It's All Good in the Parenthood Part 4

     Our final day at the hospital finally arrives. Trevor is healthy and is ready to head home as is Danielle. However before we check out, I have to go down to the car with the "car seat specialist" so she can make sure our car seat is properly installed before we can leave with the baby.  My wife and mother in law had installed the seat one day while I was at work so I didn't really have the joy of installing it myself. Let's be honest, installing these seats is a pain in the ass. You're leaning in your hot car, sweating, trying to get the straps secure while reading the horrible fucking directions and the whole time you have the pressure of if you aren't installing it correctly, your baby could die. Yeah it's no fun. The seat was installed correctly except for one thing. We have a carrier that snaps into the base of the car seat. The specialist informs me to have the handle of the carrier up so it can act as a roll bar in case of an accident. Well that's certainly good to know. Let's hope I never have to test that theory out. 

     We also have to wait for what seems like 10 different doctors to stop by our room before we can leave. We wait for the pediatrician, the anesthesiologist because Danielles leg is still numb from the epidural, the vagina doctor, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Dr. Huxtable, and so on and so forth. Finally after the final doctor leaves, we are cleared for take off. Which is good because it was a beautiful spring day and the sun was shining into our room and heating it up like an oven. To make matters worse, the AC wasn't ready to be turned on yet. Yeah it's time to go home.

     I take our belongings down to the car. A few minutes later I pull the car up to pick up my wife and baby who have been brought down in a wheel chair by a nurse. My wife decides to drive and I sit in the back with Trevor and he sleeps the whole way home. As we pull out of the hospital, I don't think I've ever been so happy to go home. All in all though with exception of the horrible sleep I got, our experience at the hospital was pretty good. The nurses were very helpful and were always there if we needed anything or had any questions. Pretty much anytime Trevor would cry, a nurse would come in and check to make sure everything was okay. That's a really good thing up until you get home and then you are on your own.

     We get home and it's exciting. Everyone who hasn't seen the baby makes their way over to see our new addition. At the time I was happy to have everyone over to show him off but afterwards I regretted it. We had just gotten home and probably should have just rested and had company over the following day. Oh well, live and learn. Once everyone leaves Trevor decides it's time to scream. Danielle tries to feed him but he won't latch on. He just keeps crying. We take turns asking each other what he may want or what we should do. It was horrible. It was a rude awakening that this was it. You're parents now and there is no nurse to bail you out. Eventually he finally calms down and order is restored. That was a rough night and thankfully there hasn't been one as bad since.

     It's hard to believe that it has been almost 5 months since Trevor was born. Time was flying before he was here and now it seems to be going even faster. I'm not sure when he stopped looking like a newborn but now when I see one all I can think is "wow I remember Trevor being that small". Now he is smiling and laughing and even just rolled over for the first time about 2 weeks ago. Before I know it he will be heading off to college(hopefully) and writing his own sub par blog. 

                                That's the last time he will smile while wearing a Browns jersey.

     Parenting is going to be and has been an adventure. I look forward to seeing how Trevor turns out in life and hope that my wife and I do all we can to make him a decent human being who is loving and caring because the world is seems to be lacking those kinds of people nowadays. There isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't make me laugh or smile, and whenever I am stressed or having a shitty day I can pull out my phone and look a a picture of his smiling face and all is right with the world. For him, I'd sleep on a fucking chair bed any day.

It's All Good in the Parenthood Part 3

               Holding newborns has always scared me. So pretty much anytime I was asked if I wanted to hold a baby, I declined. I always envisioned myself dropping or hurting it in someway. Chances are that if you have to say "Dude, I'm really sorry I dropped your baby" to your friend well you're probably not going to be friends anymore. So when it came time for me to finally hold Trevor for the first time, let's just say I was incredibly nervous. How nervous exactly? I'll let the picture below speak for itself.

                                       

               As you can clearly see, I'm uncomfortable. However the longer I hold him, The more comfortable I got and my fear turned into pure amazement. I'm  amazed by the fact that I'm now a father and that this baby I now hold is part me and part my wife Danielle.

               I only get to hold him for a few minutes however as the nurse tells me if we have any visitors that they can come in and see the baby. So I make my way out to the lobby to get my family who are preparing to leave because the baby didn't sprint out of the womb like he was Usain Bolt. 

