This is the story of how our daughter entered the world, complete with intermittent tips that I feel may benefit a very specific demographic:
Expectant fathers.
But not just any expectant fathers. This blog, I feel, may most benefit the fathers who actually want the baby that they helped to create. Because let’s face it. Not every pregnancy is planned out.
Even my daughter wasn’t exactly the result of a well-executed game plan, though my wife and I both knew that we wanted to have a baby somewhere down the line. Suffice it to say that our daughter was a very wonderful surprise.
I recall a conversation I’d had with my wife round about February of 2006 where she’d said words to the effect of, “If I’m not pregnant by the end of 2006, I think we should start trying for a baby.” Frankly, I wasn’t worried about whether or not we’d be able to make the magic happen at that time because I knew that we’d been livin’ la vida NFP. My wife was very good with keeping track of the details and, for lack of more delicate words, structuring her behavior accordingly.
Yet, we’d been married for over two years and, to our knowledge, she’d never been pregnant. So…. people started nudging a bit. One of my buddies made it a habit of reminding me that he got his wife pregnant a month after they tied the knot and always managing to slip in the implication that something must be wrong with my plumbing. As one can imagine, this is the same type of dude who likes to throw in the fact that he’d be more than willing to "take one for the team," since his ammo’s been tested and obviously works.
Frankly, I think that if you go into the whole baby-making venture with the mentality that it’s something you have to “try” for, chances are it’s gonna take you longer to get pregnant. Though I’m no molecular biologist, I daresay that one of the key ingredients to conception is passion. Those who go into it like they’re punching a timecard never seem to succeed. Those who become enraptured in the act without regard for the “consequences” always seem to be the ones freaking out because they either got “knocked up” or did the “knocking up” themselves.
One thing that I always thought was awesome about being newly-married was that the word “pregnant” was no longer a dirty word or one that would otherwise cast an ominous shadow over my life. So, I said to my wife, “You know what? Let’s relax, live our lives as husband and wife, do what husbands and wives do and if we wind up with a baby, then that’s just awesome.” With our cares tempest tossed, we found ourselves blessed with a daughter about a year earlier than expected and, without a doubt, she’s the greatest gift that God could have ever given us.
I’m also fortunate enough to have a small handful of male friends who have either recently had children or are soon to have one. And, as an added bonus, none of these dudes are the least bit upset about these pregnancies because they’re all married and in the right mindset for starting a family. Yes, we’re all married thirty-somethings and it looks like it's our turn to give the Circle of Life a spin or two. However, even men who want children have occasional freak-out moments or times when they may let something less than sensitive slip from their lips.
I’ll share a few observations and, where applicable, dole out a few tips for those who care to read them.
First off, I’m keenly aware of how real life works and I’m equally aware that children are often born to unwed parents. However, knowing the reality of life's twists and turns doesn’t stop me from believing that children really should be born in a “one husband, one wife” setting where the husband and wife actually love each other and live together. This, in my opinion, is the best start you can give to your child and, in a future blog, I’ll be elaborating on this subject matter.
For now, my first bit of advice to expectant fathers is this: Get your head and spirit into the game – all the way. This may not seem like a big deal if you want the baby your wife’s carrying, so I’ll add a little footnote here:
Wear your enthusiasm on your sleeve.
Men in general are less expressive about their feelings than women are and if your woman’s carrying a child, she’s gonna need to know that you’re there 110% of the way. Remember that virtually every couple that isn’t swimming in cash will have the occasional, “Where’s the money gonna come from?” moment. God knows we had ours… and friends of mine who have already had kids have all said roughly the same thing:
“Nobody’s ever financially ready to have a kid.”
This is, for the most part, true. My suggestion in this regard?
Be mindful of your finances, but try not to let money (or lack thereof) put your brain into terror lockdown. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to mindlessly spend money that you could have otherwise saved for the benefit of your child or children. Just do the best you can and try not to let money issues ruin your time as a parent. You’ll miss the best parts of parenthood if you do.
