Love, Love Me Do

Today my  bundle of joy poop poop and crying and breasfeeding is seven weeks old. I’m not sure what is wrong with me because I’m not madly in love with him. He’s sort of a selfish jerk if you ask me.

People ask me, “Oh, when he came out, did your heart just melt? Did you immediately fall in love with him? Did you cry?” And the answers respectively are: No, No, and No. If he and my wife were in the way of a speeding bus and I could only save one of them… right now I’m leaning towards my wife. I might even make the same decision if it were between he and my Xbox 360.

Okay, I might be joking a little bit. Sure, I’m a sarcastic guy. I’ve got a healthy amount of irreverence about most anything. (9-11 jokes anyone? C’mon. 8 years later. It’s time.)  So I don’t know if I’ve somehow broken something in the part of me that is supposed to feel compassion for other living things. Because right now all I think about is dropping this kid off at a safe surrender site.

Joking. (Mostly.)

Actually, safe surrender site humor has been banned in my household. As has me swearing at our kid. Examples of ways in which I am no longer allowed to talk to my own son: Scenario #1; kid just fed on my wife’s teat for over an hour. “What the fuck do you want now? You just ate you stupid shit.”  Scenario #2: kid just fed on my wife’s teat for two hours and it is now 3:30am. “God damn, would you just fucking go to sleep. What the fuck is your problem?”

I try to explain that I wouldn’t do it if he was older and knew what I was saying. But she insists that it’s not a good habit to get into. She’s usually right about these kind of things. I always have to learn things the hard way. I’m like Homer J. Simpson in that respect. So I’ll probably listen to her.  (Ha, that implies I have a choice in the matter. I must listen to her.)

But my point being (yes, somewhere in there I had one)… that I’m just not in love with my baby yet. He started smiling a bit over the past week or so. I’m still not convinced he was squeezing out a good fart at the time. My wife says it was definitely a smile. This is starting to thaw the ice that is chipped around my Grinch-like heart.

Our pediatrician asked, “So, how’s it going?” And we gave him one of those looks that new parents give because you want to unload for an hour, and instead sort of give a half-hearted lie of, “Oh, good.”  He said, “It’s hard, huh?” Well, he should start smiling soon. I think babies smile around this time because if they didn’t, their parents would start sending them back.” SO TRUE. See, I’m not the only one making safe surrender site jokes. I wonder if my wife is going to make our doctor put a dollar in the safe-surrender-site/swearing/threatening-to-kill-our-baby jar.

(Quick tangent: A friend came over the other day, and I said, “You know, I empathize a little with Susan Smith now. I’m not saying what she did was acceptable. But I get her now.”  My joke was returned with looks of horror. Sigh. Note to self: no Susan Smith humor in mixed company. Luckily, my wife has developed the ability to tune out anything I say. She learned to do that back in college. She’s had years of experience.)

You know what bothers me the most about my whole, “I’m not head over heels for this kid” issue? It’s that deep down I know it reflects more on me. I’m the selfish jerk; not my kid. I mean, here I am saying, “This kid doesn’t do anything for me… ” See, there are those words: for me. The couple of times he’s smiled it’s been like a reward for me. But, does that mean I’m only starting to warm up to this kid because I’m getting feedback from him? Some sort of validation? That’s a little self-centered; only to the point where I’m getting something in this relationship do I find myself interested in the relationship. That’s kind of messed up. Yikes.

Lessons Learned since birth

Well, not my birth. Since Quinn’s birth…

I don’t remember where I heard this, but recently I’ve been fond of quoting the phrase, “I was a great parent until I became a parent.”

My wife and I went into this with intentions of using cloth diapers, not using a pacifier, etc. Well, we held out for a week on the cloth diapers, and a whopping three weeks on the pacifier.

On the cloth diaper front, we found that for our son who was under 8 pounds, we couldn’t get a solid fit. Plus, until he starts taking solid food, his poo is basically runny. And the cloth diapers — perhaps because of the way we were folding them or perhaps because of his size — were not doing a great job of keeping the liquid in. But we’re not ruling out cloth diapers. We still like the idea. So we’re planning to try again with diapers once he’s on solid food and a little bit bigger. Maybe after 6 months. (Plus, I swear… the diaper was SOOO huge when folded, we couldn’t get any onesies on him.)

As far as the binky — the American Academy of Pediatrics (or some such title) recommends not introducing a pacifier until 4 weeks. We made it to 3. So that’s not so bad. But, we were concerned about nipple confusion for breast feeding, and also having him become “addicted” to having a pacifier in his mouth for soothing himself to sleep. (We’d prefer to have him learn to sooth himself, which seems healthier.) But… at 4am when you just want the little stinker to shut up and go to sleep… the pacifier calls out to you. “Uuuuuuuse me! I can heeeeelp.”  I feel like an alcohol trying to resist the tempting allure of “just one beer.”