               This is where I feel bad again for Danielle. She had just pushed for 2 hours and I'm sure the last thing she wants is visitors. But she is a sport and even though she is in a world of hurt she is still genuinely happy to see everyone. They all take turns holding the baby and take their leave, A different nurse arrives and gives Trevor a much needed bath. While she is in the middle of bathing Trevor and showing me how to do it, Danielle's family arrives. They spend some time holding Trevor and taking pictures. Some of which my wife are in and she looks like she just went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. 

                Just as they finish taking pictures, a nurse comes in and informs us that we are being moved to a new room. I gather our belongings and head a few rooms down from the room we were in and to my surprise, it's smaller, much smaller, and not as luxurious as the room we were in before. It was like going from staying in a Hilton to a Motel 6. There was no couch but a chair next to the hospital bed. 

                So I set our stuff down and head to the chair to test it out because I figured I was going to have to sit in that thing and somehow sleep. It had to be better than that miserable couch. The first thing I notice about said chair is that it is pretty beat up and the cushions were quite worn. It also had a kinda body odor scent to it. As I'm inspecting the chair my wife comes in the room in a wheel chair being pushed by the nurse. The nurse sees me looking at the chair and tells me that it pulls out into a bed. Of course it does!! After she said that, I knew this was going to be another long night. 

                I help my wife into bed and we decide it's time to eat and take advantage of hospital room service. As I said in the first post. The fathers kinda get shafted. The rules for ordering hospital room service for the mother are pretty simple. Anything they want is free. However for us dads the first 2 meals are free. After that they are $5.00. Are you kidding me? I mean hospital food isn't that great but even prison inmates get at least 1 meal a day. I've even heard that depending on hospital the father only gets 1 free meal. The jokes on them however because I somehow got 3 free meals so take that Hitler of hospital food.

                Now up until this point I had always remembered babies being put in a nursery with other babies but I guess times have changed because they now stay in the room with you. In a way I think this is better in the long run. Mother and baby get to spend more time together. Also decreases the chances of bringing home the wrong kid. The nurse wheels Trevor into our room shortly after we finish eating and we decide it's time to catch some sleep. It takes me 10 minutes to figure out how to Optimus Prime my chair into a bed. Finally I figure it out and throw my pillow and blanket on it and laid down. I toss and turn for a half an hour. By this time my wife is already fast asleep and so is Trevor. My chair bed felt like laying on a wood pallet. I couldn't believe I actually started to miss that couch and so wished we still had our original room back. Somehow my lack of sleep and the days events soon catch up with me and I finally fall asleep on that fucking chair bed. 

4th and final part of this story coming soon. Thanks for reading!!

It's All Good in the Parenthood Part 2

            Before I jump right back into my story I just want to say that initially this wasn't meant to be a multi part post but as I was writing part 1 I just kind of kept going and next thing I know I have a pretty decent size post and with still more of my story to tell I decided it was best to just stop and make a part 2. I was nervous that it might be too long and that no one would read it. So thanks again to those of you who have. The amount of views I have been getting on this blog is amazing and I hope you've all enjoyed what you've been reading. Okay enough about you, back to me.

                 I somehow mange to get a couple hours sleep and awaken to the sound of the doctor talking to my wife and going over the game plan for the day. After the doctor leaves I ask my wife how she slept and her reply was that she hadn't slept but for an hour or so. I totally understood why she hadn't with the nurses coming in and out all night and thinking about having to deliver a baby. My wife also wants me to point out that during the time I managed to sleep I apparently snored. Also her contractions were starting to pick up. I get up off or should I say roll off my mattress which by this time I'm certain is a giant rock taken from Stonehenge. My back is sore, my ribs are sore, and I'm starving. I was smart and packed some snacks to bring just in case. I brought a couple apples, Cheez its (Is crack an ingredient in those things because good god are they amazing), gummy bears and a bottle of water. However eating what I brought is not as easy as it sounds because my wife can't eat a thing. The only thing she is allowed to have is ice chips. Mmmm sounds delicious right? I'm sure the ice chips were like heaven since it was all she could have and I doubt any woman who has been through the same thing has walked in a restaurant and ordered ice chips.

WAITER : Here are our specials tonight. Fresh Wild Caught Alaskan Salmon served with a side of asparagus and a chef salad, pork chops served with your choice of two sides, and Ice Chips served in a styrofoam cup.

MOTHER AT A RESTAURANT: Ice Chips!!!

