Diapers Have Fronts and Backs?

My first night alone with Sydney ended with my wife arriving home to find two dirty diapers on the coffee table and her daughter dressed in only her diaper and half an onesie.

But at least Sydney was alive. I’m pretty certain Brooke was concerned that might not be the case.

She attended a wedding on her own. It was not that we couldn’t find a babysitter.  I wasn’t invited. One of her friends tried to be conservative with the guest list in order to control costs and I did not make the cut.

A lesser man would be offended by this. But you have to realize, inherently, I am a lazy person. If given the choice between dressing up, sitting through a long church service, talking to people I do not know and dancing to Celine Dion or lying on the couch watching ESPN in shorts and a t-shirt, I think you know what will get my check mark every time.

So I became the babysitter. Although when it is your kid, you really can’t call it babysitting. In fact, it is a little insulting to dads. Nobody ever says a mom is babysitting. We dads are considered a bit incompetent when it comes to caring for our own children, so we are placed on the same level as babysitters.

A lesser man would be offended by this.

The night started uneventful, with Sydney sleeping for a couple of hours. But then it was feeding time.  Brooke had pumped ahead of time, so I was ready. I’ve been doing a few feedings here and there for weeks, so this part of the night went smoothly.

But then, a bit of trouble. I checked her diaper and there was some nastiness down there. Up until this point, Brooke had been the primary diaper changer in our house. She doesn’t have a lot of patience for fools, and if she sees I am not so good at something, she just takes it on herself. Why teach a man to fish? My diaper duty pretty much ended the day I put one on backwards. I did not even know there were fronts and backs to diapers!

Now, alone by myself, the pressure was on. I managed to put this one on frontwards, but when I went to tape the sides together, I pulled the tape right off the diaper. Strike one. I grabbed a second diaper, lined it up right, gently pulled the tape and managed to get everything right. Except, when I lifted her up, it sagged deeply.  Not tight enough. Oh well, why waste another diaper? Let’s roll with it.

About an hour later, that became a big mistake. I heard a rumbling that turned into an explosion. I scrambled to contain it, hugging the sides tight to her body so nothing spilled out. I actually did ok. But I made sure the next diaper fit her like a Kim Kardashian sweater. Tight.   

My wife is deeply involved in my daughter’s bowel movements. The doctors tell us this is a way to ensure the baby is eating right…count the bowel movements. Take a look at them to see the texture and color. No thanks, doc. Sounds like a job for the wife. So, to assist Brooke with her mission, I left both diapers open, sitting on the coffee table. The only one happy with this was the dogs, who got to sniff a new smell for the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, in between two diaper changes, I had to take on and off her clothes. Most days, Sydney doesn’t even leave the house. Why does she even need clothes? Sydney doesn’t like socks. She kicks them off. She doesn’t like pants either. Well, her dad doesn’t. He doesn’t have the patience to put them on and take them off. Her legs are always getting caught up in them, especially those pajamas with footies in them. So, I made an executive decision and the socks and pants were ditched. Then, I unbuttoned the onesie at the bottom and pushed it above her waist to give me easier access to check the diapers. She essentially sat around in a diaper and a t-shirt the rest of the night. This would not make my wife happy. But who cares? She was sipping wine, eating wedding cake and dancing to Celine Dion.  

By the way, my wife called twice in six hours to check on me. Like I said, there’s not a lot of faith there. A lesser man would be offended. One of her calls came while Sydney was in the middle of what would be a two-hour crying jag. I practically hung up on her. I’m sure that inspired confidence, but I was a little stressed. No time for niceties.

In fact, that crying jag was the worst part of the night. My solution to these things is to move Sydney from position to position until she is comfortable and quits crying. I’ll hold her like a football, put her over my shoulder, cradle her, set her down flat, prop her up….anything to get the crying to stop. Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to find a comfortable position that night. She basically cried until she ALMOST fell asleep.

Oh, yes….sleep. My job was to keep her up until her late-night feeding, at about 11 p.m. We’ve discovered she sleeps better at night if we keep her up from her dinner feeding until her late-night feeding. This is not as easy as it sounds. You could stand four feet apart and throw her back and forth like a basketball and she could sleep through it. I have even used an ice cube to help keep her awake. It only works half the time. When a baby is tired, a baby sleeps.

