His original due date was December 27th. After some issues (not to the baby but with fluids, etc.) his date was moved to December 14th. After another appointment, only five days later, his date was moved to December 7th, which would have been considered full term. That freaked us out. There was so much to do! It's been a scramble!
Well, December 1st my wife had another appointment. She called me at 4:00 pm. I was at school prepping materials for NEXT week's substitute teacher. Then she let me know...... The baby was coming that night! He was healthy, but his fluids were low. I froze... not sure what to do exactly.
Jen told me all this calmly, but with a "please get home" tone in her voice. Her mom was with her. She flew in to help get the house ready and make some meals.... She was jazzed!! I could hear her on the other ned of the phone... very excited.
Me.... Scared. Not of the baby or of him being healthy. Just scared, like I was before my wedding, but with far less time to prepare. The moment I had been preparing for was here.... All of a sudden. I almost cried, sucked it up, and went to find my principal, whom I had told an hour earlier nothing had changed in the schedule of the baby.
I threw together my emergency sub plan and headed home, writing an apology on the board and promising to return and allow them to finish glazing their clay projects. My wife had called our friends and they were getting the dog from day care for us. She was in day care because our contractor friend was sanding the drywall in the basement. He called me and asked if I could pick up some mud....I couldn't. The whirlwind had begun.
The night before I had just started reading a short cliff notes-style dad book full of quick tips and info. I stopped at the page with the checklist for the hospital, vowing to put that stuff together the next night... Which I did, but much faster that I originally thought.
We pulled ourselves together in a movie-like frantic montage. Picture the scene in home alone when they wake up late for the airport, but a little calmer... But not by much. We got the the hospital and checked in. The information came in fast and in large amounts.
We went to a monitoring room where my wife became part of the Borg being hooked up to a million machines. They went through information about what was happening like the guy who used to do the Micro Machine commercials... really quick. I did not catch any of it, hardly. I knew there was a C section in the future and that I would have a new baby at some point. Jen would need a spinal tap and I would put on scrubs and then follow someone to somewhere and then I would have a baby...
All that wouldn't be so nerve wracking if I had maybe learned to change a diaper, or hold a baby, or how to feed them, or anything about babies at all. It was all happening, though, and I needed to be ready. My wife needed me to be ready. My son needed me to be ready. So I switched my mindset and decided I had nothing but time after he came to figure it out. I also am lucky and blessed to have friends and some family around that are more than willing to help. Thinking about that really helped me feel much calmer. It takes a village.....
After the took my wife away for her spinal tap (turn in to 11!), I got in my scrubs and paced, waiting for someone to com get me. It felt like forever. It felt like the moment after you ask a girl out and are waiting for their reply... it wasn't that long, but felt like a long time. I was finally brought into the operating room, where there were like 20 people moving around, a big sheet covering my wife's lower half, and my wonderful, beautiful, tough wife, lying there doing her best as they tugged on her numb lower half. I held her hand and rubbed her shoulder.
And then... My son entered the world...as they announced it, but he wasn't really moving. He was pale. He wasn't making any noise. They brought him right over to a warmer and began helping him get some oxygen. They discussed things in quiet tones and we couldn't hear what was happening. All we could do was see him 10 feet away, struggling. Time froze. I am almost crying now thinking of it, but at the time I think I just held my breath. I must have. I don't know how else I passed those moments. I squeezed my wife's hand and rubbed her shoulder and watched and waited in, yet another, brief moment in time that felt like forever. Finally, he let out a brief cry, but it was the best cry ever. It let us know he was alive and well and ready for the world. My wife shed some well deserved tears of joy and relief. I just felt like the world was okay again.
I won't go into details about the next night and day and feeding and all the other fun stuff. Each experience is unique, I'm sure. I was unprepared, but I feel like I'm getting it. Make no mistake, if you are a guy reading this, your responsibilities are very different from Mom's. What I noticed immediately and have become quite okay with, is that my allegiance is with mom. I love my baby with all my heart and soul, but my job right now is to make sure mom is good so that she can take care of baby. Her allegiance is with my son now. Thats the way it is going to be for some time.
I am just glad he is safe and healthy and that my wife is recovering. The moral of this story might be to be ready much earlier than you thought......but it doesn't matter, really. I wasn't really "ready" and everything is fine. Just go into it ready to learn and with a heart ready to love and you will be fine. I will be fine.
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