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.”

It’s too late to turn back now…

Although reading this article didn’t help…

CNN: Moms spill truth about motherhood

Even MORE to worry about

My wife and have taken (or are signed up to take) a battery of pre-baby classes: Breast Feeding, Baby Prep, Lamaze. And with each class we get a litany of new “do’s and dont’s.” Which, at the time when you’re sitting in class makes sense, but when you get home, you realize you forget — “Oh my god, how many times a day are we supposed to swab the umbilical cord? Did she say to use alcohol or soap and water? What did she say about giving sponge baths? Was it 2-3 a week? For how long again? How much tummy time are we supposed to squeeze in each day?”

It’s crazy. With all these things we are supposed to remember to do, it’s remarkable any baby has ever lived past the 15 day mark when their belly-button chip clip thing falls off. I mean, look. Here’s the thing: we are the end-product of tens of thousands of years of breeding. We are the survivors in a long line of homo sapiens. The majority probably didn’t make it. But we, we are the select few who were strongest. I don’t know how cavemen cut off their umbilical cords, but I guarantee they didn’t have Q-Tip swabs prepped with betadine.

So I woke up this morning with a dizzying array of tasks in my head: if we have a boy, must sponge bath baby in this manner; if girl, then do it in this manner; sponge bath so many times per week; clean the belly button X # of times per day; breast feed this often; get this much belly time; sit the baby up this way; when bathing, hold your hand here; when breast feeding, tilt the baby like so; here’s how you wrap a baby in swaddling; don’t use this kind of powder; try vegetable oil for dry skin; don’t put soap on the baby’s face; clean the bottle like this not like that; fold your diapers this way…  ARGH!

On one hand, I’m glad to be taking courses and starting to think about all of this. On the other hand– screw it! I’m starting to feel crushed in the weight of things I’m supposed to remember to do. Just have the baby and let the chips fall where they may. The name of the course we took last night was “Baby Prep class.” Honestly, it made me feel less prepared than I was before I took the class. Oh sweet lord baby jesus — there is so much to be done. So much to buy. So much to prepare still. Heck, I was starting to feel queezy after the first 15 minutes of the “prepping your home for baby” segment of class. (Note to self: Must go to Home Depot and after a short breakdown, must pull self together and start babyfying any corner of my home that is more than a 65° angle, and wrap everything in foam and latch every handle.)

Okay, I’m glad I got that out. There. I feel better. Now, just tell me how often to apply vaseline to my baby’s bottom and I’ll do it. (FYI- every second or third diaper changing.)

Day 101

On Sunday, we began our journey of creating a baby registry. We woke up nice and early (well, that’s a relative term, innit?). With our Consumer Reports Newborn Necessities Checklist in arm, and spirits high, we strode into the local Babies R’ Us and started a new registry. A grueling 3 hours later, we trudged out, groggy, confused, and slightly bitter.

So what happened in that 3 hours that drained our will to register? Well for a normal couple… the event of registering you think would be enjoyable. A breeze. A lark, if you will.  But when I was faced with no-less-than eight varieties of bra inserts… how are we to know which one is the right choice? Or when staring at a phalanx of baby strollers… with a dizzying array of colors and features… I can’t trust my own judgement based on looks. I want, nay… require some type of independent, objective review of these items before I can grant them status on my exalted baby registry.

With that said, I fully realize that we were prisoners of our own device. Certainly had we been more care free, perhaps even trusting of each brand, we would have lifted a huge weight of our shoulders. But because of our need to investigate and research each product… the in-store registry experience was neither enjoyable nor efficient. As we would come to each item on our list, we would look at the many choices presented to us, turn to each other and agree, “Let’s research it when we get home.”  So we opted to delay about… oh… 85% of our list until we could get home and research opinions/reviews on-line. (More on that monkey’s paw in a second…)

In the end, we opted to populate our in-store registry only with those items that didn’t need much research (burping cloths don’t require much investigation), or items that needed to be witnessed firsthand (such as crib bedding “sets”).

