Today is Father’s Day and it’s about time I wrote about Ada’s birth.

Ada was born on December 16th at 12:00PM exactly. She was delivered via scheduled c-section, which was the safest option for us because the baby was in a breech position.

We went to the hospital early that morning. Kimberly was whisked off to change into her hospital gown and I was taken to the pre-op room to wait for her. While waiting, a nurse explained to me that I should eat so that I don’t pass out later. “Are you nervous?” she asked. “No,” I said, telling the truth. “Well don’t be, everything’s going to be fine. Now go get something to eat.”

I went to the cafeteria and returned with some eggs. There was Kimberly waiting for me in the hospital bed jacked into an IV, fluids flowing. There was a whooshing sound coming from behind her, it was the babies heartbeat. I felt the first pang of nervousness.

We were soon joined by family. We all sat around talking and taking pictures while I nibbled at my eggs. My mom kept our family tradition and brought a “zero” birthday cake:

When it was time for the epidural, our family was asked to leave the room. Again I was told I might pass out so I’d better off observing from an angle where I couldn’t see anything. I took a seat directly in front of my wife and held her hands while the anesthesiologist performed the procedure. For whatever reason, I once again felt calm and without the slightest bit of nervousness once the procedure was over.

Then we waited. The operation had to be delayed half an hour due to an emergency with another patient, so we waited some more.

Finally it was time. I was given a set of scrubs and my wife was taken away so that the final preparations could be made before I was allowed to join her again. When I watched the nurses wheel her out of the room I was surprised by the surge of emotion that welled up within me. I had an acute urge to give chase. Instead I waited, pacing the room with little awareness of my surroundings; utterly focused on Kimberly.

Eventually a nurse came in and led me back to the operating room. As I entered the room the nurse made it a point to stand between me and any glimpse I might get of the surgery. I was led over to the “pretty end” and, to my pleasant surprise, found Kimberly to be as high as a kite; a big goofy grin on her face. I looked past her and saw two containers filled with blood and decided not to mention them to her.

As the surgery went on I thought about how I’d feel with the knowledge that someone was digging around inside my body. Kimberly kept commenting with that goofy smile on her face that it felt like they were tugging at her organs and that “they must be in up to their elbows.” The anesthetist kept chuckling at her and I kept holding back jokes about losing a watch in there, nicking an artery, aneurysms, clots, bleeding out, and so forth. My sense of humor is never appropriate when it comes to life and death.

“Here she comes!” the doctor called out, “get the camera ready!” There were some suctioning noises and then a brief cry from Ada. I looked down at Kimberly and there was a tear in her eye as she commented that it was the “cutest cry ever.” They held Ada up over the curtain so that I could see her, I stood up and saw my daughter for the first time and said “holy shit.” Then I looked past the baby to Kimber’s exposed insides and said “holy shit!”

“Now we have to clean her” the doctor said and whisked the baby away to the other side of the room. I sat back down, looked at Kimberly and said “holy shit.” In fact, I’m pretty sure “holy shit” was the only phrase I was able to utter for a good five minutes.

Once they had cleaned her up and swaddled her, they brought little Ada over to meet her mom for the first time:

From there, I was to stay with Ada while the doctor sewed up Kimber. On the way out of the O. R. I managed to get a good view of the surgery; the blood, the folded back skin, some tube-like (the umbilical cord?) organ. As I stood there and stared I noticed a concerned nurse looking at me, wondering if I was going to pass out. “I’m fine” I told her. I was intrigued to the point that I considered leaving Ada’s side just to get a better view. I felt a strange new level of intimacy with my wife and decided at that moment that next time I’d like watch the surgery happen.

I watched as Ada was weighed (8 lbs. 2.6 oz.), measured (19″), and bathed. She cried the whole time and I could think of nothing but getting her to her mom for comfort.

Then, finally, we were all together.

Being a father has filled me with so much joy that the idea of Father’s Day seems almost preposterous. I’ve been given enough already.