Another tip I’d like to give to the guys is this: Try to accompany your wife to as many pregnancy-related appointments as you can. I know this isn’t always an easy thing to do, so I won’t belabor the point. Just know that the amount of appointments your wife will have to make time for once she's pregnant is staggering, particularly towards the end of her term. This is true even if she’s having the healthiest pregnancy in the history of womankind. I managed to make it to all of my wife’s ultrasounds, a small handful of pregnancy classes and a midwife meet-and-greet.
Oh, and I made it for the birth, too, which I hear always scores well with the ladies.
Just don’t forget the enthusiasm, guys. Wear it as proudly as Mr. T wears gold. I know that a lot of this stuff might not seem like fun, but remember why you’re there in the first place. So get your head in the game and cheer your woman on as she gestates.
You know how pretty much every movie that shows a woman in labor is portrayed as a frantic event? The husband’s bumbling around like an idiot, knocking over trashcans, dropping keys and hyperventilating as he’s trying to remember to bring everything to the hospital. Then, he runs like fifteen red lights and damn near crashes through the doors of the E.R. as he bellows, “Woman in labor! Woman in labor!” Then, she’s in the delivery room, screaming at the top of her lungs en route to the birth of her child as her husband faints dead away? Well, most of what I just described is nothing like how it actually happens in real life, unless you happen to be the type of guy who lives his life being incredibly overdramatic.
Guys, take the pregnancy classes with her. Read a few pregnancy books while you’re at it (Hint: The ones that are written exclusively for the female demographic are usually the most insightful as they’ll give you all the gory details that would otherwise remain hidden from us dudes).
As for why we should bother reading about her pregnancy travails? Well, because guys like us need to feel like we have at least some semblance of control over stuff and it helps to know what to expect, as opposed to being like, “What the f**k is THAT?” As for how labor actually goes (based both on fathers’ testimonials, coupled with my own personal experience), the screaming actually does happen (sorry, ladies), but that’s about it as far as “art imitating life” in the movies is concerned.
Odds are, when your wife feels her first labor pains, she won’t even be 100% sure that it’s labor at all. That’s because, oftentimes, the pain sets in gradually and, in its beginning stages, labor may actually just feel like abdominal cramps to her. I knew my wife was in labor even before she did and that was only because I read a couple of those pregnancy books that I talked about; books that she never got around to reading.
One of the subjects touched upon is that expectant mothers seem to have this universal nesting instinct that kicks into gear around mid-pregnancy and intensifies as she approaches her fortieth week. I haven’t met a mother yet who, when asked, didn’t regale me with some insane pre-labor cleaning venture that they undertook. One of the supervisors at my old job cleaned the back of her toilet with an old toothbrush hours before her labor really kicked in. Another woman told me of how she vacuumed her entire house (including her stone-floored garage) before labor started.
My wife?
Well, she was on the floor, scraping excess paint from the floor trim in the living room… at midnight. I asked her how she felt. She said she was feeling a bit queasy, but otherwise fine. She was in her thirty-eighth week, but I told her she’d be delivering our baby within 48 hours. She insisted I was wrong and maybe even a little weird for making such a bold claim. Twenty five and half hours later, our daughter was born, so you do the math. Or better yet, read the books.
As for labor pains, my wife knew for certain that she was having contractions about twelve hours after her paint-scraping avocation, but having been to all of the same pregnancy classes that I’d been to, she knew not to freak. By about two in the afternoon, we timed a couple of contractions and found out they were about ten minutes apart. She could feel the pain, but said that the contractions weren’t quite as devastating as she thought they’d be.
The bottom line with labor is that if you rush to the hospital when labor begins, there’s about a 99.99999% chance that you’ll be sent home. They really, really don’t want to see you until the pain is clearly visible on your face. So, my wife endured increasingly painful and erratic contractions until about 8ish (…if a woman has two contractions seven minutes apart, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the next one could come within four minutes or within twelve. After all. Women aren’t machines).
