our stay at the hospital

Before I continue from yesterday, I just want to toss in some stuff about yesterday.  Our daughter is now 4 weeks old, almost 5.  She’s been going through the whole evening witching hour thing that seems to be common with all babies.   The last two nights I’ve been able to get her to calm down, and then place her in her crib.  The first night, she sat and chattered and cooed to the solid side of her crib, which we have now named “Crib Wall” or CW for short.   She is fascinated with it.  She’s also fascinated with the window shade in the living room, or just “Shade”.  I’m pretty sure she likes them both more than me.  Or at least likes to look at them more than me.  She is enthralled by them. Weirdo.  It’s these stories I’m keeping for Prom night and her Wedding.  Anyway, back to the story…

So, once they stitched up my wife, she joined us in the recovery room.  She had some major shakes which wouldn’t shop, so they gave her something for that, and it stopped pretty quickly.  Until they stopped, I was still scared to death.  I know they weren’t a big deal, but like I said before, my biggest fear was something was going to happen to my wife. Irrational fear I’m sure, but you know, it’s that whole “I love her with all my heart, and I married her for that reason, and plan on growing old and gray and senile with her” thing.  So, all through this, our daughter never really slept. She just sort of looked around and was taking it all in. No crying, no fussing, just adjusting to being in the world and looking around.  They moved us up to our recovery room, and we sat and rested.  Family members came by, met our baby girl, and she was very photogenic and had pictures taken of her with various family members.  My wife needed rest though, so everyone left, and I’ll venture a guess that we watched some Friends. I could be wrong. Could have just been regular TV.  At this point, my wife’s vitals were still all over the place, and her body wasn’t able to regulate itself very well. Probably not an uncommon thing a few hours after surgery.  So, she started in with attempting to breast feed.  That sort of worked, as it does with a brand new baby trying to figure out how to latch.  We made it through the first night in recovery, and they would bring the baby in every 2 hours to eat.  In the morning, my wife still isn’t regulating her heart rate and blood pressure very well.  She’s having a hard time with things all day, and ends up with a catheter.  The feeding is coming along, and the lactation person and nurses help us figure out how to get the baby to latch properly, and eat.  So that’s going fairly well.  We make the call early in the day though that she needs as much rest as possible, so no visitors that day.

By that evening, we still aren’t seeing any improvement in my wife, and in fact, some of her vitals are looking worse.  She’s feeling worse, and, it makes me shake to even write this, and it’s hard to convey the actual emotions, and how physically drained she was. I hope she’ll tell her side someday. But she looked at me, in all seriousness, and said she felt like her body was shutting down.  The weight of this statement doesn’t come across very well on paper, nor does the gravity of the situation.  We’d been trying to let her rest as much as possible, but things just weren’t going in her favor.  And with that, we had to make a decision that wasn’t one we wanted to make at all.  Her body needed rest.  I wasn’t willing to let her risk her own health and life anymore, so we discussed sending the baby to the nursery for the night.  Which means feedings would have to be from formula that night.   So we did.  My wife was able to sleep through the night, and we saw a vast improvement the next morning.  She opted to start pumping for breast milk, and did that for the rest of the stay in the hospital, to make sure that her milk would come in.  However, once we got home, things were once again not going well in the recovery, and we again had to make one of the hardest decisions we had to make as parents.  We switched fully to formula.  If you know us at all, you know that wasn’t even something that we had contemplated. Ever. We were firm believers in “breast is best”.  I didn’t even want to think about formula.  I’m pretty sure my wife had never considered it either.  It just didn’t fit into our beliefs for how to feed and raise a child.  But once we were put into a situation where it became detrimental to the health of my wife, it wasn’t hard to make that decision at all.  There’s no question in my mind that we made the right decision for us.  Because my fear was that if we continued down that road, there wouldn’t be an us.  Now, that’s not to say that it wasn’t tough. Like I said, we firmly believed that breast feeding was the way to go. But it was taken off the table for us realistically.  And adjusting to that reality wasn’t easy. There have been issues with finding the right formula, and baby constipation, not feeling bonded with baby etc.  But we still have my wife. And the baby needs her mother.  It’s funny, I still feel like I have to defend our decision.  It’s kind of a reaction to the militant “Breast is Best” people, but it’s also a constant reminder to us.  Those first few weeks are a blur, and we forget sometimes just how serious things were, and could have been.

(IF YOU ARE SQEAMISH, SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH) Back to the hospital though. So, after my wife’s first good evening of sleep, they wanted her to get up and try to go to the bathroom on her own. Well, the one thing no one really talks about is the bleeding after giving birth.  I mean, the told us in the hospital, and I  saw the pad they put on her, but NO ONE mentioned just how much.  So, my wife, for the first time in a couple days, got up out of bed. We maneuvered her IV and her to the bathroom, and before I could help her onto the toilet, blood started pouring down her leg.  Literally, pouring. I about lost my shit.  She started to also. We both thought she was hemorrhaging out, that maybe something was wrong with her internal healing stitches.  I pulled the emergency cord. And when they didn’t come running, I hollered out of the door to get people in there now.  Well, they came running then, and when they got there, looked at me funny, even though there was a pool of blood on the floor.  Turns out, everything was “fairly” normal.  I wish they would have mentioned that to us prior, that after two days of sitting, that the blood was going to pool, and once it had a chance to get out, it would, and it would be normal.  So, that gave both of us a near heart attack.   This was probably the first major thing we realized that no one talks about when they talk about giving birth.

It’s hard to really remember much of the rest of the stay. It’s really pretty much a blur after that, because things sort of became normal after that.  I did help my wife with things I never thought I’d help her with, so I guess there’s that.  People came to visit, we fed the baby, she pooped on the pediatrician, and then me.  The only other thing that really sticks out in my mind after all of that is going home. Being so very nervous to take her home.  No nurses, no doctors, just us and the baby.  Also, I had to stop and have someone make sure I put the baby into the carseat correctly. We had gone through a car seat clinic before the baby was born, but there is definitely a difference with putting a doll in and adjusting to the right tightness, and a real life baby.  So, she made sure everything looked ok, and helped make a couple minor adjustments, and then we went home.  And I’ll continue that story another time.

