Our first son, Noah Zane Grey, was born today, arriving two weeks before the due date and weighing 6 pounds 2 ounces. He was born at 7:10 pm Japan time at the Shimizu Clinic (link in Japanese only) in Nagano. Both Tomomi and Noah are doing fine.



The whole event began at around 2:30 am on the 17th, when Tomomi began feeling labor pains. We went to the clinic right away, but the doctor said it would be a long time before delivery. Although we could have chosen to have Tomomi stay at the clinic during all that time, the doctor said she could just as well wait out the time at home, so that's what she did.

Until about 4pm, that is. By then, the contractions had grown in intensity so Tomomi's aunt drove her back to the clinic. I was in lessons at the time, and had another 40 minutes of a lesson to go when she called, saying she had just arrived at the clinic. This was 5:15pm.

At 5:30, I got out of my lesson and cancelled the rest of them for the evening. I busted out of the place and headed right for the clinic. I was almost too late, too. When I got there, I found Tomomi in the delivery room all strapped up and ready to push. Finally, at 7:10pm, Noah was born.

Noah is writtenwith each character for each syllable of the name. The name Noah was chosen because it is a Biblical name but can also be written easily in Japanese. The characters in this name, in order, mean "hope" and "us".

Tomomi will be in the clinic for the next five nights. Tomorrow (Tuesday) I will visit the clinic and get my first chance to hold my son in my arms. Looking forward to it.

Photos are being uploaded daily. To see them, click here.

UPDATE: Video of Noah is now up. You can see a clip of him here!

UPDATE: I have moved the somewhat icky birth photos to a new album here.