Quick tangent: I didn’t even realize crib bedding “sets” existed, but they must because Babies R’ Us devotes an entire wall to ‘em, including blankets, sheets, crib ruffles. In fact, I remember looking at one item and asking, “What does this do?” It seemed to be just a color-coordinated block. She said, “That’s decoration for your wall.”  So apparently your baby not only requires a coordinated set (otherwise it makes the baby cry if the crib doesn’t have a matching dust ruffle?), but also coordinated artwork on the walls. Crazy. But, I digress.

While in-store, we also added many of the “necessity” items suggested in our Consumer Reports checklist. Warning: these are perhaps the most boring items ever devised on a baby registry… read with extreme caution and judiciousness. Items like: Infant Tylenol; Infant Nail Clippers; Petroleum Jelly. (The latter I don’t know why, but it was on the checklist, so we added it. Really though — is someone going to get us a jar of petroleum jelly as a baby shower gift? Hmmm.)

And the second cause of my registry ire that day… So here we are being our usual (overly) practical selves, while at the same time we were surrounded by throngs of other registry-creators who were going crazy with their scanning devices like it was a game of laser tag. “Ooh! Scan this.”  “Oh, scan that.”  “What’s it do?” “I don’t know. Scan it anyway.” Beep. Beep. Beep. It was an orgy of bar code scanners all around us, like crickets around a campfire. And there’s us, slowly and methodically looking at each product, debating which cotton swabs were better to add to our registry. “This one doesn’t explicitly say infant, but on the back they use the word baby in this paragraph…”

But the thing is, I can’t blame the other families. I can sit high atop my Caucasian soap box of indignity (white people love being offended by things)… but in reality, it’s all my own doing. The longer we were in the store, and the more I saw other families come and go, I was getting perturbed with myself, more than anyone else. My wife and I debated scanning “frivolous” items — “What will people think when they see a $90 forehead thermometer on our checklist. Will they think we’re being egregious? Better not scan it.” “Here, scan this $3 dollar baby medicine spoon-vial thing.” I made the whole registry process like 10x harder on myself than it needed to be.

Did we scan the baby wipe warmer? No. Did we scan the bottle warmer? No. Should we have? Hmm. Perhaps. (And we probably will in “Phase II of the registry process: Adding Stupid Shit We Don’t Really Need.”) As it turns out, what we had in hand was a true necessities checklist, as in, “This is what you need to have at home when you walk in the door with the baby.”  Whereas I guess a registry needs to have “sexier,” “giftier” items, like wipe warmers, and not practical items like, “Baby rash ointment.”

So that was our Sunday morning (and afternoon). I left frustrated. Frustrated that I spent 3 hours on just a few items. Frustrated that I am so anal that I turn a simple task like a baby registry into a 12 hour undertaking. And I freely admit this was my own doing. But most of all, frustrated that I missed most of the NFL division playoff game that morning. Look. I’m a lousy shopper. My limit is usually about an hour. So towards the end as I got more frustrated, I became snippier and had to apologize to my wife a couple times. I’m cranky and whiny when shopping goes on too long, and I credit my wife for putting up with me.

But we got home, watched some afternoon NFL football. Re-charged our batteries, and then sat down with the laptop, ConsumerReports.org, ratings and went to town on the rest of our Registry. Now this, I thought, this is how I love to shop. In private, which the sum knowledge of mankind at my fingertips. By the time I’m done, they will have built Rome in less time than it takes me to complete my Baby Registry.

Day 51:

“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.”

Did you know that, on average, lions sleep 16-20 hours a day? As it turns out, so do pregnant women. That’s scientific fact, and you can’t argue with facts. Or pregnant women. Hey-oh!

Seriously though. My wife has always enjoyed sleeping in. I’m much more of a morning person. Sleeping in for me is 8am. Sleeping in for my wife– 11am or noon. Or 3pm.

Okay, that was a bit of hyperbole. Actually, my wife hasn’t been sleeping longer since she’s been pregnant… she’s been in bed longer, but sleeping less. The poor thing is having a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. Me? I’m out 3.5 seconds after my head hits the pillow. But lately, she is having a hard time getting to sleep. And then, like clockwork — and this no hyperbole, she gets up every single night at some time between 3 and 4am and goes to the bathroom.