The Birth (and a return to the blog!)

The Birth

First of all, I want to apologize for not writing this sooner. Those of you with children though will probably understand just how crazy this first month has been.  So, I’m not actually sure how apologetic I really am. I’m more tired than anything.  Now that I have that out of the way, I think I’ll outline my plan of attack to catch you up on things. I’m going to try and condense some things, and some I’ll skip over. I’d like to get caught up and have this at least be a multiple post a week blog now that our daughter is here.  Things certainly haven’t been easy, and I’ll start that entry in a minute.  My wife and I have also discussed her doing some more guest blogs and I really hope that she can. I feel that even though there are a billion mom blogs out there, she has something important and pertinent to say regarding our experiences so far.  So today, I’m going to start specifically with our first week: from labor to going home.  Also, please forgive me those that remember the facts better or differently than I do (Mom, Mom in Law, Wife, etc), I’ll try my best, but that whole not sleeping thing, coupled with my horrible memory anyway may leave some holes.

Labor started easy enough.  We had been out for a friend’s going away party on a Friday night, got home, watched some TV, and then BOOM. Contractions.  I got out a pen and paper and started timing them for my wife.  We attempted to go to bed, but sometime in the middle of the night, they became more intense, and my wife told me it was time to go.  We called into the baby line, they talked to my wife, determined that it was probably go time, and we should come. I want to say this all started around 3am, but who knows.  We went to the hospital, and they monitored them for a while.  The contractions weren’t getting closer together, and after a few hours of monitoring, checking, walking around to get things going, they opted to send us home.  However, they asked that we come back that evening and due to the complications with my wife’s low platelets, they wanted to induce her that evening.  We went home, and tried to rest.

Saturday evening after dinner, we headed back to the hospital.  They started the inducement (induction? To induce? I’m really never sure how to state that).  We sat around, and like much of the first week, we watched Friends on DVD (an aside, I’m fairly certain our daughter is going to grow up somehow knowing what “WE WERE ON A BREAK” means, without ever actively having watched the show.).  Once again, about midway through the night (and by midway, I mean 2 or 3am (I’m using a lot of parenthetical asides (isn’t this fun?))) it was determined that things were progressing now, and they would take out the stuff they used to induce my wife, and let things go on their own.  So, real, painful, focus on your breathing labor was going on now.  I called my Mother in Law, as she was requested by my wife to be another in the room also, and we labored.  This went on for, and I’m only guessing here, 5-6 hours of contractions, before we got to the pushing.  I’m not even sure anymore.  Anyway, things sort of got hung up again, and they opted to break her bag of waters (Now that I type that, I’m fairly certain that actually happened, but sometimes it seems like I imagined it. I’m not sure.). So water broke, mom dilated, it was go time.  So she started pushing. And pushing. And pushing.  For two hours, my wife pushed, and pushed and pushed.  And she hadn’t slept really since Thursday night.  They rotated her every which way they could. I helped push against her back, held her leg(s), got cold wash clothes. Basically whatever I could do. And I still felt helpless to move this baby along.  So, we got to about 11:30 am (once again, only a guess. But it sounds right.)  And the doctors gave a few options. Basically, my wife could continue to try and push for another half hour, but it was likely that the baby wasn’t coming that way, or we could opt for the C-section now, without the additional pushing.  Since my wife was so far past sheer exhaustion, we opted for the c-section without the additional pushing. They didn’t feel it was likely she was coming that way, but they knew that we had wanted a natural child birth.  By the way, my wife did all the above up to that point, with no drugs. They had given her Fentinol (sp?) at one time, but that didn’t do anything but make her tired.  She was (and still is) amazing.

So, our baby is stuck, and needs a c-section.  We’re obviously tired, and emotionally drained, and now scared.  The baby was doing fine, heart rate, etc was good.  But I was scared for my wife. I don’t know that she saw it. I tried to be brave.  One of my greatest fears is losing her.  I was especially concerned then since her platelets are low, and now they’re sending her to surgery.  Once again, brave face.  They prep her, and the OR.  They give me scrubs and I get ready to go in.  Also, this should be an aside, but I feel that I’m overusing them, so here’s an aside mid paragraph to annoy English majors the world over.  I thought I looked pretty good in scrubs. Who knew?  Back to the story at hand.  They walked me into the OR, and sat me by my wife’s head. I can’t remember anything we said up until when they told me to get the camera ready.  The pulled our daughter out, and brought her around to see.  I then got to go watch her be weighed, measured, had her footprints done, and I got to cut the umbilical cord.  I brought her back around to meet her Mommy.  I may have cried a little. We got to sit for a few minutes, and then the baby and I went back around to get her a shot, and put some goop on her eyes, etc, and then we went to go meet Nanna (Nana, ? I should figure that out) while they finished up with mom.   And that is the very short version of how our daughter was born.

I will save the rest of the story for tomorrow. I know I said I’d do the whole week, but that is just going to get really long, more than anyone would want to read from a blog.  We’ll pick up from this point tomorrow.

Guest Blogger: My wife!

I decided the other day that I wanted to guest blog on here as you have all gotten to know my husband's point of view of things, but have never gotten to hear mine! As my due date approaches I have been filled with all kinds of mixed feelings. Of course I am overwhelmed with excitement to finally meet this little being that I have been growing in my body for the past 9 months. With each new kick, jab and hiccup I begin to wonder what kind of person she will be. I can only imagine that with two crazy parents like my husband and I, she will surely have a good sense of humor. I know it will be a little while, but I can't wait to see her smile and hear her laugh at all the small things in life that you and I might take for granted now. That is probably one of the things I am looking forward to the most; seeing her experience things for the first time. The first time she goes to the zoo and sees a bear, the first time her little feet touch the grass or the first time she gets to run through a sprinkler on a hot summer day. To me there is nothing more beautiful that seeing the pure, unspoiled innocence of a child and remembering what it was like to not have a care in the world.