So, keeping her awake was one of my jobs that night. Mission accomplished…thanks to my singing, my making her dance and my doing many other things that annoyed her enough to keep her crying because I wouldn't let her sleep.

So Brooke came home to find that her baby was not only alive, but awake. As ordered. Did I get a thank you? Heck no. She was more concerned with the dirty diapers on the coffee table and the lack of clothing on our daughter.

A lesser man would have been offended.

My Wife Says My Posts Are Too Long

Q. What do these have in common?

-- A British Petroleum station
-- A recently fueled Hummer
-- A long-haul trucker
-- My wife
-- My wife’s daughter

A.    They are all full of gas!!!!

Almost Too Tired to Post About Being Tired

I’ve heard of sleep walking. Last night, I witnessed sleep breastfeeding.

It’s quite the story. But first, background on where we are:

Everyone told us lack of sleep is an issue with a newborn.  But until you experience the bleary-eyed, zombie-like reality of it, you have no idea what havoc a screaming child will wreak on your life. (I use “screaming” when I describe her actions instead of crying because I really don’t see a lot of tears coming during one of her “fits.” What I do see is a lot of tonsil. This child could put Axl Rose to shame.)

Since when does one celebrate getting four hours of sleep in a night? Since Sydney Grace Gregg came into the world.

In the hospital, we wanted to be super parents. The first night, they highly recommended she go to the nursery because of the long labor we’d been through. That was fine. But the next night, we wanted her in the room with us. One, because we wanted to be with her and two, because we knew we had to get used to nights with her.

Well, about midnight, she made a bit of a gurgling noise and I looked over to see her choking. I jumped up and grabbed her and noticed she was beet red and trying to scream but nothing was coming out. I turned her to her side and cleared her airway as she gasped for breath. The doctors later told us she probably was choking on amniotic fluid.

That was all we needed to confirm we’d need eyes on her 24-7. We did not sleep the rest of the night or into the next day. Now, by the next night, we were exhausted. She was awake and crying. NOT a good combination. If I did not have a shaved head, I would have pulled my hair out.

We finally gave up and sent her to the nursery. So much for super parents. Only one night into it and I had already abandoned my daughter.  So far, my parenting skills are on par with Britney Spears.

Our first night home was our first night without a safety net. The baby was up until 6:30 a.m. The next night was ok, but the third night, she was up until 7 a.m. It is not that she didn’t sleep, but she would go to bed at about 11 or midnight, wake up at 2 a.m. or so and stay up until the morning.

And this is not “up” and looking around curiously wondering what is happening with the world. This is “up” and doing her impersonation of a fire engine siren. There are periods of calmness, but most of it is screaming. My daughter has not yet grasped the concept that she can be awake and happy, or simply awake and silent. If she is awake, she is generally conditioning her lungs for a career as an opera singer. She is either sleeping, eating or screaming.

I attribute this all to gas bubbles. I have noticed her quietly trying to fall asleep when, all of the sudden, her face contorts like Joe Cocker and her body starts writhing like a scene from The Exorcist. This inevitably culminates in a scream. Then, a couple minutes later, she is back to normal. Sometimes, in between, she burps or passes gas. I have to believe her fits are the result of gas wreaking havoc on her tiny digestive system. We are now using baby gas drops from Walgreen’s.

These late nights have made her mom and dad walking zombies. I crave sleep like Charlie Sheen craves high-end prostitutes. Does anyone know a good meth dealer? I’ve been working as needed the past two weeks and I have shown up at the office with bloodshot eyes and a strong desire to crawl under my desk for a George Costanza-like nap.

We’ve heard the quality advice: sleep when she sleeps. Easier said than done. There are a lot of things that need to be done around here. For example, this damn blog. I was up until 3 a.m. last night and then had to give a talk to foster parents this morning. I am so tired right now I can barely find the energy to post about how tired I am.

My poor wife has it worse than me. Even though I wake up for the breastfeeding, she actually does it. I can help position the pillows and keep Sydney awake, but honestly, I find myself falling back to sleep during some of those late-night feedings. Brooke must endure, although even she will admit to dozing off in the middle sometimes.

