Posts tagged expecting

Blogging live from Hurricane Irene…

I’ve been a Dad for a day under two weeks and that by no means makes me an expert on anything. Hell, I’m not even experienced, I’m still new to this but I’ve certainly learned a metric fuckton already. Here’s a few things I’ve picked up in 13 days, mostly because of parental error. Mock me as you see fit…

• If you have a boy, pick up some Pee-pee Teepee’s. You can have cat-like reflexes and the confidence that he just peed and he won’t pee again right now when you’re changing his diaper, but if you’re not prepared, he’s going to piss on you. And the changing the table. And the wall. And his face. Probably on the carpet. Oh, you’ll cover his tiny sprinkler with the diaper? You’ll forget one day. You will forget and have to change your shirt. And tell yourself it’s OK that there’s piss on your face because he’s YOUR son. And have to clean up warm pee from the wall. Try as you might, but expect to take a Golden Shower one day.
• While we’re on diapers and confidence, rest assured your prompt attention to his bowel movements will be rewarded with a fresh crap in a freshly changed diaper. How can he crap so much when all he eats is breast milk?! I don’t know, but the only conclusion I’ve come to is that he some how was able to buy stock in Pampers while in the womb and his diaper double dipping is just their little way of ensuring a greater profit. When your delicate olfactory passages are infiltrated with smell of baby poop, expect to change it twice in a row once in a while.
• When you finally get to take your new baby home from the hospital, you’ll find you’re about to embark on a wild journey of discovery. You’ll discover things about your yourself, your abilities, your limits and of course, your baby. Chances are, you’ll discover there may have been an accident at the hospital, because this baby you have at home is not the quiet sweet little baby you had at the hospital. Expect to question whether the hospital gave you the right baby or he/she was heavily drugged during their stay.
• I think even the weakest of stomachs are able to tolerate the different fluids, solids, and semi-solids that evacuate any and every orifice of their own child. But…even the most iron of stomachs will have a hard time coming to terms with the funk that will be emitted from their bodies the first few days a newborn comes home and showering becomes a lavish luxury… when you remember you haven’t bathed in days. Expect no one one to say anything about your gross new parent smell, but let your nose break the news to you.
• “Wow. He spit up most of that last feeding on his onesie, let me change his clothes.” When you lay him down, make some goofy faces, talk some cute baby talk, undress him, change his diaper, and redress him in clean dry clothes, expect to change those clothes again because babies have a spit-up reservoir for such occasions. It will dribble out the corner of his mouth, soiling a once clean shirt, you will change it again…this time with a less goofy face and voice slightly less cute.
• We’ve all heard the blood curdling cries of someone’s brat kid. We’ve all rolled our eyes at the parent who can’t seem to get that baby to just pipe down. Expect that to happen to you…and expect it to break your heart.
• He left the hospital in great health and with no issues, why do have a constant worry about him? Expect to check his/her breathing constantly for no other reason then worry.   
• Just when you thought you knew what love was, when you see your baby for the first time, expect that idea to be turned on its ear. Expect to redefine the word love. 

Those are just a few little tidbits I don’t remember coming across, there seems to be scores of others as well. It’s funny though, as much frustration and cluelessness I seem to have at times, I’m loving every second of being a Dad. I love the face that everyone says he looks like me. I love watching my wife be a Mom. I love putting one arm around my son and the other around my wife.

I don’t love the spit-up. I don’t love the worry. I don’t love the constant diaper changes. I don’t love the sleepless nights..but I love who I do it for.          

Dylan Hendrix McGuckin decided August 15 would be his birthday. Weighing in at 8 pounds and 1 ounce and 19.5 inches long, he made his way into this world on his own terms. There is quite a tale to be told.

But for now I’m 44 hours without sleep and a must needed rest is my next stop.

I’ll be back with pictures and some details tomorrow (if I even wake up).

Seriously…I’m a parent….

Just wow…. 

This morning I was having my daily pep talk with the Little Cagefighter and I offered him 100 bucks if he came out today. 

We shall see…

Today we hit the hospital on the advice from the on-call doctor in the practice due to many contractions within an hour. From the title, I’m sure you can gather that we left the labor and delivery unit with the baby still chilling inside Christina’s belly. 

In any event, Christina seemed to catch some pretty strong contractions today which means yay for progress and boo for the pain. We did learn that there is A LOT of fluid around the baby, which is good for the baby, not so much for my poor wife. The extra fluid makes movement more painful then it should be, with all the extra weight and all. Long story short, there was talk of a possible c-section today seeing the baby’s estimated weight (7 lbs. 12 oz.), Chris’s small stature, and the amount of contractions. Thankfully, that idea was axed. 