But of course there is the anxiety of this being our first baby. As some of you know, this has not been the easiest pregnancy for me. Being sick day and night from weeks 6-17 there was a time when I thought I would never feel like a normal human being again. But as quickly as the nausea came, it suddenly disappeared overnight and I was finally able to enjoy the fact that I was pregnant. Since then there have been many ups and downs so I can't help but be a little nervous about her actual arrival. My husband and I have prepared as best as we can by reading books, taking classes and of course getting all kinds of advice from friends and family. But can you really ever be prepared to bring a child in to this world? Probably not. I mean, I know labor is going to be painful...but what kind of pain? I would like to try to go as natural as possible, but will I be able to handle it? How will I deal with so much sleep deprivation? What kind of mother will I be? All of these questions swirl around in my mind as her due date gets closer and closer.

The thing I do know for certain is that my husband and I are going to love and support this little girl with every ounce of our being. She hasn't even made her debut in the world and I find myself already extremely protective of her. I know that I have the best possible role model as a mother that I could ever have. Her strength throughout the years has never ceased to amaze me and she will be there to guide me in the right direction.  And I know that my husband is going to be the most unbelievable father. I know this because of how he takes care of me and how he took care of his two little sisters when he was growing up. I could not have asked for a more loving and caring partner in life. Each and every day my love grows stronger  for him and I still cannot believe that I was so lucky in life to have found him not only once, but twice.

So stay tuned! Hopefully only a few more weeks left and we will get to introduce you to our little peanut! :)

36 Weeks

Tuesday marked the day my wife hit 36 weeks complete.  The baby is due just 26 days from now.  Obviously we know that she will make her debut whenever she really wants to, so we’re trying to prepare as best we can before that. Our bags are basically packed (except mine.  I really need to remember to do that!)  and we have all the immediate things we need.   I feel like we’re prepared about as much as we can be, but how prepared can you ever really be?

I try to keep the really detailed stuff off of this blog, and maybe that’s been to the detriment of me being able to keep this up to date on a weekly basis. Part of it is Op Sec. I’m starting to come around to keeping as much personal detail off of here as possible.  There seem to be more and more studies too about how it’s unhealthy for your child’s development when so many personal details about them appear online, especially via Facebook.  As much as we want to share the joy in our lives with people, it’s teaching our children that they can post anything about their lives online.  I also recently read an opinion piece about how Facebook is ruining humanity as a whole, but totally flipping the way we perceive ourselves. Instead of our real world personas dictating how we present ourselves online, our real life personas are actually being decided and mirroring our online personas. I know it doesn’t sound that scary for some people, but considering how many internet dicks there are out there, entire generations are their online personas. And if you’ve ever played Call of Duty online, that should scare the hell out of you.  It’s almost enough to make me want to quit Facebook.  I’ve thought about it before, or at least to severely limit my interactions there.  I’ve tried to really, and will probably pull myself out of that muck even farther once the baby is born. Personal, face to face interactions are best, and that’s what I want to teach my child.  In fact, now that I’m writing about that, I suppose I should really talk to my wife about a strategy for just how much we’ll share online about our child. So honey, when you read this, let’s remember to talk about that, ok?

On that note, but trying to keep a certain level of privacy, we were informed a couple weeks ago that we were no longer able to use a midwife, and will have to switch to a doctor.  I’m bummed out a little about that, and I know my wife is too. Even though where we’re having the baby has a rotation of midwives, and we weren’t guaranteed we’d get ours, I still prefer the midwife experience over the doctor.  I’m hoping that could change yet again, but I have no idea.  I just know that we were more comfortable with a midwife.  To me, that was a big deal.  I’m sure a doctor will deliver the baby just fine, but I have visions of myself having to yell at a doctor.  If you’ve ever seen me yell, a) you are in a very small club, b) you know that me actually angry enough to yell is not a good thing, and c) I’m sorry.  I’m very protective of my family though.  Like I said, I’m sure things will be fine, but I liked the comfort and familiarity we’ve built up with our midwife, and I felt that even if she didn’t make the delivery, that the others would at least be on the same of very similar page. Doctors (to me) don’t seem to have that same rapport, or convey the same sort of feelings. They make it seem very clinical and surgical, instead of natural. 

Anyway, that’s enough rambling on today.

Gardening

This past weekend my brother in law and his girlfriend came over to help get the garden started.  With the wife in her last month of pregnancy, and me with a gimpy foot, it’s been hard to get yard work done on my own.  The BIL’s girlfriend also wanted a place to garden, as they don’t have one, and I gladly would share our space to help alleviate some of the work.  With the baby almost here, I know my available time for yard work is going to go way down. 

So, yesterday we tilled (manually...ugh) half the garden.  A little back story on the garden first though.  When we bought our house last year, the garden hadn’t been touched in years.  It was full of weeds that were well over 6 and 7 feet tall, some of them very woody.  Last year I killed them off, and chopped them down.  This spring I tarped the rest of the garden over to try and kill off whatever was left and attempting to grow. Luckily, we got most of it.  So, back to the tilling.  Luckily, my lazy streak, foot pain, and slight ability to think logically all came together, and instead of tilling all 10x20 some feet of garden, we decided to only do half.  Smart move, considering the soil was basically clay and had been extremely compacted. We hadn’t bought a ton of vegetables, so there was really no need to break our backs doing the whole garden.  After finally getting our roughly 10x 10 (maybe 10x 12?) section tilled, we mixed in 200 lbs of compost and added 400 lbs of top soil.  It barely made a dent in raising the level as high as I would like it, but this is going to be a multi year process.  We planted some zucchini , a couple different varieties of tomatoes, straighneck squash, and finally some red, green, poblano and cayenne peppers.  We then re-tarped the other half of the garden for now. It’s possible that I may till and get it ready for a late summer/fall crop, but I’m not worried about it right now. If that doesn’t happen, there is always next year. 

We also planted some deck boxes of herbs.  Thyme, Dill, Basil (in it's own pot), oregano, rosemary and parsley.  I’m hoping they get enough light sitting where they are, I’ll have to keep an eye on them. Herbs and deck boxes are new to me, so we’ll have to see.

I also planted a spearmint plant along the back of the house. The previous owners were absolutely horrible at landscaping, and taking care of the yard in general. So, the bed that is along the house is half full of rocks, and weeds.  I will clean the rest of the bed out, and I plan on putting in a root barrier and letting the mint proliferate all throughout the beds along the house as decorative plants/ground cover. Mint is obviously also good for cooking, and making Mojitos.

