he became a father

on January 15th 1997. He wanted a boy so badly but never said it out loud.

You see, if he didn't have a boy, the "Frey" name and legacy would die with him. He was King Henry VIII, everything depended on this birth. And I was Anne Boleyn. I might have been beheaded had it not been a boy. Bucks County needed a Frey prince. I had nightmares about the scaffold and lived in fear for my life for 9 months.

Ok, so that's not really true. But the last name thingie is true. There is no male in the Frey family to carry the name into the next generation. His younger brother had a girl and is done procreating, there are no male cousins, uncles, etc.. (ps: see here how we pronounce the name)

And it was a boy, born in the early morning hours, 5 days earlier than expected. McDreamy cried...and cried, (and cried some more).

But the good news to the kingdom wasn't over yet...

We won the lottery that day (like literally..with a winning ticket) the same day the boy, Prince Nicholas Michael Frey, was born. And not just random numbers. Chosen numbers. The new prince's weight came out on the 7:00pm daily lottery drawing, that same day he was born. We all watched in my hospital room in disbelief. The new daddy screamed and ran up and down the hallway of our hospital floor, scaring the bejesus out of new mommies trying to get their newborns to latch on and breastfeed .

The nurses thought we won the jackpot and quickly entered our room, and with the way everyone was acting, so did I. (I was still delirious from the epidural.) In the haze, I thought I saw people jumping up and down and pulling their hair out. I dreamed of a new car, mansion and maids. A castle for the prince. I quickly learned that we weren't retiring with our winnings, it was just the daily number for god sakes. But we were set with diapers and wipes for at least a year or two.

It was all incredible... that cold day in January when he became a daddy for the first time. He got a boy, the new prince Frey of Bucks County, I wasn't beheaded, and he won the lottery. A pretty good day indeed.

Below is the reaction of the Prince when he was told recently that the burden now lies on his shoulders..that he must produce a male heir to carry on the Frey name to reign in his kingdom. All I can think of is his poor wife and her nightmares of the scaffold.