When my son was born, he did something that made me so proud of him.
I was so proud of this kid the second he was born.
Not in just like a broad way.
He did a thing.
I was so proud of him.
I'm going to tell you about it.
Before I do, though, I want to offer up a public service announcement to the people in the room who do not yet have kids.
Because I'm new at this.
And I can tell you personally, there's a lot of stuff about the actual process of giving birth.
Like when it's go time.
The actual experience of giving birth.
They don't tell us about all this stuff.
And I don't get it.
They should.
There's a lot of stuff they're keeping secret.
And I have no idea why.
I mentioned this nine-week long birthing class.
And it was useful.
And we got a lot out of it.
But a lot of it was like different ways to stretch on yoga balls.
And various breathing techniques.
And I'm glad we took the class.
But in the moment, it was pretty much useless.
Like I never saw a yoga ball one time.
We barely breathed for the duration of the labor.
It was just kind of like, now you're in it and go.
You know?
And it was like, it was crazy.
Luckily for us, though, I'll tell you.
My wife comes to me one day.
She goes, hey, so I found this class.
Our hospital offers this class.
It's on Saturday.
It's free.
It's two hours long.
It's called Birthing Basics.
We're already taking the nine-week class.
So this thing will probably be useless.
Free.
Two hours.
You know?
But I was thinking, let's go take it.
That way we know how to drive back and forth to the hospital.
I'm like, super smart.
We need to do that anyway.
Might as well take a class while we're there.
Right?
Thank God we took this class.
Thank God we took this class.
This was the real deal class.
This was the real deal class.
We go take this class.
There's five other couples there.
This nurse walks into the room.
She goes, I've been delivering babies in this hospital.
For 33 years.
There's a lot of things that are going to happen that are going to make you want to freak out.
I'm going to tell you everything you need to know so you don't freak out.
And then she went and talked for two straight hours.
It was the most intense thing I've ever seen.
You saw every person in the room just take out their phone and desperately try to take notes.
There was no rhyme or reason.
No lesson plan.
This Long Island battleaxe of a nurse just jumped from topic to topic.
It was wild.
She's like, look, when your baby's born, it might be covered in a thin layer of wax.
Everybody sees the wax.
They freak out.
They think something's wrong.
Don't worry about it.
The wax is supposed to be there.
It's called vernix.
It's actually very good for their skin.
So please do not freak out.
We don't even wipe off the vernix.
It's good for them.
Okay?
Don't freak out about the vernix.
A lot of times when babies are born, they might come out blue.
Everybody freaks out when they see the blue baby.
Oh, my God.
Something's wrong.
No, nothing's wrong with the baby.
Think about it for two seconds.
It's taking its first breath.
It's going to take a minute for the oxygen to get where it needs to go.
So please don't freak out.
When your baby's born, it might have a bunch of weird birthmarks on it.
Okay?
Don't freak out, please.
For white babies, we call them stork bites.
For black babies, we call them mongolian bites.
Don't freak out.
I'm like, well, that one's weirdly racist.
Like, why?
Why do we need two names for that?
Like, that's weird.
You know, she goes, when your baby takes its first *, it's not going to look like *.
Okay?
It's called mechonium.
It looks like rust.
Rubber.
Don't freak out.
Thank God she told us all of that.
When Cal was born, he was covered in wax.
He was light purple.
He had crazy birthmarks all over the back of his head and neck.
And then he * out a piece of tire rubber.
It was insane.
It was insane.
Thank God she told us all this.
Here's the craziest one.
Here's the craziest one.
She goes, look.
Now, in the movies,
one of the big romantic moments,
oh, we see a head, right?
It's not very romantic in real life.
Everybody freaks out when they see the head.
Because this head is not going to look like a human head.
It looks like a pile of chewed bubble gum.
Don't freak out.
Now, the moment of truth arrives.
We have been in labor for over 24 hours.
I am cradling Hallie's head.
She's been a champion.
She was so badass the whole time.
It was the coolest thing.
I'm cradling her head.
I'm like, you're doing so good.
You're doing amazing.
Keep going.
And we get to the pushing phase.
And just a couple contractions into this,
I see the nurses start to turn around.
They go, oh, we think we got something moving here.
And then the doctor steps up.
OK, here we go.
Give a hard push.
Here's the head.
Now, I had not decided beforehand if I was going to have it in me
to actually do it.
See this go down, you know?
But I'm like, this is once in a lifetime I have to do it.
So I place Hallie's head down.
I'm like, you're doing so good.
I step around.
And I see a pile of chewed gum spilling out of my wife.
It was completely insane.
And then the really crazy part, the nurse told us about this, too.
It went back up.
Don't shoot the messenger on this one.
The nurse said, she goes, the gum comes out.
The gum goes back in.
The gum comes out.
The gum goes back in.
Please don't freak out.
Told us all about this.
So the gum goes back up.
I run back around.
I'm holding Hallie's head.
I'm like, oh my god, he's almost here.
You get to meet him.
One more big push, do it, you know?
She pushes again.
He comes out, stays halfway out.
His head is halfway out.
It's the craziest thing.
The gum is hanging halfway out.
One more big push.
You got this.
I love you.
She gives one more big push.
Cowl pops out.
The doctor catches him immediately.
She goes, oh, he kicked me.
Oh, he's pissing.
And I've never been more proud of anyone in my life.
I've never been more proud.
I was so proud of my son.
His first second on Earth, he finds the nearest authority
figure, kicks her in the face, and then just pees everywhere.
I was like, my son, what a little punk rock baby.
I love this kid.