With no dilation and only 30% effacement, they sent us home with the hope that this could be early labor. Now, I knew going into the hospital, she wasn’t in labor and there was a very slim chance the Little Cagefighter would make an appearance today but I couldn’t help but feel like one of those TV sitcom cliches. You know, rushing off to the hospital only to find out the “contractions” were just gas pains. But hey, the on call doctor told us to go, the contractions are real and we may be in business soon. 

Wrong.

Today’s doctor appointment went OK, aside from the fact that we’ve made pretty much no progress and the baby is getting bigger.

With the baby getting bigger and Christina becoming more uncomfortable (i.e. some kind of pain or another), the tension is surely mounting around here.

On my part, for the past week I’ve been giving the little guy pep talks that ranged from the silly and sweet to more stern, in order to help coax him out. He’s so grounded when when he finally comes home.

Christina is in constant pain, the house is ready…what’s the hold up?

Apparently, my son still thinks his rightful place is inside Christina’s uterus. What he doesn’t know is that he’ll have so much more room out here in the land of the living. We have all this cool shit in the house for him, many people who are waiting on baited breath to meet him, and parent’s whose cool level is through the roof. His decision to stay on the inside is truly testing the physical and mental limits of his mother.

Christina is pretty much in constant pain from pelvic pressure, heartburn, and the occasional contraction. I do what I can to help…but really there’s not much I can do. I honestly feel terrible that I can’t do more, but I guess it is what it is.

We’re in the home stretch now.

It’s officially 37 weeks and we can officially try some natural induction methods to push this little guy out. We just got back from the doc and according to him our little one is about 7 pounds and can come out now if he wants.

He doesn’t.

So in order to prevent a possible c-section, we plan on trying some of natural induction remedies. Whether they work or not is up for debate but it can’t hurt to try.

Well…actually it can hurt, that’s pretty much the point…to start labor. And from what I hear, labor is a little rough. 

The past week or so Christina’s been having some contractions, very irregular and sporadic, but contractions nonetheless. We had an appointment with the doc yesterday and was kinda sorta hoping for some dilatation news. Well, it’s a no go on the dilatation but he did drop a little science on us before he ran out the door.

He said, “I have some news for you. I’m looking at you and I’m feeling the baby…I don’t think he’s coming out on his own. I think we’ll probably have to do a c-section by your due date.” A few things here:

1. Christina is really small, like under 5 feet tall small, so she doesn’t have the longest torso so Dylan is in a pretty cramped space now.
2. Our baby is a nice size as of right now making things a little more difficult.
3. Christina was really hoping for a natural delivery.

With all those factors in play here, we asked the doc if it was OK to proceed with some natural birth inducing acts and remedies in hopes that if he comes early we have a shot at vaginal delivery. He gave us the OK as of next Tuesday, the 37 week mark.

Fingers crossed… 

Throughout my life I’ve named a lot things, mostly inanimate objects that have no business getting named. For example, in high school, I named my Swiss Army knife Gill, after Robert DeNiro’s character (a knife salesman) in The Fan. Sure, I’ve named a few pets, I named my cat Iggy after Iggy Pop and my hermit crab was named Jared. Yes, I did in fact name a pet hermit crab after myself. I felt it was appropriate.

When it came down to naming our first born, I leaned more toward the different then Christina did. I liked names like Ragnar, Bane, and Iggy Pop (yes, I wanted to name my son after the coolest human still drawing breath) just to name a few. Christina, while not totally ruling out Bane as a middle name, or Iggy Pop for that matter, took a more middle of the road approach. She’s always been the voice of reason in our little operation, so Ragnar was out.

So a few months ago, after a lot strikes, we finally hit a homerun. The Little Cagefighter’s full name is Dylan Hendrix McGuckin.

The both of us love the name Dylan and I’m pretty partial to Bob Dylan myself so that’s a winner. The middle name, Hendrix, is named after Jimi Hendrix, obviously. McGuckin..well sorry kiddo, that’s the last name they stuck me with.

When I told my best friend the name we decided on he responded with, “Well, his old hippie teachers are gonna love him.”

With one day away from the 36 week mark, we’re headed to the final stretch of life without children. While hanging out on the couch last night, Christina said, “You know, this is one of the last weekends we’re going to have as a couple without kids.”

That really struck me as I’ve been getting impatient waiting for the Little Cagefighter to make an appearance. It’s getting harder to see the little things as our days are so chock full of baby oriented talk and prep. Our apartment has pretty much been taken over with baby stuff and I spend my days cleaning, organizing, and assembling baby things. We’ve been mentally preparing for nearly nine months now and physically preparing for about three so it’s safe to say we’re hoping for some baby action a little sooner then the delivery date. I know I’m ready.

Christina’s been dealing with the back pain, swollen feet, heartburn and general discomfort for awhile now and I know she’s ready. I’m wagering she’s probably more ready then me. Granted she also has that added little thing called delivery to deal with, which is about a daunting task as any I can think of.

I am certainly a creature of habit, but I can’t wait until the day Christina and I hold our son for the first time and everything changes.