We also have two apple trees in back that my dad and I have been trying to rehabilitate them, as they were never pruned or taking care of.  Hopefully, they’ll produce again, and we can harvest some apples this year. They did produce last year, and since we’re getting them back into shape, I hope we can get some better fruit this year.  In the future, I’d like that add a couple more beds for berries. Raspberries and strawberries for sure, and maybe we’ll attempt something else too. 

All of this work will hopefully pay off.  I’d really like to have the garden, and the rest of the yard producing for when the baby starts growing up.  It’d be nice to have fresh veggies and fruit for her, and also to teach her how to garden, and about self sufficiency.  Plus, it’s another great way to make sure we’re outside, enjoying fresh air, and not watching TV. 

Week 32

Well, we’re winding down.   Just over 8 weeks left.   We’ve started our childbirth prep classes.   We have a breastfeeding class tonight.  That should be interested. They invited us male partners to it. I’m not sure exactly what my role will be for that, aside from generally being supportive.  I suppose that’s what the class is for though, right?  Next week newborn care starts. Pretty excited for that actually. As these ramp up, it means we’re getting that much closer!

We have most of the stuff for the baby’s room now.  Just waiting for the chair to arrive at the store so I can pick it up.  We also need to go get the mattress.  But then I think we should be good. Then it’s on to all the other fun stuff.  

Speaking of which, my wife’s first shower is this weekend.  I’m pretty excited about that, even though I won’t be there. I know that she doesn’t love being the center of attention, but she definitely deserves to be this one time.  You only get one First Baby Shower.  I hope it goes extremely well, and she has fun.  It is all about her and the baby!  I won’t lie, I’m excited to see what stuff we need that we registered for is received.  I mean, that sounds sort of horrible, but really, it’s the only part of this that I get to be involved with (you know, hauling gifts in from the car, putting stuff away, haha!).  Plus we did some pretty in depth research on the stuff we registered for to make sure that it was BPA free, PVC free, etc.   Plus I shouldn’t be allowed to shop for baby stuff.  I roll my eyes when my wife always makes a B line for the baby clothes at Target, but it takes all my strength and effort to not give in to the urges, and go on a baby shopping spree.  It’s probably a really good thing that places like Pacifier, Baby Grand, and Peapods are nowhere close to our house or my work!

Until next week…

Week 29/30

So, yes, I have been slacking. But wait, here are my excuses!!  With work as crazy as it’s been, and with two writing classes, I really haven’t found a lot of free time to keep up. It’s my bad. At least school is almost done!  I take full responsibility. It’s just really hard to find the motivation to keep up with a personal project when so much other time is dedicated to writing projects I paid money (tuition) for.  

So first up, let’s talk about last week.  It was a great, but busy week for baby related things!  We started our Childbirth prep class. It seems like it will be a good class for the next few weeks. Nothing really major so far there though, just some good pointers about what to expect. Most we’ve heard about or read about, but there was enough other information to make it worthwhile also.  I look forward to attending this week. 

On Saturday, we attended a Newborn/infant sleep class.  This class was highly informative.  It mainly dealt with three stages for infants in sleeping related issues. First was 0-3 months.  Basically, it came down to anything goes.  Whatever it takes to get the child to sleep, whether that be constantly holding them, driving them around,  white noise, etc etc etc.  The instructor let us know that there are no bad habits at this point, and nothing that will really need to be corrected in terms of any habits that arise.  The baby for this first period really has no way to self sooth, so it’s all acceptable (as long as it’s safe!)   The second stage was 3-6 months, and they talked about starting to create good habits around the child sleeping ; Schedules, the use of some of the techniques in “The Happiest Baby on the Block” (swaddling, shushing, etc).   The most interesting thing I think this covered is that baby sleep patterns are completely different than adults.  Instead of going into a deep sleep first, and then cycling into a lighter sleep, babies run opposite.  They go light, then deep.  They also taught us how to spot the “Golden Moments” of sleepiness and when to put a child down to sleep.  There are signs that happen before the yawning starts, and sometimes by then it will be too late to get them down for good quality restful sleep.   The 3^rd grouping was from 6 months on, where it was basically stated that if you have reinforced any of the “bad habits”, you need to stop immediately, and in fact may have to do some more heavy duty sleep training to get those habits corrected.   I can go into some of it in more detail, but my wife has our notes.   The instructor, who was a lactation consultant, RN, and midwife was also very enthusiastic about swaddling (if not leaving the child alone) and things like sleep sacks and woombies.   It was a very good class.  I feel like it gave us a number of tools to approach the issue, even though it is different for every child.  And, knowing at what point we need to stop any “bad” sleeping habits to ensure the child sleeps well later on was most important.  It was nice to see that even people with children already were taking the class too. 

So this week we go back for Childbirth Prep.  Should be interesting again I hope.  Even though we’re getting closer and closer,  I’m not getting any more nervous.  I expect that will change as we get even closer, and definitely when we get to the hospital when my wife goes into labor.   It will be down to 10 weeks tomorrow, and I have a feeling that time will fly by.   The instructor at Childbirth Prep stated there was a high likelihood that since my wife is a first time mother that she’ll go past her due date.  We both have a feeling though that since we were both early, that our child will be early.  I think my wife is hoping for it anyway. Not really early, but maybe a week or two.  I think she’s kind of over the pregnancy thing.  Morning (all the time, past the first trimester) sickness, and now borderline gestational diabetes.  Luckily, that’s not too bad (although, don’t tell her that).  She has to watch carbs, but it could be worse. 

Anyway, I’ll report back next week!

27 weeks down, 13 to go.

Between work, school, and taking care of the house, I’ve found it very hard to write anything regarding the baby, or my thoughts.  And from an emotional standpoint, not much has really changed on my end.  I think until the baby is born, or if there is something very exciting going on, I’m going to scale this back (or really, due to the lack of writing, bump this up.)   Since the due date falls on a Tuesday, and I read the weekly updates for “What to Expect…” on Tuesdays, I think that today is the best day to make a weekly update of my own. I’m going to try and hold myself to this, and if I start to slip, please remind me!