The last week we’ve gone to bed between 9pm and 9:45pm every single night. That’s pretty early for us. We used to be 10:30-11:30 goinger-to-beds. The change is fine by me, I’m getting lots of sleep. (But now I wake up at 6am or 7am. I’ve learned that my body is quite content after about 8 hours of sleep. Literally, at the 8 hour mark, I’m awake. I’m up. I can physically no longer stay in bed.)

But even though my wife is going to bed early, she’s getting less sleep. But man, can she nap. During weekdays she can’t nap, ‘cuz she’s at work. (So instead she just listlessly pushes paper around her desk to appear busy.) But on weekends… mmm mmm mmm… girlfriend… She can nap like nobody’s business. Last Sunday I think she got up around 10am, I think she was back down at 11am, slept through most of the morning NFL games, was up for lunch, and back down around 2pm.

No complaints here though. That gives me more time to veg and watch football and play Halo.

Day 43: Spidey Senses

I think I mentioned in a recent post about what a picky eater my wife has become. Well, she was a picky eater to begin with. Now she’s even more insufferable in her pickiness. (That’s a joke. She’s never insufferable.)

Along with that, I also noticed that she’s become super sensitive to smells. We were on a walk the other night, and she stopped and said, “Oh wow! You smell that?”  At first I didn’t. But if I really concentrated, I could smell some kind of citrus smell. Turns out we were walking by someone’s yard with an orange tree.

And then on the next block someone had spread some fertilizer. She had to walk by that entire block with her nose plugged. Normally she dislikes that smell, but now with her heightened Spidey Senses Tingling, she was on the verge of getting sick. And finally, a couple blocks later, she swore that she could smell elbow macaroni. (I wasn’t aware that particular variety of macaroni emitted a different scent than your garden variety flavor of “straight” macaroni… but apparently her Pregnant Senses could detect the shape of the macaroni too.) To be fair, I could smell pasta of some sort. But I would never be so hubristic to claim I could discern the variety of pasta.

And she’s found even more smells at home that she no longer can stomach. To wit: we’ve gone through like 3 different varieties of soaps in our bathroom. We normally get the foamy soap at Bath & Body Works, and now every type we have makes her sick. Same with the body wash in the shower. All of our usual ones make her nauseous. Now we have a shower full of like 8 different tubes of body wash. And there’s only so much wash a guy can use. Peanut will likely be in college by the time I can finish those other bottles by myself.

Day 41: Old Mother Hubbard

The next day. (Wink wink.*)

* Oh. I should point out that joke will only make sense if you read “yesterday’s” post.**

** Same with the “yesterday” joke in quotes.

My wife still has day-long morning sickness. And every person I speak with has a different solution to cure morning sickness. “Drink Squirt!” “Eat ginger.” “Poop on your face.”  (I made up that last one. The IPA is kicking in.)

The problem is my wife loathes the taste of ginger. We have a cupboard full of ginger-hybrid food. Ginger snap cookies, ginger crispy wafer things, dried ginger, ginger soda. Basically, she’ll drink Canada Dry Ginger Ale, but that’s about it. (Which, between you and me, I’m not really sure actually has ginger as an ingredient.)

FYI, if you know anybody whho works for the Canada Dry company, don’t tell them I said that. The last thing I want is to have the nation of Canada Dry mad at me.*

*That was a crap joke.

Not only do I have a cupboard of ginger products… I have a cupboard stocked fuller than I ever have before. Why you ask? I thought you might. My wife has always been a picky eater. One of the pickiest people I know. Well, now she’s in this phase where everytime we’re at the grocery store, she finds some new product that sounds delectable to her. Well, we get home, she has one bite… and she says, “I don’t like that.”

So now I’m faced with a cupboard of barely touched cookies, crackers, chips… and if I don’t eat them, nobody will. What am I supposed to do against such incredible odds? It’s either throw out a butt load of food* (butt load = 1 cubic quart), or finish it myself. Trips to Trader Joes have transformed into fun visits of exotic food we rarely try, to a daunting mountain of food I’m going to have to eat by myself.

And she’s starting to become hyper sensitive to smells. She’s like… Spiderman. Wait. Was Spiderman sensitive to smells? Or did he just have “spidy tinglings?” Was there a superhero with above average sense of smell? Hmm. I can’t think of one of the top of my head. Well, if there was one, that’d be her right now.