We did no frantic scrambling for overnight bags because her bag had been packed several days beforehand.... and no, I didn’t trip over myself like Mr. freakin' Bean or knock anything over, either. I opted instead for a calm and slow walk to the car. One thing you don't want to forget is that a pregnant woman should never, EVER drive herself to the hospital. So, you're not gonna be of much use to her if, in your frantic scramble, you fall down and knock your own dumb ass out.
If for some weird reason, I wasn't able to get there to drive her to the hospital, she was coached to call for a cab. Trust me, driving while pregnant is like trying to steer an arcade race car without putting the quarters in the machine beforehand. In other words, you'd have a better shot at arriving safely if you were driving intoxicated.
As for my driving? My wife’s only request was that I take it slow and do my best to avoid potholes in the road. I even stopped into a Dunkin Donuts on the way to get her some food and some milk, knowing that she’d get nothing to eat once we were admitted into the maternity ward. Even after we drove up to the hospital, the words of the midwives were still on our mind ("If you get there too early, they’ll send you home") and my wife said the unthinkable.
“Maybe we should take a drive around the city.”
Knowing why she said this, I suggested we stop by my office (...which was about ten minutes away by car) so that I could grab an insurance form that I needed to complete once my baby was born (...the birth is the “qualifying event” that needs to happen before you can put your child onto your health insurance). By the time we exited the office and got back to the car, she grimaced and said, “Okay, I think we’ve waited long enough. Let’s get to the hospital.” Even after we arrived, my wife remained all smiles and even managed to crack a couple of jokes. Everybody in Maternity was certain, based on her mood, that she couldn't possibly be in heavy labor.
Turns out, my wife’s just a good-humored lady with a very high pain threshold. Sure enough, by the time they had thoroughly examined her, she managed to jump from three to four centimeters and, as such, she was admitted. Unfortunately for my wife (and for pregnant women everywhere), full-on, intense labor is every bit as painful as those movies lead you to believe, if not more so. My wife, God bless her heart, wanted to put off having anesthesia of any kind for as long as she possibly could for the sake of the baby’s health and well-being.
So, as labor intensity increased, the midwives, attendants and I did everything we could to alleviate her pain using natural means. Oddly enough, she spent the vast majority of her labor on her feet, either leaning on the side of the bed or, at the behest of the midwifes in the room, leaning on me. At one point, they even drew a hot water Jacuzzi for her and gave me a small bucket to scoop the water and pour it gently onto her belly. This actually did help her a bit and though she could still feel the pain, the hot water seemed to dull it a bit.
Right about the time she got out of the tub, the pain had gotten to the point where she was actually screaming through contractions. One of the attendants quickly dashed to the door and closed it which, if it had been anybody else in this situation, I’d have probably laughed. What amazed me was that, even as she screamed, my wife didn’t ask for anesthesia. This worried me only because I knew there’d come a point of no return where it would be too late to have an epidural and I didn’t want her to go beyond that point, decide that she needed something and then be told that it’s too late.
Another benefit of having read those pregnancy books was that I could accurately predict many things that she would experience. One of the things that I said absolutely would happen wound up happening near the very end. In the very early part of her labor, I coached her by saying, “There’s gonna come a time when you are in tears, crying and screaming that you can’t go on or that you can’t do it. You will be convinced that you absolutely can NOT continue. Just try to keep in mind that when you reach this moment, it means that our baby is about to be born so try not to lose heart.”
Exactly as predicted, she reached a point when she broke down and cried on my shoulder, SCREAMING at everybody in the room, “I can’t do it! I can’t! I can’t! She’s killing me!” Our daughter was born less than fifteen minutes later… with no anesthesia whatsoever! What’s oddly ironic about all of the, “I can’t do it!” utterances is that the woman in question rarely realizes that she ACTUALLY IS DOING IT while she’s screaming that she can’t.
That’s where the husband comes in.
I, along with pretty much everybody in the room, told her, “You say you can’t do it, but you ARE doing it… right now.” I will say this though. As the husband, it is my belief that you MUST be there for the birth, but it is also my belief that you’ll do a lot more good by keeping your words to a minimum. I say this for a couple of reasons.
