Today Nareg Papazian is born.
No, I won’t display his weight and size because I didn’t see anybody displaying that on his Facebook profile neither (despite their recent series of new features).
Our son is born on September 26th 2011 and is our second big milestone after our memorable wedding of June 26th 2009.
The duties
Congratulations buddy, you made it fully throughout this relaxing 282 days journey and the birth canal. Congratulations to mummy for having carried the next PPZ generation along and of course congratulations to daddy for having given this pure seed, that was really the hard part of the job I had to concentrate a maximum to deliver the best semen ever, be grateful on that girls come on!
The feelings
I think all the parents should know about the feeling we are having right now, it’s like all those months of preparing, daydreaming, and anticipating that have finally paid off in the form of our tiny, treasured miracle. At first, it seems surreal and even shocking to see this mysterious life inside a belly that has now been transformed into a living and breathing bundle. Hard to describe. Just bang bang around and you might know.
When Tamar first announced she was pregnant she invited me in this very romantic place and surprised me, I admit having felt a dry tear on my cheek.
We are pregnant, are we stuck ?
These 9 months pregnancy were great. My wife had a very easy going pregnancy, I’m a really lucky guy I didn’t have to deal with throw ups, constant mood’s ups & downs, lack of activities. We went to Macau for new year eve 2010, that’s where everything happened actually. It was planned, we wanted this to happen. During the whole pregnancy time we did everything pretty much as we would have done otherwise. We had some flights including to Shanghai, Kota Kinabalu, Discovery Bay hehe, boat rides, we went to the beach couple of times, restaurants until even the 40th week, parties (not too late though)… i mean literally everything. On her side she worked until the 7th month. On my side I didn’t change much my working hours, still leaving at 7am from home and returning at 8.30pm but I did decent efforts when i was home. I pissed Tamar off less than usual although I don’t know why but I LOVE to piss my wife off 
i was preparing some dishes, doing little stuff here and there to make her life smoother. I mean nothing that deserves a medal but sometimes a bit of comprehension from the husband toward his pregnant women could strengthen bounds forever.
Choosing the name
No argument on that. We ended up with a name that we both like. Our challenge was to find an Armenian name (don’t ask why), that sounds good both in English, Chinese and French. Technically speaking nothing matches these requirements. Nareg sounds nice in Armenian, easy to pronounce in English, cool in Chinese (纳瑞 Na Rui), and in French it just sounds so so to me. We still have this text file on home’s computer where we wrote down a list of 15 names and put a note and mark below each name. Anyway, Nareg is an Armenian name from the 10th-century Armenian Saint and Poet, Grigor of Nareg.
All the preparations
It goes from purchasing the nail clipper to the crib, to diapers, stroller, car seat, furniture… everything you can imagine has been purchased through the months (and as we don’t have previous experience we definitely have forgotten some). That’s when you feel like a little couple enjoying pregnancy time hating lining up at Ikea for hours. Preparations also include announcement to friends and family, keep everybody update, read a lot, watch all kind of Youtube videos, going to the doctor every other week…indeed many get-ready-to-be-parent things just to remind you that somehow, someone, sometimes, is gonna call you baba/mama.
Hospital/Insurance/Clinic/Deliveries
I guess all those details about which hospital, which clinic, which doctor, which way of delivery… should be simply left to the women with no argument but only support whatever is the choice. As a matter of fact we visited this great hospital in Shenzhen “Home Women and Child”. Great equipment very modern and high-tech hospital (even more than the best one in Hong Kong) but doctors didn’t speak English. Our doctor, Dr Doo, is a very experienced and professional obstetrician, Tamar got a very good treatment all the way. She got about 15 ultrasounds (Ferry round trip from Shenzhen to Hong Kong). She entered into pre-labor at 8pm on the 25th with contractions every 30mn, we went to the hospital at 1am on the 26th with contractions every 5mn. From now she is into real labor. Epidural at 7am by Dr Ooi. Dr Doo broke the water at 7.30am. Several epidural top ups at 11am, 1pm, 2pm. Head of the baby is still high after 3 check ups; decision of C section. Going to the surgery theater, seeing my wife going through this massive but very well orchestrated surgery and finally…finally at 2.30pm, finally here you are my babe ! (oh shit). Mom is safe, thank god everything went well. Recovery and passport/visa procedures for the next week.
Next posts would be pictures, videos and growth of you Nareg. Welcome to earth, there are beautiful things out here.
Last, i’d like to thank all our friends who gave or proposed help during this time, don’t need to mention your names guys, you know who you are, it means every time a lot.
PS: I off course pre-wrote the biggest part of this post.