So yeah, at 4am I found myself shoving a pacifier in his mouth. God. It was sweet. He quieted right up, calmed down, and I was able to get some extra shut eye. I feel selfish, because I realize this isn’t done for his benefit, but rather my benefit. Which is kind of selfish of me. Like I said, I was a great parent until I became one.

Going into this, people would say to us, “Having a kid is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” And it comes off as cliche, so I’m prone to ignoring advice like that. I would think, “C’mon. The hardest thing? I’ve road my bike from Seattle to Portland three times. That’s 200 miles. That’s pretty damn hard.” And I was also of the mindset that if this has been done billions of times before us, then we should be able glean a lot from the collective experience of all those births, and stand on the shoulders of giants so-to-speak. In theory, we should be able to be completely prepared. After all, we took all the classes. We bought everything we were supposed to buy. I spent countless hours investigating only the safest and best products that we truly needed. I didn’t buy anything unless I spent a good 30 minutes investigating it and reviewing and comparing it online.

Well, I’m here to echo the cliche, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Not physically taxing; I’m not incredibly tired. It’s not mentally taxing; I feel alert enough. It’s just… fucking hard. Really fucking hard. I’m trying to put my finger on it… I think it’s hard because it’s the most selfless I’ve ever had to be. I can’t sleep when I want. I can’t just hop in the car and go to the store when I want. Everything I do has to be done in service of another being, and all of my wishes take a back seat to the needs of this little guy. I mean, I’m doing it. It’s not like I’m neglecting him. I think what’s hard about it is the fact that it’s hard to go from living a selfish lifestyle, cold turkey, to having to be completely selfless. I feel like my life has gone from the main plot of the sitcom, to the secondary story (usually some subplot about Karla or Coach or Cliff, used as filler in between the main plot between Sam and Diane.

Anyway, you don’t realize how hard it is until you have to coordinate your pooping schedule with your wife. A busy day for us is if we manage to all three go to the grocery store. That takes about 5 hours of preparation. (Got to feed him at this time, then get his nap, then feed when he wakes up, but change his diaper before he finishes feeding so he doesn’t wake up… etc.)

As materially prepared as we were… I wasn’t prepared for just the complete shift in my mental processing of “what a typical day is.”  It’s not “What would I like to do today?” Rather, it’s “What can I squeeze in when my kid is asleep?”  My concept of a schedule has gone out the window. We do things whenever we can. Not at a certain time. Clocks have no meaning it seems. Before, the day ended when we went to bed, and the next day began when we woke up. Now, days blur into nights as we’re up every couple of hours changing diapers, feeding, and soothing. These past 5 weeks haven’t felt like 35 individual days… just one reeeeeally long stream of diapers, feedings, sun going up, darkness, daylight… one really long day.

Joining the elite ranks of the Parent Club

We live on a block with lots of kids. And the parents on this block were always having block parties. But we were never invited. However, ever since having our son we’ve been invited to two different potlucks. It’s like we finally gained access into their secret club where the only way to break into their ranks was to spit out a kid. All we need now are a couple of members only jackets and a secret handshake like the water Buffalo Lodge.

And if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to get in good with kids. So for the potluck, I decided to make the most kid friendly dish possible. That’s right: homemade macaroni and cheese. As I see it, you get in good with the kids, and that opens doors to getting in good with the parents. And that means, more invites to future block parties.

By the way, it was a crock pot macaroni and cheese recipe from Paula Deen. And it kicked ass. I even had parents coming up to me asking for the recipe. So easy to make. Just throw a bunch of crap into a crockpot and a few hours lator… voila! Instant popularity.

Count it. And one.

Do I really want to go to their block parties? No, not really. I just want to be invited to their block parties. Strike that. One of the neighbors really knows how to grill up meat. Plus, he has direct TV and he has the NFL Sunday ticket package. So I really really want to get in good with that neighbor.

The Labor, Part II

My son was born face up. And if you were an OB doctor, you would probably guess that my wife had a cesarean section, because most babies who are face up can’t make it through the vaginal canal. And you would be wrong. She did it the old-fashioned way. As soon as my son shot out of my wife’s vagina, everyone saw that he was face up, and the nurse turned to the doctor and exclaimed “see I told you he was face up!” Which explained the difficulty my wife was having getting him out. And why you might ask, did my son come shooting out so fast after taking so long to get to that point? That’s because he made himself a nice second degree tear in my wife’s perineum. And folks, let me tell you… that’s one hell of a strong girl who can push a baby out through her skin. I even overheard nurses in the hallway commenting how impressive it was that the baby was face up and yet my wife managed to push him out through her canal.

