6 posts tagged “baby”

Dear Logan Boy, 

What can I say about you?  You came into this world and were so happy.  For 4 weeks, you only cried when you were wet or hungry.  You would sit around and observe your world, stare at your daddy's face, and make cute little noises.  Then, something happened.  This weekend you decided this new world isn't so grand.  That there are places you like.  You like being held, but only if we are holding you right and constantly entertaining you.  You quickly learned the fastest way to get that is to cry.  Oh, and cry you do.  

Now, when you are awake, your mother yearns and cherishes those few moments of silence that you give her.  I have noticed those moments are rare this week, Logan boy.  Still, I am hopeful.  I know that one-day, when you are a grown man, I will have the opportunity to repay you for the acts of brutality you are carrying out on me and your mother.  I'm not quite sure what it will be yet, but I know it will involve me refusing to let you do anything but pay attention to me.  Of course, I must sneak in the very brief moments of letting you think I am actually going to let you accomplish something, right before I crush that hope by grabbing your attention again.  It may seem cruel, but you reap what you sow.

I know you are still very young, and they say you don't know what you are doing.  Still, I can't help but feel this is a deliberate and coordinated attempt at driving your mother and I insane.  Alas, your efforts will fail.  Your mother and I are already adjusting to your new demeanor.  Just yesterday, I observed your mother cleaning as you lie in your sister's bed and continued to scream.  This was something she wouldn't have done with your sister, but this time, we are learning that we are going to have to let you cry sometimes to get anything accomplished.  So, it was a valiant attempt, little Logan, but your efforts will fail.  

I do want to thank you for still sleeping good and only waking up once a night.  That at least gives us the time to get mentally recharged for another day of the screaming.  You're still a good baby, Logan.  Your mother and I still love you.  Ignore the moans.  Ignore the tears.  Ignore the sighs of frustration.   You are still our angel, and we wouldn't trade you for any other kid in the world.

With love,
Your Father

The third night at home with Logan has come and gone. So far he is sleeping better than I am. Last night he only woke up at 2AM and 6AM. Unfortunately, I only slept an hour between those times. Part of the problem is he is a noisy baby. Not noisy in a fussy sense, but he makes some weird noises that my daughter did not. First, he occasionally snorts (or does something that sounds like a snort) when he is breathing. We ask the people at the hospital about this and they said it was normal. It occurs randomly, so it tends to startle someone who is trying to fall asleep. I am still getting used to it. Second, he squeaks. Apparently this is a family thing. My mom said I did the same thing. She said a woman heard me at the hospital and said I sounded like a mouse.

Noisy Logan wasn’t the only issue though. I got worked up because I had to go back to work today. Honestly, I was so stressed out last night about not getting enough sleep and being tired at work that I didn’t get enough sleep and will be tired at work. How’s that for irony? I remember the exhaustion we experienced with Grace. Our bed time was around 8:30 or 9:00 PM when our daughter was a newborn. You had to go to bed that early to assure you got a decent sleep between the feedings and changings. Even though my wife breast feeds (which makes me pretty useless come feeding time), I still wake up when the baby cries. With Grace I eventually got to a point where I would sleep through entire feedings, which isn’t a fact I am necessarily proud of, but it happened. I remember one morning I was excited because I thought Grace had slept through the night. Apparently the only person that slept through the night was me.

Hopefully this won’t make me sound horrible. I am a lucky man. Jennifer wants me to sleep because she knows I have to go to work the next morning, but I am not so sure this is the best way to handle things this time around. When Grace was our only kid, I knew Jennifer could just stay in bed and sleep while I got up and went to work, and she did. Grace slept fairly well as a newborn, so it worked. Having two kids makes this situation trickier. Grace is going to wake up between 7 and 8 AM no matter what Logan does the night before. We are going to have to get into a new rhythm this time around, because we need to make sure both of us are getting the rest we need. The trick will be finding the balance so that neither one of us is constantly exhausted.

We can’t really work on this yet, because we only ordered a breast pump the day before we went to the hospital.  Since my boobs don’t produce milk (last time I checked), Jennifer is flying solo with feedings until that gets here.  Hopefully Logan will have settled into a routine by the time the pump is here.