I had to drive her to work this morning (because our other car was in the shop — yeah, that’s right, we have two cars, I’m totally bragging)… and we come to a red light, and she says, “Someone is smoking.”  I didn’t smell it myself. I looked around, and the lady to the lane next to us, and one car back, was indeed smoking. Wow. That’s pretty impressive. But, then again, she could just be saying that at every red light, and she finally got right. Who knows.

Day 38: This post has nothing to do with Peanut

Preface: This post is written with the aid of two Margaritas.

I’m sitting in my La Quinta Inn room, just flew in. And my first stop was at my favorite Mexican restaurant in Tucson. To be honest, this place is so good– it might be one of my favorite Mexican restaurants ever. See, I’m a big chip-and-salsaholic. Ask my wife, I could eat Mexican food 7 days a week. I love places that give you food before you eat food.

This place also has one of the best house margaritas I’ve had in recent memory. I usually just get one drink, but this was so good, I had to get a second.

I’m eating alone because this is a business trip, so my wife is at home. Which means it’s a chance for me to sneak all the alcohol I can. I’ve tried to be somewhat reserved when going to dinner with her. Since she can’t drink, I’ve tried my best… well, not my best… I’ve given a mediocre-try to limiting my alcohol intake when dining with my wife.

Okay, here’s the thing: I’d love to be able to tell you that I’m such a fine, upright husband that I’ve sworn off all forms of alcohol in front of my wife. But, I’m not that good. Let’s just say I haven’t had more than one… er, two… well… I haven’t gotten completely drunk in front of my wife, as a sign of respect.

The restaurant I ate at was El Charro Cafe. For me, a good Mexican restaurant begins with good chips and salsa. And their salsa is frickin awesome. The beans are delicious, the rice is good, literally– everything about this place is delicious. It’s bad when I plan my trip around visiting a Mexican restaurant, instead of caring about getting a hotel room near my customer. (By the way, I can see the restaurant from my window.)

I realize this isn’t really baby related, but since your’e my captive audience, I’m going to use this opportunity to explain a dirty secret of the Mexican restaurant industry: The second basket of chips is always better than the first. I don’t know why they do that. And I don’t know if it’s some sort of collusion in the Mexican Restaurant industry — because all restaurants seem to do it. But I’m telling you, the second basket is always fresher and warmer than the first. (And thus holds salt better.)

Oh, by the way, I need to go to the gym. Ever since going back to standard time, it’s been dark when my wife gets home, and we haven’t gone on our usual walk. If I don’t get myself to a gym, I’m going to challenge her for “who can put on more weight during this pregnancy.”

It’s hard for a guy — well, for a guy shaped like me — because when I put on weight, it goes straight to my belly and chest, above my waist. So my pants never get tighter. So it’s very deceptive. I think to myself, “Wow… these pants are super loose! I’m as thin as ever.” But what you don’t realize is that you’re just growing a muffin top above your pant line.

My hope is that by admitting my shame to you, it will spurn me into action. But, let’s be honest: probably not. My weight gain is going to be like the financial bailout — I won’t be able to stop the disaster, all I can do is hope to contain it .

Day 22: Craving Food, Avoiding Smells

Days pregnant: 57 U.S., 43 Europe

I need to dabble online and find out when pregnant women “cravings” kick-in. For example, my wife has always loved Spaghetti O’s. But the other day at the store she said, “Oooh… that sounds so good!” So, is this just an excuse to eat Spaghetti O’s, or was there something in her brain that made her crave Spaghetti O’s so she could up her intake of some vitamin or mineral that you can only get in a can of Spaghetti O’s.

(And, for the record, that’s the most number of times I’ve typed Spaghetti O’s in a single paragraph.)

The other night we went out to dinner, and she was insistent on finding somewhere with a good salad. Hopefully that was her body crying out for dark, leafy greens to get more iron. And she’s come home several times with snacks and goodies. Our cupboards have more food in them now than usual. I don’t know if I should chalk this up to cravings yet, or if it’s just her giving in to her sweet tooth.

This is a touchy subject indeed. Because I used to kid, years ago, “There’s no such things as cravings. Pregnant women just use that as an excuse so they can eat what they want.” And part of that was said in jest, because deep down I know cravings exist. But I think there’s also sometimes when cravings are used an excuse to eat a big ol’ greasy cheeseburger. Not that my wife is doing that… but I’m not wholly convinced it won’t/hasn’t happened. (He said dancing around the subject ever-so-lightly.)