Unfortunately, coming out face up was not without its consequences. My baby boy had some fluid in his lungs and he wasn’t taking deep breaths like he should have been. So instead of immediately getting to do the kangaroo care my wife and I planned to do, my son spent the first five minutes of his life on a counter with tubes shoved down his throat. Oddly, they let my wife hold her baby for what seemed to be a photo op. She held him, they took a photo, but to that then whisked him away to the NICU. And I followed.

And for the first three days of his life, my son lived in the NICU. Hooked up to machines. And I stayed in the nursery with my son, in a rocking chair. I watched other babies come and go, who were free to return to their mothers after their requisite time in the nursery. But my son’s respiratory rate was higher than it should have been, so they admitted him to the NICU which means he couldn’t leave that room. And because my wife had an epidural, she was not allowed to leave her room for the first few hours.

And this was hard for us, because the most important thing to us going into this delivery was the ability to immediately do skin to skin contact after our baby was born. And we couldn’t do that. And the second highest priority on our list was that we did not want to use any formula to feed our baby. But having him in the nursery meant that my wife wasn’t free to feed him whenever she wanted, or more importantly, whenever he wanted. You see, I learned a lot about how hospitals work. The feeding schedules they use in the nursery, are not about what the baby needs. Rather it’s about a set schedule based around the nurses shift changes. And because of this, the nurses tried, and ultimately succeeded without our knowing it, on several occasions to give formula to our baby. My wife and I had to fight very hard in order to get the nurses to call my wife up whenever it was time to come feed the baby.

Because of my son’s high respiratory rate, the pediatrician on-call decided to do an x-ray. Now I worked at hospitals, and have worked in radiology departments. So I know how things work. The pediatrician orders an x-ray; radiology department comes up and takes the x-ray; and the radiologist downstairs reads the x-ray. Well, reading an x-ray of a newborn, who is only hours old, is vastly different than reading a normal x-ray. And here’s where we became victim of hospital politics: the radiologist who had the x-ray gave a very waffling report. And to be honest, that’s what radiologists who are not very good often do. They give these reports that are sort of all over the place, in order to save their butts, without being very exact about anything. The problem is, the pediatrician on-call has to assume that radiologist knows what he is talking about. In our case, the radiologist said it could be something bad, so the pediatrician had to assume the worse and admit our son for another day at the hospital.

This meant that after my wife’s two days of insurance ran out, she was sent home without her baby. And that’s probably the most angry I have ever been in defense of my life. I went downstairs that night and got a copy of my son’s films. I woke up at 6 AM the next morning and drove an hour south and dropped the films off at the office of a radiologist I used to work with. She called me up that morning, and confirmed what I believed… that the report issued by the radiologist the prior day at was bogus. And the films looked just fine.

But this was all for just peace of mind. Because unfortunately, my radiologist friend had no sway at the hospital where we were delivering. The next morning we returned to the hospital and when the pediatrician on-call came I explained everything to her. She had another radiologist at the hospital read the films again, and thankfully that radiologist knew what he was doing and gave our son a clean bill of health. In hindsight, it was frustrating that we could not bring our son home with us due to a nonspecific report issued by the poor radiologist. However, because my wife and I both worked at hospitals, we understood the politics and even though we thought it was unfair we knew that we had no choice. We certainly didn’t blame the pediatrician, whose hands were tied by the waffling report that was issued by the radiologist. One thing that did cheese me off pretty good though is that the radiologist who issued the lousy report refused to talk to my wife or me. What a Dick. To quote the father from the movie Juno, “if I see that radiologist, I’m going to punch him in the wiener.”

The Labor, Part I

Sunday marks week five of Quinn’s birth. And it’s taken me that long to crawl out from the rock that I was underneath. And to be honest I’m not sure were out from under that rock, but I gotta get back to my blog. Every day for the last five weeks I thought of something I wanted to put in a blog, but the lack of sleep, energy, will, motivation and free time have prevented me from doing so. Until now…

So it all started on Sunday, June 7. My wife woke up at about 4 AM complaining of some cramping; unbeknownst to us, it turns out that it was actually her contractions beginning. Now, everything we read in the book said that contractions would start pretty infrequently and last about 30 seconds each and come oh every 15 or 20 minutes. And this is where a common theme is about to begin: everything in the book is a lie. Come to think of it, I should probably start looking for those receipts for those books, because I’m pretty sure that the pages involving “My labor” were missing. Or better yet, perhaps I have a lawsuit on my hands. I think all I need would be a jury full of sympathetic mothers and my lawsuit of “Schell v. What to expect when you’re expecting” would easily be a $10 million payout.

