expecting to have one last weekend before the big day. While preparing to retire for the night, Liz yelled out, "Leonard, uh, I think my water just broke..."

What proceeded was nothing like the movies. We didn't drop everything, grab the bags, and drive through the city streets at 100mph to get to the hospital, then park curbside and run into triage screaming bloody hell with the baby half way out. We called the doctor, who calmly instructed us to get to Cedars Sinai in the next hour and a half. We called our families, who were all sleeping, packed a few last-minute things into our overnight bag, and even tidied up the apartment a bit. I actually spent a good half hour clearing out some work-related emails and letting folks know that there's a reason I won't be dialing into the weekend conference call.

The drive from our place in West LA to Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills was actually pretty quick - 15 minutes tops. There was a surreal, and appropriate, peacefulness to it all. We arrived, checked in to the hospital at around 3:30am, and Lina came into the world at 11:03am. From 3:30am until 9:30-ish, things were actually pretty chill. We were given a very nice delivery room, with a panoramic view of the the Hollywood Hills. There was a lot of paperwork, monitoring of Liz, and general down-time before kick off. We even had a couple of hours to nap - Liz on the hospital bed hooked up to some IVs and me on a couch next to her. Again, it was peaceful and very surreal to watch the sun rise over the 'Hills. I have some pics on another camera that we didn't upload yet.

At around 9:00am, our Doctor and a couple of nurses came into the room. Before I knew it, it was showtime at the Apollo. I think I'll save the details of the rest for never and maybe talk about thoughts and reactions next time...

Anyway, that's how it went down.