              I eat the Cheez its and felt guilty the whole time. Hey a guys gotta eat. Oh and I forgot she was also allowed popsicles. Anywho I can tell that she is really starting to feel these contractions now so I decide to go and stand by her side and let her squeeze the shit out of my hand every time one came around. I wanted to be supportive and also make up for devouring Cheez its in front of her. She finally decides she is ready for the epidural. The nurse informs me that once the anesthesiologist arrives to give my wife the epidural I will have to wait out in the lobby. So I help my wife through several more contractions and then the anesthesiologist finally arrives and I take my leave. The nurse tells me it should take about a half hour or so. I hated to have to leave her side but didn't really have a choice. I make my way out to the lobby and wait......and wait... It was by this time over a half an hour so with each passing minute I start to worry more and more. No one has come out to get me. My phone rings and on the other end is my wife who sounds more relaxed then she had been in days. She tells me it's ok to come back and say the nurses couldn't find me. A few minutes after I get back to our room my  wife falls asleep.

                I get a call on my phone from my parents who are on their way up to wait for the baby to arrive. I figure since the wife is out cold I could ask my parents to pick me up something to eat. They show up 20 minutes later with Schlotzsky's. I just sit down and start to eat when my wife wakes up. BUSTED! She was actually okay with it. She knew I needed real food. What a wife. Still I felt guilty.

                 I had just finished eating when the doctor arrives to check my wife's progress. It's time to push. I had a hard time realizing that this was it. It all seemed so surreal. It was now just a matter time before we met our son. I asked what I could do and took my place at my wife's side. My job was to hold her head up as she pushed, give her a cool rag on her head when she wanted it, and give her some of those fucking ice chips when she wanted. 

                I told myself I wasn't going to look. The crown of our sons head was starting to show. My legs hurt from standing and I was getting light headed from holding my breath and pushing when my wife pushed. I'm really lucky I didn't shit myself. In between pushes, I go and grab my drink which is on the other side of the room, As I'm walking by I do exactly what I did not want to do and could not help but do, I look. I won't go in to detail because my wife asked me not to and also because I've just become able to sleep at night again but it was bad. Like horror movie bad. Ugh ok moving on.

               My wife pushed for two hours. My phone went off for two hours with texts asking if the baby was here yet. If I didn't text you than he wasn't here yet. I guess some people thought our baby was just going to torpedo out of the womb and into the world. It's okay, they were excited. 

               Then finally it came down to the last few pushes and boom there he was and I believe the first words out of my mouth were "oh shit!" It's crazy, the whole thing. I had so many emotions and thoughts going through my head as he appeared. I will say that as he was pulled out he looked like an alien. All grey and emotionless and he wasn't moving. I started to worry and looked at my wife to see how she was doing. That's when I heard him cry. I felt a lot better and laughed as did my wife a bit. I counted his fingers and toes and told my wife "five fingers and toes"................."on each hand and foot" . I had almost forgotten to say the each hand and foot part.

              Ok so once again I sat down to write a little and ended up writing more than I had planned. I promise that in part 3 I will get back to the couch and why I ended up missing it. There is still more to come so I hope you stick with me for part 3. Eventually I will get to the parenthood part too. Thanks for reading.

                                     Part 3 coming soon!!!!
              

It's All Good in the Parenthood part 1

               "I'm pregnant!" When those words are spoken by a woman  they will stop a man dead in his tracks. As it did me. Don't get me wrong. I had a feeling but still when my wife told me, I was in complete shock. A happy kind of shock. Okay well more happy and then shock and then reality set in and I was scared. I questioned if I was really ready for the responsibility of being a father. The answer became pretty fucking obvious. YES! I had to be. There really wasn't a choice. This is what we both wanted and now that I knew what was coming, I had nine months to prepare for it.

                As an expecting father you learn a few things during those nine months. Like not to let your pregnant wife go grocery shopping alone. Partially because they shouldn't be carrying groceries by themselves from the car to the house for safety purposes but also because $200 will be spent on junk food. "Hey honey! I see a bag of cheese puffs, Doritos, Ice Cream, Powdered Donuts, and a lot of chocolate but is there anything for dinner this week?............oh and did you know there is a half eaten  Chic-fil-a sandwich in one of these bags?" That only happened once and that was because I was working. After that I made sure I went with her even though nothing makes me hate humanity more than grocery shopping. But that is a whole nother blog post.                        