But nothing was as bad as what I witnessed last night. We finally got Sydney down at about 3 a.m. and I fell into a pretty deep sleep. But something stirred me at 4:30 a.m. I woke to find my wife sitting straight up next to me, her breast in her hand, ready for feeding time. She was awake, but not moving.

I looked in Sydney’s direction and noticed she was sitting in her perch as quiet as can be, still sleeping. Befuddled, I said, “Honey, what are you doing?” She looked at me, looked down at herself then looked over at a sleeping Sydney. She sighed, dropped her boob and sunk down into the bed for more shuteye. Never said a word.

I remained befuddled. I wanted to know what the hell was going on, but, to be honest, I was just too tired to investigate. I rolled over and closed my eyes.

Random Observations About Sydney

All of my posts are about my personal life, but I try to make them topical so they appeal to all through the experiences we share as we travel through life. Like yesterday’s post on breastfeeding. Or picking a baby name. Or life in the delivery room. These are personal experiences, but we all experience them, so you can read what I am going through and identify with my situation.

Rarely do I do a totally personal post. So, indulge me. As my baby grows, I will make this a regular contribution.

Observations about my little girl:

• She absolutely has my chin. I have a distinct cleft chin that sinks deeply right below the lip. It is not an attribute I particularly like about myself, but it is confirmation that she is mine! That was always up for debate.
• She is a snorter. Her tiny nostrils can’t handle her rage. When she gets excited and throws a fit, she snorts. We have nicknamed her Snorty Magee.
• She has black hair. Both Brooke and I were blonde when we were children, so this was a bit of a surprise.
• Her eyes look Asian. This seems to fade a bit every day, but, with the dark hair and eyes, I might need to get a DNA test…if not for the chin.
• She is very serious. She get s a look of consternation on her face several times a day, especially when she is eating. Her dad is kind of a clown, so maybe she is taking a different approach to life.
• She is a fighter. She fights herself awake and fights herself to sleep. Her clenched fists and arms pump like Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime.
• She is strong. I honestly don’t know if she is strong compared to other babies, but she is much stronger than I thought a baby would be. She will push things away with force.
• She is squirmy, like a worm on the end of a hook. She looks like she is having an epilectic fit when she wakes up.
• She likes to get her hair washed. It soothes her.
• She also sucks things to soothe herself. If not feeding, she sucks her fingers. I want nothing to do with a pacifier but it looks like she has other ideas.
• She likes the sound of the vacuum cleaner. We discovered this by accident while cleaning. It calms her. I have a feeling we will pull this out when we are desperate to stop a crying fit. Maybe I can even get Brooke to do more cleaning.
• She hates to get dressed and undressed. This always results in screaming.
• She hates socks. Kicks them off every time.
• She prefers the left breast to the right breast. I will attribute this to me.
• She is gassy. I will attribute this to her mother.

Can I buy Stock in Nipple Cream?

There are certain jobs in life I do not have any desire to do: window washer on skyscrapers, port-o-potty cleaner, janitor in a porno theater, to name a few.

Not that I could ever do it, but breastfeeder also would be on the list.

This is hard work.

The doctors told us we should feed every three hours. That amounts to eight feedings a day. Babies sleep most of the day. Thus, we are constantly waking her to feed her. Make sense? To me, that is kind of like waking someone to give them a sleeping pill. Believe me, this child has lungs like an Olympic swimmer. If she is hungry, she will scream it loud!

But my wife wants to do this parenting by the book. She is deathly afraid of our daughter not getting the nutrition she needs. So we feed every three hours.

The doctors also told us one half hour on each breast is an optimal feeding. Do the math here. If you feed every three hours and a feeding takes one hour, you only have two hours in between.

To top it all off, my wife has to pump to get her “milk in.” That’s what they call it. Pumping takes 15 minutes and there’s another fifteen minutes or more of burping, getting things together, putting things away, etc. When it is all said and done, one breastfeeding event could take two hours.

Breastfeeding every three hours. Each feeding could take two hours. You getting the picture?

Don’t get me wrong, I value breastfeeding. It is best for the child and it will save me money. But I recognize it is a tremendous chore. Sydney never makes it easy. She is always angry about being wakened, and she is strong enough to squirm and push and claw her way through the feeding. My poor wife.