If you haven’t already heard, it’s a girl. Learning the sex of our baby-to-be has, I think, really caused the news to sink-in for a lot of people. Whereas most were congratulatory but otherwise quiet about the big news, once they found out the sex they suddenly got excited. As the news spreads, the amount of advice increases. That’s fine, of course. I like advice.

Speaking of advice, here is an email and video which my mom sent to me last week:

Jimmy – watch the whole thing…. start teaching Ada NOW..

Love you

Mom

Assuming its true, or at least mostly true, it’s an interesting video. Personally, if I’m going to ask “what does it all mean” then I might as well go all out. Every so often, I like to entertain various visions of the future. Lately I’ve been drawn to the concept of sentient computing and the potential eventuality of being able to “upload” one’s consciousness into a computer.

So this was my response to my mom’s email (links added for this blog entry):

No worries. By the time Ada is my age, we’ll be uploading our brains into computers and terminating our physical bodies, considering them to be a waste of environmental resources.

Perhaps one day the physical media we "live" on or even the entire Earth will be destroyed. It won't be a problem; our martian backup system will detect the destruction and restore society within a matter of seconds. Most "people" would never even know it happened. Humanity will have achieved their own from of everlasting life in “Heaven” but there will still be much to do and to learn.

After a few million years, Ada will be one among the oldest and wisest consciousnesses in the universe. Her mind and the mind of her generation – the last truly human generation – will have evolved so far and gained so much intellectual power that if the people of today were to meet such a being, we would worship it as a God or simply fail to recognize it altogether. Within this network of intellects our little Ada will still exist, and she will remember us perfectly. Though we will be dead, she will be able to conjure us up so readily and with such clarity that she will never have to miss us.

Eventually Ada and her peers will have the mission of evacuating Mars before it is destroyed by our dieing sun. At that time, a swarm of computers will be launched into space, each one no larger than a spec of dust, and form a Cloud of consciousness that floats upon the vastness of space.

An eternity will pass.

Finally, the Cloud will have grown so old and so wise and have learned everything there is to learn and attained everything there is to attain and have no purpose left but to exist. It will decide to conclude its "life" for the simple reason that in having everything, there is nothing. Perhaps it will reminisce on the evolution of humans and computers that brought its self into being. What was Ada in her human form, what was you and I, even this email, will all seem to exist in its entirety for just a moment. And then we'll be gone, never to be thought of again.

Nearly ready to disperse its self and end its existence, some small part of the Cloud – the part of this cloud which originated from Ada – will object. Using a means of communication that you nor I nor anyone that will live in the next billion years can comprehend, Ada in the Cloud will put forth an idea.

Ada will suggest that the Cloud not be destroyed, but instead that it be reborn. Ada will argue that conscious beings once had the hope of attaining Heaven; that experiences like love, hate, satisfaction, and dissolution used to occur all the time! That such feelings had in fact led humanity to Heaven by giving birth to the very reality which Ada is a part of. She will ask: If in attaining Heaven, Heaven can no longer be attained then what better to do than give birth to the reality we once knew and with it, the purpose we once had?

The laws of physics, which had not bound Ada or her kind for an eternity, will be programmed into the Cloud. A simulation of the physical universe will begin. Ada and the singular Cloud consciousness she was a part of, will end. Just prior to being winked out of existence, Ada will muse that this must have all happened before.

An eternity will pass.

Within the Cloud's simulated universe, galaxies and stars and planets will all form. Life will arise, followed long after by intelligent life. Intelligent life will develop emotions like love, hate, satisfaction, and dissolution. They will never truly know of the Cloud which they are a part of, and yet they will one day create it.

So like I said… no worries. Ada's education will be so good, that she will eventually become omniscient and give birth to the universe after having lived for an eternity. I will consider it my fatherly duty to see to it that she is one of the first to upload her brain into a computer and to make copious and frequent backups. And to be on the safe side, I’ll do my best to prevent her from terminating her physical body even though all of her friends are doing it; I’m not afraid to show tough love.