               Another lesson I learned was that a pregnant woman will have mood swings and that can sometimes result in her saying things in a way that she may not normally say them. I'll use an example. "Can you please do the dishes?" Will turn into "Are you going to do the dishes or are we gonna live like hillbillies for the next nine months?" If you are smart, you will just do the dishes and be done with it. A smart ass retort will result in a verbal beat down. Hey you wouldn't get in a cage with a lion while wearing a suit made of steaks would you? Just do the dishes and don't say a word.  

              My wife wasn't as moody as mentioned above and I learned right away to be as supportive as I could possibly be. I didn't want to be the "you did this to me!" Guy. I can completely understand being moody, sore all over, tired, and hungry for junk food. I mean after all there is a human being growing in there. A man will definitely have a new found respect for a woman once he sees them carry and deliver a child. At least he better.

           Hospitals do a great job at making  the expecting mother as comfortable as they possibly can. Well that was our experience. For the father however, it's a whole different world. The hospital don't care about us. As it should be. We aren't the ones who carried the baby for nine months, we don't have to give birth to them, and we don't have to endure all of the healing afterwards. So if you are a female reading this, understand that I'm not trying make light of all that you go through during pregnancy. It really is a miracle. This is just to give an idea to what an expecting father goes through during this time. 

            We had to get induced. So we went on a Thursday night to check in. A nurse takes us to a huge room with wood floors, a tv in a nice wooden cabinet, a decent looking couch, and a hospital bed. I've stayed in hotel rooms that looked worse than this room did. The nurse has my wife fill out some paper work and has her slip into one of those fugly gowns. I take a seat at the couch which the nurse had told me I could pull out into a bed to sleep on. A different nurse comes in and hooks a monitor up to my wife that will track our sons heartbeat. It's cool to hear your child's heartbeat while it's still in the womb. However after about 20 minutes it is grating. The worst part about these monitors is that when the baby moves and the monitor can't pick up the heartbeat as well a nurse has to come in and find it again. She moves it around my wife's belly while it makes a noise like turning on a microphone and running your hand over it. 

              This game of hide and seek goes on all night about about every 20-25 minutes. Making it near impossible for  neither my wife or I to sleep. As it turns out my couch didn't really pull out into a bed. It pulled up a bit and the seat flipped to reveal a mattress. Not just any mattress but what would turn out to be the hardest mattress in all of Recorded history. Homeless people would turn this mattress down it was so firm but as it turns out as you'll soon see in part two of this multi part blog post. I'm going to end up missing that couch. Like I said before, it's a whole different world for the dad. 

Part 2 coming soon

We got a curry kind of love

                   Before I start this post I just want thank those of you who have taken the time out to read my blog. I really appreciate it. I hope you've enjoyed what you've read so far. If you keep reading them, I'll keep writing them.

                  A year ago this past Saturday (Aug 3rd) I married my beautiful wife Danielle. Whom I wrote a little bit about in my previous post. Hard to believe it's been a year already. I guess time does fly when you're having fun......or becoming expecting parents, buying a house, and then having a baby and raising him. We took 3 of life's biggest moments and jam packed them into a 12 month cluster fuck. We made it through though and are still going strong (take that Vegas odds!) 1 year down and many more to go.

                  For some couples the first year of marriage is filled with adjustments and getting use to the things your significant other does or how they do them. That is why I am a huge believer in living together before you take the plunge. Think of marriage as a swimming pool and you stick your foot in to test the water before you go all the way in. If the water is just right then you are good to go however by not testing it out and just diving right in, the pool could be ice cold and of course you are gonna jump right the fuck out before your balls freeze off and are bobbing up and down in the water like they are attached to someones fishing line (that is assuming if you the reader have balls in which case if you don't you are gonna get out regardless). It just makes the whole transition to married life easier. There is already enough to adjust to once you are married that getting use to your partner shitting with the door open shouldn't be added to it. Sure your religion or family may frown upon it but I say fuck it, live in a den of sin and test the water. It may not work for everyone but I can definitely say it worked for us.

                 One of the things my wife has opened me up to is Indian food. I've asked myself several times why I haven't discovered it sooner. Fuck is it good. For our anniversary my wife and I had dinner at a traditional Indian restaurant called Cafe Tandoor. Now before this dinner date the only Indian food I had eaten was the stuff we would buy at Giant Eagle made by Kitchens of India. Even the store bought stuff is good. I suggest giving it a try with the Kitchens of India stuff first and if you like it then you gotta go to Cafe Tandoor or a traditional Indian restaurant. The flavors are so good and so different. You just can't get it in any other type of food. Give it a try. I think you will enjoy it.