I don’t have milk-producing breasts, so of course I am forced to relax and watch television while all of this is going on.  

No, seriously, I do all I can to help. I wake up with her, get her all the pillows she needs to be comfortable and play with or talk to Sydney to keep her awake during the feeding. Yes, she tends to fall asleep in the middle of the feeding. This happens when you wake someone from a deep sleep and shove a gallon of milk down their throat. So I am constantly pumping her arms or tickling her feet to make sure she keeps sucking. That’s me, Daddy Court Jester.

I also have taken on the role of Chief Burper. I am not sure I am good at this, because Sydney inevitably has more gas 15 minutes after I burp her. But I do get a few loud ones out of her. A few that would make Roseanne Barr proud.

While I am burping, my wife is pumping. Not only does she have a child sucking on her for a half hour, a machine then vacuums her nipples for the few remaining drops. We have invested in a bucket of nipple cream.

If there is one thing this pregnancy has opened my eyes to, it is how difficult it is to be a mom. We dads get to burp them a little, bounce them on our knee, maybe throw them a ball. Moms spend their first year or so as a designated feedbag with an 8-pound squirming, crying, rooting little piglet attached to their nipple.

I’d rather take a shot at cleaning those port-o-potties.     

Meeting Sydney: Both Parents were Bloody in the Delivery Room

When doctors told us we would have to go the c-section route, one of us was unhappy. And it was not the one whose body was about to be sliced open like a biology-class frog.

Brooke had been trying to have the baby for so long, she was ecstatic at anything that would make it happen, even if it meant she would go under the knife.

I, on the other hand, am a risk-adverse person. No mountain climbing or sky diving for me. I plan to die the old-fashioned way: eating too much and having a heart attack.

A trip under the knife scared me. But the doctors said that was really our only option. Sydney was content to stay in for awhile and her head was in a position where she needed to come out. I had always thought my daughter would come late, but, when Brooke was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, the option of a late delivery disappeared. Sydney had to come out on time.

Well, she had other ideas. Because of her stubbornness, her mom would now pay the price of major surgery.

I squeezed into my scrubs as they whisked Brooke away to prepare her. When I arrived in the room, she was already lying on a table with a curtain blocking her view of her lower half.

Look, I was MAJOR afraid. I don’t care how many times they tell you c-sections are routine, when it is your wife lying on the table with her life on the line, it is one of the scariest things you will ever experience. My heart pounded like a jack hammer.

I positioned myself near Brooke’s head so I could talk to her through the surgery. I was determined not to look down. It is not that I couldn’t handle it. As a reporter, I once sat through a whole autopsy, watching the coroner slice a man’s belly open, pull and weigh the organs, saw the brain out for examination, etc. It had little effect on me.

(Turns out the poor bloke had an aneurysm burst in his stomach while trying to grunt out a difficult bowel movement. He immediately keeled right over and died on the bathroom floor. You think that doesn’t go through my head every time I am struggling with constipation? Be careful in there! No need to hurry.)   

It was impossible not to notice what was going on out of the corner of my eye. It was like a scene from MASH. Scalpels were flying through the air as they rapidly sliced away, pushing organs around to get better access to my baby. Plastic lines moved blood and other fluids to and from my wife’s body. Three different surgeons worked furiously, with a team of nurses surrounding them, carrying out various duties.

I tried to avoid looking afraid. I wanted to make sure my wife was calm and knew everything would be ok. Her main concern was the baby – “Can you see her yet?” My main concern was my wife living through this surgery.

Soon, she emerged. A purplish little blob appeared in the corner of my eye. Even with all the concern I had for my wife, I could not help myself but stand up and walk over to see her. It was as if all the commotion in the room stopped for a minute. I was totally focused on her. The nurses grabbed her and moved her over to an area where they could clean her up. She was coated with a dry, white pasty substance that they rubbed off. I watched in amazement as she wiggled in their hands.

Someone said her color was good.  I’m not sure what else was said. I quickly scanned to make sure all her body parts were right. Ten fingers and toes. She was beautiful.

I cradled her for the first time. I can’t tell you what went through my mind. It was one of those moments where you are almost thoughtless, you just react. I have never believed in love at first sight. That changed in that moment.