First off, everybody who is in the room and trying to help with the delivery is probably saying stuff to your wife, so if you’re saying stuff at the same time, it’s probably gonna give her a headache. Guess who’s most likely to catch the business end of her verbal backlash.
Yep! Chattering hubby!
With so many people telling her to breathe slowly, I didn’t repeat this for her. Instead, I began to audibly breathe slowly myself, hoping that she would hear this and, coupled with the midwife’s advice, try to imitate my breathing pattern as best she could. With regards to respiration, we as humans generally respond to pain in two ways. We either breathe way too fast or we forget to breathe altogether; neither of which will help either the mother or the baby. My only real fear was that my wife would pass out from the pain and lack of regulated oxygen intake.
And nervousness usually leads to me doing or saying something stupid.
Sure enough, my dumbass moment came right as my daughter was crowning. Before I get into what I said, I gotta tell ya something. What I saw didn’t even seem real to me. It almost seemed like I was watching some sort of barely plausible animation. I witnessed a relatively sudden expansion of… well, you know… and within seconds, a good portion of my daughter’s head and face was visible. Since she was still screaming, “I can’t do it!” and, “She’s killing me! Get her out!,” I wanted to give my wife some encouraging words. What I meant to say was, “I can see her hair, eyes and the tops of her ears!”
However, in the excitement of the moment, what I actually said was, “She has hair… and eyes and ears!” as if I somehow expected a toaster to be coming out of there or something. Hard to believe, but in the most intense moment of the birth, I unintentionally filled the room with laughter. Anyway, once my daughter’s head was out, the rest of her pretty much slipped right through. My daughter was immediately plopped onto my wife’s chest, which seemed weird because the umbilical cord hadn’t even been cut yet. In hindsight, I figure they wanted her to know right off the bat who her mother was.
I’ll admit it – I welled up when I saw my little girl for the first time, with her eyes open and looking in the general direction of my wife, though I’m pretty sure she could barely see more than light and shadows at that point. Whenever my wife tries to describe the experience, she can never find strong enough words to match the awesome love and emotion she felt when she saw our little girl’s face for the first time.... and as strong as I feel my English vocabulary is, I must admit that I find myself having the same difficulty.
Now, if you’re a father like me, then you probably loved your little baby from the moment you found out your wife was pregnant. If the news of the pregnancy didn’t do it, surely that first ultrasound clinched it for you. I loved my daughter from the first moment I found out she existed. I found out she existed on April 13, 2006 and saw her on the ultrasound for the first time on May 31, 2006. Even then, I was floored, so meeting her and holding her in my arms for the first time was just an unbelievably overwhelming experience.
The love I felt for her was so intense in that delivery room that I didn’t want her to experience even an ounce of discomfort or pain, so I had quite a bit of difficulty fighting back tears when she first cried. She cried briefly under the heat lamp after the cord had been cut and she cried when she was being weighed. They couldn’t quite get the scale calibrated properly at first, so naturally, I started getting a bit pissed off because my daughter was still crying and obviously quite cold.
If I could give new fathers one piece of advice, it would be this:
Stay right by your baby’s side all the way!
I say this for a few reasons. For starters, if you talked to your baby while she was in the womb (I’ll just use “she” for simplicity’s sake since my baby is a “she”), odds are very good that your baby will recognize your voice and may even calm to it.
Secondly, these folks in maternity see several hundreds of babies every year, so while they may seem nice when you’re talking to them, the only way to really and truly be sure that your baby is getting the best TLC she can possibly receive is if the protective dad is right by her side.
And for goodness sake, now’s not the time to be timid. You’re the father..... and, whether you realize it or not, you have a backstage pass for everything related to your baby. They even give you a Lo-Jack bracelet that matches the bracelets given to your wife and baby, so that no errant ass-clown can boost your baby from the hospital.