The biggest thing that has been going on is that my wife has popped out more, and the baby is getting much larger.  I can actually see my wife’s stomach move as the baby kicks or moves around.  It’s very fascinating.  I can also really feel the baby kick now too. Before it felt like maybe someone was ever so lightly tapping my palm. Now it’s feeling like a full on THUMP!   Sometimes, I wonder if she’s practicing drumming. I secretly hope so.  Although, I’d be afraid she’d be flaky like a drummer than too (I still love you, all my drummer friends!).   I was talking to her yesterday through my wife’s stomach and she kicked me in my face.  I guess that means she heard me.  Hopefully it doesn’t mean she didn’t want to hear me. 

Also, we’re just about down with the baby’s room.  It’s kind of sad, but I can’t wait to finish decorating it.  I think it will all seem that much more real. 

And really, that’s it.  27 weeks down, 13 to go.  Seems like such a long time now.  I feel bad for my wife, considering how much time she spent not feeling well. And now she’s getting to be uncomfortable.  But, we’re very excited to meet her when she arrives.  Even though we have a lot to do still, June can’t come soon enough.

15 weeks to go!

I realize it's been a while. Things have been kind of busy around the old homestead. We did get the crib and dresser for the baby's room about a week ago. I'm hoping (with help) to get her room painted this coming weekend. It would be great to have that project put to bed and done. Then we just need to pull the trigger on a recliner/glider for her room also. Soon, very soon hopefully.

The thing that triggered my need to write today was this. I saw a picture a friend posted of her child, and I got really excited to meet ours. The first thought was, I wanted to get another ultrasound to see what she looks like today. Then I just wanted to meet her face to face. See who she looks like, hold her in my arms. Find out what sort of disposition she has. I really just can't wait to meet her. I'm pretty excited about it. That's really all I've got today. I could go on and on about my hopes and dreams for her, and I'm sure I will, but I don't feel that now is the time. My hopes now are that she is happy and healthy when she is born. Everything else can come after that. Sorry, this one is going to be short today, but since we're getting closer and closer, I feel that there will be more to write. And once the bedroom (nursery) is finished, I'll be sure to post up some pictures of that.

Raising a healthy, safe, well adjusted baby. Where do you make your stand?

So, yes it's been a while. Work and school have kept me super busy, and really I haven't wanted to spend any of my additional free time writing. I've been doing a lot of that for my Writing and Research class. So please forgive the lack of updates lately.

So, what's new you ask? Not a ton actually. Things are going well on the baby front. She is kicking a lot more now my wife says, but she's not big enough to feel it yet. Soon hopefully. I'm actually pretty excited to feel her kick. As the pregnancy progresses, we have been wondering more and more what she's going to be like. It's almost an intangible thought that she is actually going to be a real live person. Someone with her own thoughts, feelings, ideas, likes, dislikes, etc. I'm very excited for it, but I also get a little worried. Am I going to be a good role model? Can I suppress the qualities that I dislike about myself when I'm around her so she turns out better than me? How do I even do that?

Aside from worrying about if we'll be good parents, we did finally manage to go do our baby registry. I think I stress out about shopping for the baby more than other things though. I want to make sure we're getting quality products, that are both safe, and what's best for her. Trying to balance out making sure as many things as possible are organic, natural, BPA, PVC, and Pthalate free and so on. However, trying to then balance that with the best products otherwise, in terms of development for the baby, ease of use for us as busy parents, etc. It's not always easy to have to give in one way or the other. How and where do you draw those lines? I know that we can only do so much, but as a parent it's my job to make those decisions, and it's not easy. I realize that people in my generation grew up in houses that may have still had lead paint, we didn't have to wear helmets or pads when we rode a bike, and smoking was still prevalent. I'm sure the plastics I chewed on as a kid possibly had BPA and god knows what else in them. I look at the health issues I had growing up too. Asthma, allergies, chronic ear infections. If I can ensure that the products our child is exposed to doesn't play a part in those or other issues, than I know I'm doing my job. There are other things I'm worried about too as she gets older. Even though since I've been back in school I've relied on the occasional Taco Bell trip or a stop at Wendy's for dinner, and my wife could only eat Arby's roast beef for the first trimester, I really want to avoid fast food completely once she's born. How does that even jive with all the advertising and peer pressure to go to McDonald's that she's going to have to deal with? I mean, I had a birthday party at McDonald's when I was kid. How will I explain to my child that her father hasn't eating there in years( I did break my McDonald's ban for a Shamrock shake with my wife a few weeks back) and has no plans on ever going there.

Are there answers to these questions? How does everyone else deal with stuff like this?

It's a healthy baby...

What, you thought I'd start off with the sex of the baby first? No.  The check up was great.  Everything was there where it was supposed to be, and the doctor said our baby get's an A for it's first full look via ultrasound.

But, I'm going to have to buy a shotgun.  Because it's a GIRL!!!!!

I need to start preparing for the teenage years now...

Boy or Girl?

So, we're getting awfully close to our next ultrasound where we hopefully find out if we're having a boy or a girl.   As I've previously stated, I really don't have a preference, just as long as it is healthy.  However, finding out what we're having will be a good thing for planning accordingly for what we need, what we want, how we want to decorate, etc.

First, we can pick a name. Without giving things away, we know there are a few girls names that we like, and that we basically have one that we really like. My wife is starting to second guess it, as she found out it's been a more popular name recently.  We'll see how that goes.  On the otherhand, I really hate most boy's names that come up, usually for one of two reasons.  The first being that I know someone with the name that she suggests, and that person wasn't nice to me or my friends, or was just an idiot all around.  The second reason being that the names I don't know someone with that namesake all sound like rich frat boy dude names that 15 years ago would have worn a white hat and wanted to kick my ass for having my hair dyed.   We've slowly been making headway on that front though.  Maybe I'll get there. I don't know. 