I raced over to Brooke with the baby in my arms. Brooke’s smile was a mile wide. This was the moment she had waited for all her life. Her baby. I was happier for her than I was for me. We both had tears in our eyes as we enjoyed our first ever family moment.

Sydney Grace Gregg. Eight pounds even. Twenty one and a half inches long. Born at 3:31 p.m. on August 30. My precious baby.

The nurses gave us a minute, but then had to take her away for some tests and things. I handed her over and then buckled down to get Brooke through the rest of the surgery. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the doctors sewing stitches into her. Brooke kept saying she was sleepy and could barely stay awake. In my mind, I thought this was like a concussion and I couldn’t let her sleep because she might not wake up. I kept saying, “Honey, you have to stay awake.” At one point, one of the doctors said it was ok for her to sleep, that this was pretty common in c-sections. Still, Brooke’s strength was amazing. She managed to stay awake until the end.

She did get sick and start puking. I immediately lost it. I thought she was dying. My blood pressure shot up 100 points in ten seconds. I have said it before…I can’t do this without Brooke. The thought of parenting Sydney without my wife…I can’t even think of living without her, let alone parenting without her. We are one.

A nurse whisked me away. She gave me tissues to wipe my eyes, but when I removed my mask to wipe, my nose gushed blood. A serious blood-pressure spike. I had to walk out of the room to clean myself up, still worried my wife was dying. What a drama queen. My wife is having major surgery and I interrupt it with my own attention-grabbing moment.

We both survived.  Those doctors and nurses do incredible work and they took tremendous care of both of us, as well as our baby. Back in the recovery room, we got to spend as much time as we wanted with Sydney.

We are blessed.  

A friend of mine said that children increase your span of emotions. He said you’ll experience higher highs, lower lows, greater fears, more intense pride, etc. then you have ever felt before.

Based on my experience in that delivery room, I already know he is right.

She's Having My Baby...from a Land Down Under

I know most of my regulars read for the humor. I’ve decided to break up my ramblings on the delivery of my baby into two posts; one will be funny and the other will be serious. You decide which is which…..

When we showed up at 6 a.m. for our inducement, my wife was placed on a Hill-Rom bed. I used to be a Public Relations manager at Hill-Rom. I took it as a good omen.

I went to work for Hill-Rom, which is out in bum-fuck Indiana, in 2003 with the promise of huge bonuses. The company had hit its bonus numbers something like 35 out of the previous 38 years and its bonus structure would have paid me as much as 36 percent of my annual pay in one check. Some people pay cash for a new car with their bonus checks, I was told. While I could have bought a Hyundai, I was thinking more along the lines of a deluxe hot tub, with a built in television so I could soak my muscles in style.

But shortly after I got there, the structure was changed and I could not earn that much. Then, the company went in the tank and in my few years there, we did not hit bonus once. To top it all off, gas went up to about $4.50 a gallon and my hour-long commute each way sucked up a good portion of my paycheck. Another example of great timing by Brian.

So I quit.

But I always had great respect for their products. Until inducement day. The bed did not work properly and my wife's big day was starting on a bad note. Five years after I quit, Hill-Rom managed to stick it to me again.

That was the start of a 33-hour odyssey. When I first arrived at the hospital, I saw a man in the hallway who looked like Nick Nolte after a wild night of drinking. His eyes were red, his face unshaven and his hair wild. He could have been on a three-day bender for all I knew, but since he was on the labor floor, I figured him for a dad who had just been through a delivery that was the equivalent of a snake-mongoose fight.

Little did I know, I would soon be in his hospital scrubs.   

My wife was given some strong drugs to start dilation and then contractions. One doctor told her she could begin labor as soon as three hours later. Sure. And Snooki could someday be president. One friend who had been down this road told me to “pitch a tent,” that inducements take awhile. I could have parked an RV.

I’ll never experience contractions, but they tell me they hurt. My wife seemed to think so. I think her description was, “It feels like someone is trying to shove a baseball bat out of my anus.” She said something else about a “ring of fire.” I’m not a sexist, but some days I thank God I am a man.

