Dear Diary. They started the induction at 10:40 pm last night. I tried to sleep in an incline chair but I couldn't because it's too hard, it turns into a bed, the bed is lower than the rest of the bed so my feet were floating five centimetres in the air so I had to keep them tucked up in my chest. Then Girlfriend let me use the bed which was a proper hospital bed. I managed to sleep two and a half hours. I thought, I'm the only man here sleeping in his wife's hospital bed.

At 3 am, Girlfriend started having contractions. She was in a great deal of pain. We used the exercise ball, a hot water bottle, and a shower. The shower helped. Girlfriend was spraying hot water on her and her back. The problem was both her belly and her back hurt at the same time. So while she was spraying her belly, I had to massage her back. We needed two shower heads. I looked out the window and it was dark. I saw a silverfish running along the floor in the shower room and there were cracks on the tiles and there were cracks in the plasterboard in the ceiling. Girlfriend says this is one of the best hospitals in Girona. I'd be interested to see what the worst hospitals ones are like.

At 6 am I was standing at the window waiting for the sunrise. The hospital was almost empty.

11:15 am

We went to a birthing room. There were all these doctors and midwives around Girlfriend. I counted how many medical staff that were there, they were at least 6. There were 3 wearing green gowns, I think these were the doctors. There were 3 wearing white gowns, I think these were the midwives. Sometimes a doctor would poke his head into the door or someone would come and watch for a few moments and then walk out. There was a machine strapped to Girlfriend to make the contractions stronger. A midwife was telling Girlfriend to push, to push. She pushed but every time she stopped pushing, the baby's his head went back up her vagina. So the midwife turned to me and says, "We are sorry, we've tried everything we can and we gonna have to do a caesarean." And I was like, "Great, fine". Caesareans are safer anyway.

So now I'm alone in a room waiting for the baby to come down. It's the same room in which we spent last night. It seems bigger now because the bed is gone. Now it's a big empty space with a chair for me to sit in.

I put testosterone gel into my arms and chest this morning as usual but then I washed it off because I remembered I'm going to do skin-to-skin contact with the baby. If I don't wash it off then there's a chance that the testosterone will go from my skin to his and he could go for a high testosterone for a day or two. I don't know what that will look like in a baby. Probably not ideal. Maybe he'd grow a moushache.

11:50 am

I'm still waiting. I heard a woman screaming in pain from somewhere in the ward. A few minutes later I could hear the cries of her baby. The woman's screams had stopped so I guess she gave birth.

10 pm

I like this baby, this kid. When the midwife wheeled him over in a box and I saw him for the first time, my first thoughts were that he was smaller than I expected and he looks white, he has my skin colour. The midwife handed him to me and I got to hold him. He was kind of looking at me as I talked to him. He looked at me angrily as if to say, "I don't know who you are, but if you don't look after me, then I'll make your life a misery." And I thought, this kid has some potential.

Then the midwife pulled out a big needle and said, "I'm sorry I have to inject your son with this needle." She put the needle into his leg and he didn't even cry.

A nurse took me to a new room. Girlfriend came later, some nurses wheeled her in on a hospital bed. Then we spent a day together. Just me, Girlfriend and the baby. There was one point when it was late afternoon, I was holding the baby. Girlfriend was asleep and the baby was looking at me. It was all so perfect that I cried a little bit. A tear rolled down my cheek. As I looked down at the baby, I heard the song "Halo" by Beyoncé in my head:

You're everything I need and more

It's written all over your face

Baby I can see your halo

You're my saving grace.

I didn't want to cry too much though because there was another mother in the room and I'm sure she would have found it amusing to see a dad crying. So I forced myself to stop.

Here’s to the new baby, who will henceforth be known as 0-year-old. Welcome to the world, little one.