Second, we can really hone in on colors for the nursery (of which, by calling it a nursery, I was chastised by a friend.  Even though the definition fits, he still insists it should just be called a bedroom, and that calling it a nursery makes me some sort douche. So, NURSERY).  We know the base color, and the furniture is on order, so it's really just the accents and the bedding.  I found some awesome sheets and bedding if it's a boy, and if it's a girl, there are a lot of choices also.  I've contemplated adding chair rail and molding the NURSERY, but we'll see if I get that ambitious and/or want to spend the extra money for something aesthetic that the baby could care less about. 

We've also decided that once we know the sex, we'd finally go register for baby stuff.  People have been giving us a little grief already, but we're only halfway there!  There is plenty of time people!  I have been thinking about starting to stockpile diapers though.  The unfortunate thing is that Costco doesn't seem to carry any of the organic or natural diapers in bulk. Natural wipes though, so I guess that's a start.  My sister has brought up the fact many times we should start buying a pack once a week when we make a Target run. Not a bad idea at all. 

As a final thought, I'm thinking of trying to convince my wife to just let us announce the sex of the baby on this blog next week.  Yes, it's a push at self promotion and sort of self serving, but I really envisioned this blog as being more of a focal point for our baby story, just told from my point of view.  But obviously, since I link this from my personal facebook page, many comments and such end up there. I'd really like to get more dialog going on this page, and I think this may be the way to do it. At least for a day or so.

What do you think?  Leave your comments here? 

Also, I'd like to know what you all think about the sex of the baby. Boy or girl? 

week 18.

I've been trying to write a letter to the baby today, but it's hard. I get stuck at the first paragraph, because no matter what, I start to write about some of the negative aspects of the pregnancy. And even though I'm quick to assure our future child that it's not their fault, and that it's just how things go sometimes, I really don't want them to even think it has anything to do with them.

My poor wife has gone through so much with this pregnancy, and it just doesn't seem like we can catch a break. Every time things seem to be going well, we get hit with something else that's even worse than the last thing, and totally takes the wind out of our sails that things are finally going to go smoother. I know that nature and pregnancy will do what they want, but my wife deserves a break. I've tried to be the stoic one, and the rock, but I think even I may be starting to crack. I question even writing that here, as she obviously reads this, and passes the link along to her friends and family, but I'm sure she knows I'm starting to wear down. And don't get me wrong, I don't want to disappear, or not help her out, or am changing my mind on having a child. Nothing like those things at all. But I've tried to take every day just a day at a time. It's all we can do. But it's hard to have to watch my wife go through these things, and know that there isn't anything I can do but be there for her. I know that's a lot, but for me, it's still not enough. I'd carry this baby if I could, even for just a day, to give her a break. I'm not a religious person, but I find myself asking the universe to just give her a break, and let us have another full, good week, and to stop dumping more stuff on her.

Ok, my venting is done. Thanks for listening blogger.

P.S. Universe, if you're listening, I haven't asked today, so, can you please give my wife a break? No one deserves it more.

It's been a busy week!

I feel sort of bad for not writing in a week.  Things have been super busy.  I tend not to write on the weekends, as it's one of the few times I get to spend with my wife.  If we're lucky, she might be feeling well, and we get to run errands, or if she's not, I get to run the errands. The rest of this week for me was spent in training during the day, or class at night, with the exception of Wednesday night, which I did get to spend with my wife, even though when I went upstairs to change out of work clothes, I ended up falling asleep on the bed for about an hour.  I hate to mention it, because I know how tired my wife is all the time, but work and school wears me out. My days when I have class are 14-15 hours door to door.  It gets old.

Anyway, we got the date for the next ultrasound.  It should be the appointment that we find out the baby's sex.  Pretty exciting!  As I've stated before, and to anyone that will listen though, I really don't care if it's a boy or a girl. I just want it to be healthy.  And I'm not just saying that.  Life will hand us what it wants, so there's no use in getting worked up or disappointed about something that you really can't control. 

Amazingly I don't really have that much to say about the past week.  Things are moving along and progressing. I just wish my poor wife could feel better more of the time.  I know she misses interaction with people besides me.  I've been able to sneak out once or twice to hang with friends, and we've had a couple friends come visit us, but for the most part, that's few and far between. We had one time we were able to meet our friends for coffee and pastries, but so far just once.  Hopefully that will change soon.  I have a feeling though, as sad as it is, we won't see our childless friends nearly as much through the rest of the pregnancy and once the baby is born.  It seems to be the way things go.  Of course, maybe this means we'll become better friends with the people we know that have kids.  Who knows though?  Time will tell.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Let's Talk About Feelings (but not in a Lagwagon sort of way)

First, just for the record, I'm not a Lagwagon fan.  Joey Cape's voice always rubbed me the wrong way when everyone else loved Lagwagon. Let's move on.

My wife said I should start talking more on this blog about my feelings on becoming a parent.  It's been sort of hard to do though, because aside from being excited (duh), I haven't really thought about the rest of it to it's full extent.  It's just not something I've really been able to think about.  Not in a "Stoic, I'm a man, and I keep my feelings bottled up" sort of way and just don't want to discuss that sort of thing.  But I really haven't had anything more than fleeting thoughts on if I'm going to be a good parent, or what type of parent will I be, or anything of that nature.  It just hasn't really been something that popped up until today. Don't get me wrong, I do think about that stuff, but it's for very brief, 30 second periods.  Let me try and flesh this out a little more.

There are two things in my life I felt like I had a chance at being good at. The first was loving my wife/being her husband.   I won't go into the complete backstory, because I think all 3 of you that read this know it.  But basically, I knew from early on that I would always love her, and I could be good to her.  I felt that she could do those same things for me also.  I never have had doubts about her, and because of that, she ruined me for anyone else, all the while ensuring that I'd still be here when she finally came back around 11 years later. (Quick backstory for those of you that don't know. My wife and I dated when we were teenagers. We dated for most of a summer, and then she moved away. We tried to keep it going, but she dumped me for some dude after a couple months. I was devastated, she went out with hiking boy. fast forward over a decade, we reconnect, start dating again, get married, and now I'm writing this blog.  Child of ours, if you read this, someday we'll tell you the full story if you haven't heard it, or aren't sick of it by that time.)  My point is, I knew that loving her was something I felt that I would be good at.  It just came naturally, and I couldn't help it.  Whether or not I actually AM good at it is up to her though.