She’s also become very sensitive to smells. I love hot dogs. (Especially the Hebrew National Fat Free Beef franks. Soooo good.) Well, I have officially been banned from cooking/microwaving hot dogs around my wife. She says the smell makes her ill. Simiarly, she came home yesterday and I had been cleaning the kitchen, and was using some mold remover inside the fridge, and the smell wasn’t that noticeable to me, and she said, “OH MY GOD! What’s that horrible smell?”

My wife has always been one of the most sensitive and emotional people I know. (And I don’t mean that with a pejorative connotation; I mean literally, she has great hearing, great taste buds, and she can cry at the drop of a hat when watching a movie.) So the fact that she is becoming hyper-sensitive to smells and cravings doesn’t surprise me. But I was hoping this wouldn’t come along for several more months.

However, her cravings haven’t been anything out of the norm yet. Just things she already liked. Which makes me dubious if this officially qualifies as a “craving” or if it’s just her wanting some of her favorites.

Day 16: The Midnight Express

Days pregnant: 51 U.S., 37 Europe

Nothing much to report today. The morning sickness is still in full effect. The newest delight in her pregnancy extravaganza is that she now gets up at about 3 or 4am every morning to go to the bathroom. And it’s not like she’s drinking water excessively at night. I don’t know what it is. And she’s far from the point where her bladder is being squeezed. (As babycenter.com reminds me, our baby is only the size of a kidney bean. PS- All of babycenter.com’s analogs are food. It’s kind of eerie. “Today, your baby is the size of a delicious nectarine. Mmm, soft and juicy.”)

But she is taking more vitamins, I guess that could be it. But, for whatever reason, consistently every night for the past week, she wakes up to go to the bathroom. And I’m not using hyperbole to elicit a desired emotional response from you: literally, every night. Que lastima, pobrita.

Day 15: Morning Sickness

Days pregnant: 50 U.S., 36 Europe

Well morning all-day sickness kicked in at the end of week 6. My poor wife. It hasn’t just been morning sickness. It started as mostly evening sickness. But now she says she feels it basically 24 hours a day. Nausea all day long. I don’t envy her. It’s been going for almost a week now. We read online, and it seems it has the potential to last for a month or more. Yikes.

She searched online and tried some of the remedies: saltine crackers in the morning, plenty of water, chewing on ginger root (which by the way is NASTY and only makes her more nauseated), and the scent of lemon. (Not sure why that last one. But she requested lemon drops. And, by the way, hard candy lemon drops are not easy to find when you’re looking for them. I’ve seen them at a billion gas stations and stores… but the one time I try to find them, I can’t. By the way, I’ll save you a trip: Target doesn’t sell them.)

There are also these special pops called “Preggie Pops” or something like that. She found them online, and I think she’s going to order them this week. Hopefully that will help. But I just feel helpless to do anything. She says on the way to work she had to pull over a couple times because she can’t tell if she’s going to throw up. And twice she’s gone into the bathroom to try and make herself vomit, in hopes that it will alleviate the nausea. No such luck. (As she lamented, “I’m not very good at sticking my finger down my throat.”)

We have a friend who is an oncologist and… I believe… a naturopath, and she recommended getting at least 50mg of Vitamin B6, as well as taking her vitamins at lunch time. So we went to the store, and got some more B6 (since her prenatal vitamins only gave 25mg.) By the way, it’s hard to find just 25mg of B6. In fact, it’s hard to find just B6. Everyone wants to sell you all of the B vitamins lumped in together, or if it’s an isolated B6, it’s hard to find it in small doses. But, we finally managed to find some… alas, no such luck. It hasn’t helped the morning all-day sickness.

I asked my wife to try and find a pattern– maybe create a log, and a few times a day, rate her sickness and then write when she ate, what she ate, etc. She seems to think there’s no pattern at all. I work in the computer world, and to me, every issue has a pattern; the question is: can you discern it? But, I don’t want to tell her she’s wrong… because I’m not the one who’s sick, and she could be right that it is just her body doing whacky things independent of any stimuli.