I've finally got around to posting some pictures of Logan.  The last few days have been crazy, as you can imagine.  The story of the birth will be forthcoming.  I find typing up events like this helps me move the details into my long term memory.  So it is likely to be long and sappy.  For now, here are the pictures:

Hello everyone.  I am typing this message from a public computer in a library, because last night around 1:30 AM, my wife's water broke.  Logan was born this morning at 4:34 AM, weighted 7 lbs 11.5 oz and was 19 1/4 in long.  Both mother and baby are doing great.  I'll post pictures of the baby and more details when I have more time.  Just wanted to make this annoucement to the world.  MY SON IS HERE!!! 

I’ll get the exciting news out of the way first.  Our son will be born on January 26, 2007, assuming he doesn’t decide to come early. 

When people hear we are doing a repeat c-section, they react differently.  Some people think it is smart and safe.  Those are the people that understand the risks.  Then there are the people that have other things to say about it.  These typically come from women that have had children naturally.  The far worst comment Jennifer got was when she recently got her haircut.  The woman cutting her hair, to the shock of everyone in earshot, told my wife she needed to “push that baby out her vagina.”  Apparently, another employee apologized to my wife for the lady’s comment.  I personally hope the woman is no longer employed, but that is probably just the protective husband in me talking.

The alternative to a c-section is called a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After C-section).  The doctor made a couple of points about doing a VBAC.  First, there is a 20-40% chance of a c-section needing to be performed anyway.  Secondly, there was a small (but real) risk of Jennifer’s uterus rupturing and that would endanger her life as well as the life of the baby.  The doctor clearly wanted us to do a repeat c-section, but was also very clear in that it was our choice and we could do whatever we wanted.  We researched it for a few weeks and once we determined that a repeat c-section involved less risk than a VBAC, we felt the choice was clear.  It would have been easy to let emotion dictate what we did, but we decided to base the decision on facts.

The worst part of a c-section is how some women treat women who have had them.  I’ve come to the conclusion that women don't have much business complaining about how competitive and macho men are.  We are macho over dumb stuff.  Who can throw the ball the farthest?  Who’s the fastest? Who’s got the biggest penis?  But the way you women get macho about childbirth beats anything I’ve ever seen.  You brag about how hard and long your labors were.  You brag about how easy it was to squeeze the baby out your enormous vagina.  You brag about how you didn’t get the epidural. You brag about the pain, the tearing, the bleeding, and anything else you can think of that was unpleasant about the experience. And then you tell woman that undergo major surgery that they did it the "easy way”.  I know I am generalizing here, and maybe we just meet all the wrong people, but this comes from a man that is sick and tired of hearing about how c-sections are the “easy way”.  It wasn’t easy on my wife, it wasn’t easy for me and it wasn’t an easy decision to decide to repeat it.  I don’t believe c-sections are more difficult then natural birth.  I think both are hard and it depends on the situation as to which is tougher, but it doesn't matter.  No one should feel like more or less of a woman because of the situation they had to endure to bring their child into this world.  What matters in the end is that the baby and mother are healthy.  The road that gets you there isn’t important.

New Years Day is almost over.  My wife and I are not really the New Years Eve party types.  Generally, I am too busy snoring and saturating my pillow in drool around 12 AM to care that another day has passed.  Still, we do have a New Years tradition of staying up until 12 AM and watching the ball drop while discussing how we can't believe Dick Clark is still alive.  That almost feels cruel now though, considering he had that stroke.  Still, the conversation inevitably occurs.  My wife is convinced he's had plastic surgery, but she's a glass half empty type. I prefer to think he just found a way to stop aging.

DickClark

Oh, and speaking of balls dropping, my wife is entering the last weeks of her pregnancy, so my son should be here in just a few weeks!  Jennifer is starting to drive me a little nutty though.  She is obsessing about all this stuff that apparently needs to get done before the baby gets here.  I told her today to stop stressing about all of it because it will still be here after the baby is born.  I told her to start making a list of all the stuff that needs to get done.  Then, when her mom gets here, burst into tears about how there was so much stuff to do before the baby got here and how you didn't have time to get all of it done and how you have no idea how you will ever get it done with two kids to deal with (three if you count me).  When her mom ask how she can help, hand her the list.  Problem solved.