The other thing I felt I had a fighting chance at being good at was a parent. I don't know why. I've just always felt that urge to be one, and that I wouldn't completely muck it up. I've always felt that I could do it.  Maybe it's because I spent so much of my Jr. High and High School years watching and taking care of my younger sisters.  Maybe I'm just delusional. Maybe it's something that all of us feel, so that we ensure we mate and carry on the human race.  Or maybe it's because I'm still a kid at heart. I still get excited about Legos.  I don't know why I felt it really, I just have. And I haven't explored it that much.  For me to think I'm actually good at anything is huge for me, so I guess I just left it alone because of that. 

So, why am I writing about this today?  Well, oddly enough, it was because I read a list about the best and worst movies of 2011.  After reading the list, I felt the need to add the movies to our Netflix list  that I hadn't seen or were not currently in our queue.  Somehow that act alone reminded me of a movie that I had seen, but had forgotten most of.  The movie was "Diggers" and starred Paul Rudd (my wife likes to call him my man-crush. Seriously though, who doesn't love Paul Rudd??) .  But I'm not sure why that movie was important and triggered my contemplation at all. For whatever reason, It made me ask myself "what sort of parent will I be?  Will I be a good parent? "  I never have the answers to them.  I hope that the answers will be "a good one" and "yes".  But I can't possibly be qualified to answer those yet. Or ever. I feel like that's a decision that will be made by the child, and the world in general when dealing with that child throughout it's life.

The funny thing is, I have a hard time worrying about what will happen in my personal life. (This is funny because I make a living worrying about the worst things that could happen, and then planning for them).  I don't feel like I can significantly change certain things.  I can hope our baby will be born healthy, and I can support my wife and try to make sure that she stays healthy and happy to give our baby the best chance of being healthy. However, if something were to not be perfect, there's nothing else I can do about it, so I don't worry about whether our baby is going to have all it's fingers/toes/organs/whatever.  I can't get worked up about the what if's, because those aren't in my hands. I've done what I can do.  The same goes for not worrying for more than a minute or two at a time about what sort of parent I'll be.  I won't know, and can't know until the baby is born.  I feel that with my sisters, I have some decent background at taking care of children.  I know that I didn't do everything, or face a lot of the challenges that I will, but at least I feel like I'm not stepping into the unknown. And that gives me solace. 

My wife asks me if she'll be a good parent.  I always tell her yes, and I know in my heart she will be.  She'll love that baby with every ounce she has.  And while loving someone may not make you the best parent, or spouse, I know that she is. If she wasn't, we wouldn't be having a baby together.  I guess that's another reason I don't fret over it too much. I know that I have the best partner I could to grow old and raise a family with.  And that is all I need to know right now.

long, but productive weekend. (NOW W/ PICS)

Welcome back to the working week people!  I'm sure you're all happy to be back.  Lots of good stuff happened this weekend, let's get to it, shall we?

First up, Saturday, my wife and I decided to go do some shopping and get some stuff out of the way.  My wife is still not eating everything she wants to, and had at first opted to grab lunch at her go to pregnancy spot for food, Arby's.  Now, that's not to say she especially loves Arby's or anything. Normally, we're not fast food eaters.  But whatever it is about a plain Arby's Roast Beef sandwich, she's able to eat it and it doesn't cause any nausea.  She pretty much was only able to eat those through the first trimester though, and I can’t imagine she’ll ever want to eat Arby’s again, let alone drive past one.  But I’m getting off topic.  My original point was that we opted to try something she hadn’t had since pre-pregnancy. We ended up at a Noodles and Company (yes, still fast food sort of, but whatever…) and she was able to get something there.  Just the ability to eat anything but Arby’s and plain toast is awesome.  It definitely opens up some possibilities for at home meals too.

After lunch, we headed over to the baby store in the same neighborhood.  We wanted to check out a couple different brands of furniture, mainly Baby’s Dream and Young America.  We also wanted to test drive the Cortina stroller by Chicco (which is apparently pronounced “KEY-CO” not “CHEEK-O” like I had assumed).  We played with dressers and cribs, and checked on build quality and materials, and opted to go with the Young America brand.  Not only are they independently tested for safety, but they also use non-toxic paint and materials, and have a very low off-gassing rate.  They’re certified by Greenguard, which is a big deal for me.  Air quality and non-toxic materials are a big deal for me. I’d like my child to be as healthy as possible, and  I’d really like my child to avoid the asthma I had as a child.  I got plenty of time playing sports and running around and riding my bike, but for long sustained activities that my friends could do, it always put me at a disadvantage. And worse than that, I hated my two different inhalers. With a passion. If this can help our child at all avoid some of that, I’ll be happy.  Anyway, back to the story at hand.  We checked the pricing on the Young America furniture we liked, and even though it was on sale, I had a price quote from a local furniture store that also had it on sale over the weekend, and they beat the baby store by about 70 bucks.  However, the baby store had the Infant car seat and stroller travel system even cheaper than I could find it anywhere online, so we did leave the baby store with a travel system.  We made a quick detour home to drop off the travel system and headed over to the furniture store.

Once at the furniture store, we were instantly pounced on by a sales rep. We pulled the “just looking” shtick,  and wandered around the recliners and tried a couple out, as we’ll need a recliner or glider for the nursery.  Recliners are NOT going to work for my wife, unless she were to stick a stool under her feet, as she’s supposed to be able to have support of her legs while nursing. She’s NOT tall, so her feet tend to dangle.  This makes an interesting conundrum, as I am sort of tall. There’s about a foot difference between the two of us, so this chair thing will be interesting finding something that works and is comfortable for both of us.  Why me?  Because I don’t expect her to be the only one to get up and feed the baby.  A couple people have looked at me funny when I mention that, which I don’t understand. This is 2012 right? We’re not still relying on old gender stereotypes are we?  True, I don’t have breasts (at least not that can feed a baby), but that’s what pumps are for.  Look, I’m off track again… Ok, focus, focus, got it.  So, we wandered back to the baby furniture. I had emailed a sales rep on Friday about their sale prices, and stock, and we knew they didn’t have the exact model we wanted on the sales floor, but we had seen it at the baby store. So, with our hovering sales associate mere feet away, I approached her, and asked if she could direct me to the sales associate I had emailed with.  She did, and wandered off in sort of a huff. I think we must have looked like people with a purpose, even though I had tried to get her to leave us alone previously. So our sales rep came over, and he was very nice, knowledgeable and helpful. Everything a lot of them aren’t.  Amazing. So we had some discussions about colors, etc, but came to an agreement on which set we wanted.  We’re very happy with it, and it should last baby until baby heads off to college.  So, we ordered the Crib (which converts to a toddler bed, and a full size eventually) and matching dresser.  That was a big load off our chest. (EDIT: My wife asked that I add pics of what we got.  Please note, the dresser we ordered in the same color as the crib, I just couldn't find it online.)