So anyway, when they take your baby away for the first time to bathe her, check her hearing and other such things, ask to go along. They almost definitely won’t refuse your request as long as you’re not being a dick about it. If in doubt, keep the question in the back of your mind when you’re hospital-shopping (...yes, you’ll be asked to choose a hospital in advance). If they say no (which they really shouldn’t), ask if an exception can be made. Just be cool about it. If they stick to their guns, you might seriously consider going elsewhere.
I’m dead serious about this.
Like I said, your baby will be handled as gently as possible with you right there and they may even ask if you want to lend a helping hand. The other reason I strongly recommend that you stay with your baby is that you KNOW that your baby is going through a lot at this early stage. She has no idea what’s going on and she’s probably quite scared because her whole world’s literally been turned inside out. She’s gonna feel uncomfortable at certain points and she’s gonna feel pain (...they’ll need to give her a Hep B shot and a Vitamin K shot within the first couple of hours of her birth).
God knows she’s gonna cry and her cries of pain are absolutely, positively gonna shatter your heart into a million painful pieces. However, out of the plethora of things that she doesn’t understand at this point, it is my TRUE belief that one of the few things she WILL feel is your love. Hold and stroke her tiny hand, gently place your warm hand on her chest if you think she might be cold and whisper to her how much you love her and how everything’s gonna be okay.
You might think I’m nuts for suggesting this, but I really do believe that this helps a newborn out a lot more than just letting the maternity folks jab and jerk her around, knowing that she’s going through all of this trauma alone. As nice as they do seem, maternity staffers are capable of occasionally forgetting that they’re dealing with innocent and emotional little human beings.
Case in point: It was about 4:30 in the morning by the time that my wife and I went to bed that second night (...fathers are usually allowed to stay overnight and sleep with the wife for as long as she’s in the hospital), but we were advised that during the early morning hours, our daughter would be taken away for a blood test. At first, they quietly wheeled her away and, yes, I considered staying in bed.
Then, visions of my helpless and distressed daughter entered my head, so I decided to go out there and see if I could be with her. Sure enough, through the window I saw the maternity lady yank my crying girl up by her right arm to remove the blanket upon which she was laying. I swear I could have literally and clinically killed that woman, but cooler heads prevailed.
Through clenched teeth, I smiled through the glass as I knocked and motioned with my finger as if to say, “Perhaps I could be of some assistance. May I come in?” Sure enough, she let me in with no problem and she conducted the rest of her business with my little princess using kind words and gentle treatment.
When blood was drawn (...they’ll prick her heel with this small spring-loaded square thingy with a needlepoint end), she was warm and in my arms, so she only cried for about ten seconds before she fell asleep to what I’m guessing was a combination of my soft whispering, my body heat and, in all probability, shock.
Personally, I felt a lot better knowing that I was able to stay by my daughter’s side and assure her that, in this very new and confusing world, she already had people in her life that loved her and were there to take care of her. And I know that newborns don’t retain these traumatic early memories, but guess what. You do.
Lord only knows how long she will remember those first few hours, but for as long as she does retain them, I want some of those very first memories to include a soothing voice and a loving touch.
I'll end with a quick story. She's almost three months old now and about a week ago, my girl was awake and crying at 1:30am. I heated up her bottle, took her to a dark room, cradled her in the crook of my left arm and fed her. She spent virtually the whole feeding time with her eyes wide open and fixed on mine. I looked down and smiled. She finished her bottle and I burped her, but I usually let her hang for a few minutes before putting her back down, just in case she spits some of the milk back up.
I'm in the spare bedroom, on the bed. She's nestled in my left arm and she's looking down at her hands. All of a sudden, she turns her head to look up at me, sees my face... and smiles. What really melted my heart about this particular smile was that she just looked so comfortable and content. She calmly sighed, then let out with a big yawn which told me that she was ready to return to her crib.
I'll never forget that moment for as long as I live. It was a smile that showed me that, somewhere along the way, I'd managed to earn her trust as her guardian, her protector and her dad. That's when the true weight of my role as a daddy sunk in... and for as long as we both live, she'll always be Daddy's Little Princess - the little girl who I will forever love with all of my heart and soul.
Labels: baby, child-rearing, dad, father, parenthood