Back to 4 AM: so my wife wakes up, and she’s complaining of some cramping. She says it feels like menstrual cramps except the cramps seem to be one on top of another. So I pull out my handy dandy timer application that I’ve already downloaded to my Blackberry and I start timing those suckers. Well I don’t know what happened in those cramps in the first wave that were supposed to come every 15 to 20 minutes because these were coming every 2 to 3 minutes and they were lasting 45 seconds to a minute each. And the thing is, my wife and I didn’t want to be one of those couples who rushes to the hospital way too soon only to be in early labor or false labor. But she didn’t have any of the classical signs of being in labor, I mean her water never broke. But by 5:30 AM these cramps were getting pretty painful and it was obvious to us that they were contractions.

And painful may be a bit of an understatement. Because my wife is pretty strong, but I’ve never seen her cry in pain until the morning of June 7. And here’s another thing I’d like to get a refund for: those stupid Lamaze classes. My wife and I went into this labor expecting to have a natural childbirth. We took the breathing classes. We knew the techniques. But I didn’t even get a chance to begin practicing my techniques, or practicing breathing, because her labor went from 0 to 10 in less than an hour. Within 90 minutes of waking up, my wife was on her knees crying, telling me that she couldn’t do this. I was all set and had my bag ready, I fully expected her to be in labor at the hospital, and be practicing my techniques there. When I pictured this labor in my head, I pictured us at the hospital doing our hee hee hoo. But instead, her pain jumped to a 10 before I could even get out of bed.

We left for the hospital by 6:30 AM and let’s be honest who doesn’t love the opportunity to drive 90 miles an hour. That’s one of the things I was actually looking forward to in this labor: getting pulled over by a cop going as fast as I can, and having an excuse to drive and seen how he would respond. We arrived at the hospital at 6:45 AM, and after some waddling into the delivery floor, my wife was checked into her room by 7 AM. After getting in her bed, the first thing out of her mouth was “I want an epidural.” But they needed her to be hydrated first, so she had to wait an hour. Perhaps the most excruciatingly long hour I’ve ever waited. Longer even then hour-long wait to the Ninja roller coaster at Magic Mountain.

Now to give you an idea of how quickly things were progressing for my wife, they measured her cervix at 7 AM and she was only 3 cm dilated. They measured her again at 9 AM, and she was 8 cm dilated. I’m not a doctor, and I’ve never had a kid before, but I’m pretty sure that damn fast. Now here’s where the story gets boring, because between 9 AM and 2 PM, nothing really happened. My wife slept, while I sat in the chair and read a book. I remember at one point, looking up and thinking how surreal all of this was. I mean, here was my wife next to me in labor. We’re in the hospital room. But other than that, it was a very normal Sunday. We didn’t have any friends or family coming in to visit us, so I guess it just didn’t feel like a very special event. After all, here was my wife snoring away while the beeping machine was showing her contractions going up and down.

Before I go much further, and get to the good stuff for the actual delivery, I want to take a minute to talk about one other big misconception I had. A good month or two prior to going to the hospital, my wife and I packed our delivery bag. It had everything we were told we would need in the hospital. And we typed up ourselves a little “labor and delivery plan.” And did we use any of that stuff in the labor and delivery bag? Hell no. Everything we packed sat there in that bag. And did we use our labor and delivery plan we wrote? Hell no. That was the first thing to go out the window. Followed a close second by my wife’s modesty.

The thing was, we just simply didn’t have any time to use any of that stuff. I got the hospital, an hour later my wife was drugged up, she slept, and before I knew it was two in the afternoon and they were waking my wife up telling her it was time to start pushing.

And here’s yet another thing I was like to about: I thought the pushing was a lot of screaming and cursing and swearing at the husband. I guess I learned everything I know about labor from sitcoms. Well in reality, or at least in my wife’s and my reality, the pushing wasn’t all that painful. She would push for about 10 seconds during the height of the contraction, and then take a couple minutes off. Kind of like a commercial break. In fact, in between the pushing sessions, she was smiling and we were making jokes. This was likely largely in part to the epidural that was preventing her from feeling anything below her waist. She turned to me and asked, “do you think they gave me too much epidural, because I can’t feel the pushing.” Now I can’t say I’ve ever experienced this firsthand, nor will I ever experienced this firsthand (after all I am a guy), but from what she told me I gather trying to push when you’re numb from epidural is sort of like having your mouth injected with Novocain at the dentists, then trying to whistle Zip–a–dee–do–dah.

Fast forward about two hours, and the baby’s crowning but it’s just not coming out. The doctor tells my wife and she may have to use the suction cup to help get the baby out. I think this was all the motivation my wife needed because within about five minutes after that, she pushed that baby out. At exactly 4:27 in the afternoon, our new bundle of joy shot straight out like a missile into the waiting arms of the doctor. In fact, the baby shot out so quickly I couldn’t even see what sex it was. Finally, the doctor held the baby up and said, “Congratulations! It’s a boy!”

And this is just where this story begins. In hindsight, that was the easy part of being at the hospital. I have much more to tell you about what happened immediately after the baby came out. And that my friends, is what we in the biz call “a cliffhanger.”