After that, we headed over to my wife’s parents house to discuss childcare.  We had discussed it between ourselves, and we really wanted them to watch the baby when we have to go back to work.  There a number of reasons for this, but first and foremost, we trust them.  Not that I’m sure there aren’t trustworthy daycares out there. I know there are. I know people that have done or do daycare.  But family is usually ideal. Another huge factor for us, is that my wife didn’t really have much of a relationship with her grandparents, and she really wants our child to have one with it’s grandparents.  Both our sets of parents live here, so it makes it easy in theory.  Also, I had a very good and close relationship with my grandparents growing up. I know that my grandparents being there for us isn’t something everyone gets, and it was invaluable.  So, we sat them down and asked if they would consider it.  They said they’d think about it, and we headed home.

On Sunday, we met up with some good friends of ours that just had a baby this past spring. We used to live a lot closer to them, but we moved about 25 minutes away when we bought our house, and now it seems like we never see anyone. So it was great to see them, and their son.  We had coffee and pastries (well, everyone but my wife. No coffee for her!), and then headed back to their place.  They had a bunch of stuff their son had outgrown already, and were extremely nice and gave it to us. It’s wonderful, because it definitely saved us from having to purchase more stuff. It’s kind of funny how eager people are to offer us infant clothes though.  My boss had given us a bag also. It should help, because we don’t know what we’re having yet, and we now have a bag of boys/non-specific clothing, and a bag of girls too.  After that, my wife was pretty wiped out from the weekend. We went home, and she napped.  Her parents called last night, and gave us their answer.  They will watch baby for the first year! Huge weight off our chests.

So, all in all a very good, productive weekend.  Hope yours was too!

SQUIRREL!!!

So, I haven't really spent much time with you lately dear readers, but honestly, nothing very exciting has been going to discuss. I can only beat the same few topics to death so much, and then it's just not interesting for me to write about, and definitely not very interesting for you to read about. I know that I'm basically writing this more for me than anything, and maybe the baby will get a kick out of it someday too see what it's dad was thinking about before it was born. Who knows. It's actually just sort of cathartic for me to write, as I have so few male friends with kids. So I'll recap the events of the past week or so.
Earlier this week, we went in to check on some things with the baby. My wife was having a rough time, and we were worried. They did an ultrasound, and the baby looks good, and I posted a picture of it. I'll assume you read the post, or you can check it out after this one.

I've been doing some more research and I think we've finally settled on a travel system to meet our stroller and car seat needs. I think we'll go with the Chicco Cortina stroller and the Chicco Keyfit 30 infant seat. The keyfit is highly rated by most of the baby sites and consumer guides I checked against as being a very good, and very safe car seat. The stroller I want to check out again, as I didn't play around with it too much, but it was rated as one of the better strollers for tall people (like myself.) The other well rated one was the Uppababy Vista. It was a nice stroller, but MSRP is around 600, and locally or online I can't find it cheaper than 479 from a reputable dealer. Took a look on craigslist too, but nothing really out there. As much as I was just about sold on it (it is a very nice, well optioned, well made stroller) justifying that much money for a stroller was a hard sell to the wife, and when I really thought about it, it is unnecessary. I just want something safe, easy to use, and durable that works with the car seat we want. We can get the whole Chicco travel system for less than the stroller. I'm still talking myself out of it, can't you tell? I really do like shiny things...

The research has moved on to Baby furniture. I think I found something I like even more than the last brand that I found that I liked, and my wife isn't going to be happy about it. However, it's on sale over this weekend at a local furniture dealer, so it puts it into what I consider reasonable range for furniture that should last into the college years. My wife is the tough sell however. She's in control of the money, for good reason. If she wasn't, I'd be buying all the expensive, shiny stuff that isn't necessary. But it's just so shiny...

On a completely different, personal note, when I didn't have anything to write here earlier this week, I posted a new short/micro story on my writing blog. You can find the link to your right. It's a little dark, and I promise you not everything I write is. In fact, that form of the story was inspired by the band Of Monsters and Men from Iceland, and their song "Little Talks" which has been stuck in my head for weeks. That is until this morning, when "TV Party" by Black Flag found it's way in.

As a sort of related piece to the writing blog (the link to the right!) I added a last minute class to my course load for my final semester of this degree program. Although it's not a requirement, it does fill a transfer requirement that I need to do in order to complete the degree I'd like to get after this. Anyway, I'm rambling on, so the new class I added was Creative Writing. Maybe it will help me become a better writer. I'm taking another writing class, Writing and Research, but that class is actually required for my degree. Between those, maybe I'll be able to focus my writing more. Or maybe not. Hey, what's that shiny thing over there...

We saw the baby move!

So today we had to go to the doctor. We had sort of a rough few days over the weekend, and they just wanted to check things out. The good news is though, we got to see the baby move on the ultrasound! Saw it's little legs kick, and arms move! Everything is good for now, but it's still a little scary. My wife is a trooper though. This definitely hasn't been easy (although, I've never heard any of my friends who have been pregnant say it was easy), but it seems like sometimes she can't catch a break and just have things go a little easier. We'll get there hopefully. Everyone says they felt better during their 2nd trimester, hopefully that catches up to her soon. She deserves it. I'll keep today short and sweet, and leave you with a picture of baby Falb that we got today. It's not the clearest, but you can make out the head, eyes, nose, ears and mouth! I mean seriously, look at it's little nose!