Divergence

A Family Man post

I'm past that fork in the road, now. You know the one I mean -- stay to the left and work for the man, make some money, spend it on toys and me; take the ramp to the right and head off into the uncharted wilds of parenthood to seek my fortune and fame, or at least a decent anti-fungal cream. I've always been kind of partial to right turns, so I figured, what the hey, hey?

For a while, "pregnant" was just this abstract thing "we" were. Meg was glowing a little, feeling a little queezy in the morning sometimes, but basically, life was life. Sure, we talked almost non-stop about the kid, made plans, performed open-heart surgery on the house, but it was all very abstract in a way that a chortling, drooling, pooping baby isn't.

As Meg got bigger with the growing baby and we could start to feel it move, things got a little more real. I started saying things like, "Hey, I'm a dad!" or occasionally wondering just how, exactly, I was planning on taking care of the little alien that Meg and I had created. But it was kind of like going from reading about anatomy to poking at a plastic model. It was a step forward, but a small one.

Later, I (sort of) lost my job ("All right," I worried to myself, "now my kid will have a dead-beat dad!") and we went to birthing classes that were somewhere between fascinating and a complete waste of an evening. On one hand, there we were, talking about what's happening to us (mostly to Meg, but some to me, too) and what we can expect, and on the other hand, we watched three videos each with the main message of, "You baby grows in your womb and relies on you to care for it even now." But then, right before the last class, Meg went into pre-term labor.

There's nothing quite like rushing to the hospital at 33 weeks with your wife squeezing your hand through yet another contraction to boot you out of the classroom and into the real world.

This part of the parenthood trip is a little wierd in my memory: We were in the hospital three times before Meg gave birth. I feel like I can remember with almost complete clarity any nanosecond of that time, but unless I focus, it's all just a blur, rushing past the window at a good three percent of the speed of light. There's Meg, lying on the bed in the observation and triage room in the O.B. department glaring at the second nurse trying to start an IV in her arm. "Look," she growled at the nurse, "I don't care if you you have to root around. Put that thing in me because I'm feeling dizzy." While the nurse chases a vein, sweat beads up on Meg's forehead, she starts panting, and from across the room, I watch the numbers on her blood pressure monitor plummet. There's Jan, one of the OB nurses on duty later that night, fluffing all the pillows on Meg's bed while she's in the bathroom. There we are, at the hospital again, two days later, for round two of pre-term labor. This time, though, I know more of what's going on. Meg and I can monitor the baby ourselves and tell that he or she is doing just fine, no matter how crappy Meg is feeling from the Terbutaline. I know where the toaster and the ice machine are. Most importantly, I know to stay away from the banana cream pie on Meg's tray.

After the second visit, it's bed rest time. The doc wanted Meg to make it to 36 weeks so the kid could be delivered at the hospital in town rather than making a chopper flight to the regional neonatal unit. So Meg came home and planted herself on the couch, and every time I went past her on my way to some chore or another, I'd give her a peck on the cheek or bring her a glass of water.

Then bed rest is done and Meg's back to work. For almost two days. Then it's back to the hospital with false labor. *Sigh.* Back to work.

Finally, the call came: "HONEY?!? I need to go to the hospital again."

This time, we start in the triage and observation room, but after about an hour there, they move us to a birthing room. We decided that was a good sign. I'll tell you, after three trips to the hospital, we were not ready to go home without a kid again.

Meg got in the hottub and soaked in 105-degree water while I fluttered around the room fidgiting with the stuff we brought. Krista came over and was the other third of the support team for Meg and the Kid.

For a while, things were just kinda of hanging out. I mean, Meg was dialating, and fairly quickly, too, but everything felt reasonably calm. She was content in the tub, the doc was sewing a costume for her kid's upcoming musical, and we had our best friend with us to help with stuff. Yeah, and then Meg went into transition.

There's Meg, laying on her side, face wrinkled and purple from not breathing, eyes slammed shut, pushing as hard as she can only to have the baby slide backward at the end of each push. Then the kid's heart rate starts to get wonky from pressure on the umbilical cord. I go into my crisis mode where everything slows down and focuses in until the rest of the world goes away unless I need it to follow an order. Push, baby; you're doing awsome!

There I am with my hands on the kid's hairy, slimy, bloody head, pulling him out into the world. "Hey, baby, we've got a little guy here," I say, amazed, as I lay Alden on Meg's chest.

In the time since Alden was born, there are plenty of other moments seared into my memory. The thing that's still sinking in, though, and that I imagine will take way more time, is that I'm a dad, a papa, a parent to this incredible little person, and nothing will ever change that. That's just cool, crazy, scary, exciting... Wow!

By the way...

There are new photos of the kid up.

Push vs. pull

I'd like to try to make a strong effort to keep friends and family in the loop with what's going on in our lives via some form of regular electronic communication. I say "try" rather than "will" because I, like you, can look backward at the posts in this blog and see just how regular I've been.

Alphebetical constipation not withstanding, I have a question: would you rather

• monitor this or another blog,
• get an e-mail notification that we've updated something, or
• be part of a mailing list that gets hit maybe once a week or so?

Or do you really just not give a rip about what's going on here since you were just surfing by and have no clue who the hell we are?

New job

Yesterday, I sold more than a thousand dollars worth of paint and supplies. I think I'm pretty good, actually, at the retail thing. It's a good thing I'm getting out.

That's right, I've got a real job again! I'm officially the new computer lacky for the Bayfield County Information Services office. I get to go be a troll with Dag and Paul.

I feel a little like I'm getting in over me head. After all, a lot of my computer experience has come from just puttering on my home computers. On the other hand, that puttering has taken the form of building a complete home network with distributed printers, multiple OSs, wired and wireless connections, and will soon feature a meadi server hooked to the entertainment center. So maybe it's just pre-new job nerves.