So you can imagine what it’s like to spend a whole day and nearly half of another trying to bring on the contractions that will result in a child emerging from your birth canal. I was reduced to feeding my wife ice chips (she can have cup after cup of ice chips, but not a few sips of water? What sense does that make?) while it seemed like the whole world had unfettered access to my wife’s vagina. Doctors. Nurses. Janitorial staff. MY MOM! They even brought college students in for awhile to study on her. My wife’s body became the equivalent of a field trip.

I tried to keep her entertained. Our baby was scheduled to be born on Michael Jackson’s birthday, so I sang Michael Jackson songs. I even moonwalked to Billie Jean. Brooke did not smile. Sydney did not emerge.

When the King of Pop’s birthday faded from possibility, I began crooning Paul Anka’s “She’s Having my Baby.” In another testament to our age difference, Brooke had never heard the song and did not know Paul Anka. Sigh.

Finally, at a friend’s suggestion, I turned my voice to the Australian band Men at Work’s Land Down Under. After all, our daughter would be named Sydney, which happens to be the most famous city in Australia and she was, indeed, “coming from a land down under.” Or so we thought.

All the while, my wife is in what she calls tremendous pain. However, our nurse corrects her. “What you are feeling is discomfort. Pain is when it hurts so bad you are willing to cut off another body part to make it go away.” Ouch.

Speaking of nurses, we had a tremendous one. Nurse Nicole held our hand through the whole process. She and my wife shared a love of Aussie Country music star Keith Urban, and when Nicole showed Brooke a picture of him from a recent concert she attended, I swear the monitor hooked up to my baby’s heartbeat raced. Great. Well, at least he’s from the Land Down Under.

Nurse Nicole spent much of her time trying to determine my wife’s dilation level. Ten means you are ready to have the baby. Brooke spent hours and hours at levels two and three. How do they determine dilation level? Well, it involves placing your hand in the mother’s vagina. Like I said, we became quite close to Nurse Nicole. We spent so much time together, we became Facebook friends when it was all over. Seriously.

A little aside on nurses: First, after walking through the hospital for five straight days, I can tell you most of them are hot. If I had known about this back in my early 20s, I would have made sure I suffered more softball and basketball injuries that necessitated trips to the hospital. Instead, I spent my time at banks, which was not so bad. But it is no wonder so many porn movies contain nurses. Nurses and teachers are the female versions of pool guys and pizza delivery boys in porn. If one shows up, you know the action is about to start.

Second, nurses do ALL the work when it comes to delivery. The doctor shows up at the end and takes credit, but the nurses put in the sweat and tears. It’s kind of like Ashton Kutcher riding Charlie Sheen’s coattails to Two and Half Men success. The doctors get the Porsches and country club memberships, while the nurses get a paycheck that can buy a few Grand Slams at Denny’s. Where is the fairness in this world?

So, with Nicole’s help, we trudged through day one. After hours of the dilation drug that they shoved at my wife's cervix, they threw in Pitocin to start contractions. It became a long, painful process that I mercifully watched from the comfort of my nearby hospital chair with ice chips at the ready.

Eventually, they gave my wife an epidural. I’m not sure if they thought she was close (if they did, that was a serious miscalculation) or if they just felt sorry for her. But she took to that epidural like she was Yogi Bear and it was a pick-ahh-nick basket.

If she was Yogi, I was her Boo Boo. I was in total agreement on the epidural. I didn’t care if it might start her down the drug-addicted path taken by the likes of Amy Winehouse or Anna Nicole Smith. It wasn’t that the pain was making her mean. I just wanted to clear that baseball-bat-out-of-the-anus picture from my mind and that would only happen when she was under the peaceful control of some powerful drugs.

As day one wound down, it was clear birth was not happening. Sydney was stuck. Remember how I told you my wife had a huge head? Well, it was becoming clear my daughter had inherited her mother’s noggin.

By early evening, they decided to let her rest into day two. Under the influence of an epidural, she was ok with that. I got the feeling she was in a Bob Marley-state. She would have been ok with anything. Ya, Man!

That meant I had the pleasure of sleeping over at the hospital. Luckily, there was a Hill-Rom chair in the room that niftily folded out into a bed. It was an engineering miracle. It was also a step down in comfort from those old army cots that used to be standard issue as temporary beds.

Thanks, Hill-Rom. You win again.