Endgame

Julie and Lyla are taking naps. I'm supposed to be cleaning the house.

You want to know some of the details, right?

We went to the hospital on Wednesday morning. They called at around 8:00 AM that morning to schedule the induction, and Julie said groggily that we'd be there in an hour.

It was more like two. While Julie took a shower, I dropped the dogs off at the vet for boarding (they're still there sharing a giant dog-run; we'll pick them up Monday), went to Starbucks, finalized the bag packing, and took my own shower.

In the car finally, Julie asked, "How have you been this morning?"

I answered honestly: "Well, I've nearly burst into tears at various moments."

"When? Why?"

"On the way to Starbucks, for instance. This is big, you know. I mean, getting married was big too, but this is way bigger. Life is involved here. We're going to witness the creation of life." I changed lanes and looked over at Julie, waiting for her reaction to my sentiment.

"You are such a pansy little girl."

God, I love her.

Our birthing suite was awesome. The bed looked extremely high-tech, like you could probably sleep in it with a modicum of comfort but that, if needed, it could transform like Optimus Prime into a futuristic birthing contraption.

They gave Julie an IV and a pill to weaken her iron-clad cervix door. The pill wasn't an oral one. The nurse walked right up to the door, knocked, and left the pill outside like the poisonous apple in Snow White.

Peeing was tricky with the IV. I'm just saying. I became a minor expert at unplugging the various apparatuses Julie was hooked up to, draping the cords on her shoulders, and following her with the IV cart into the bathroom. The toilet had a shield to capture her pee, absolutely disgusting, but necessary for the nurses to keep track of things. As a lad, I saran-wrapped my mom's toilet on April Fool's Day. Same thing, basically.

By about 1:00 PM, Julie was ravenously hungry. This could be because during her entire pregnancy, she ate constantly. Upon requesting food this day, however, she was told she shouldn't eat until evening. Evening! I began to regret the earlier Starbucks run; a cream cheese danish was the only thing in her stomach, and now most of that had been converted to pee that sat bubbling in her bathroom's pee catcher.

"Can I just have a bread stick?" she said to me after the "No food" nurse left.

"Huh?"

"One of those Handi-Snacks cheese and bread sticks. I just want one bread stick. Come on, buddy."

I looked around to make sure the room was empty.

"One, dude. Help a girl out."

I thought to myself, would this be the first of many? Would the nurse return just in time to witness the bread stick hand-off? I didn't want to get in trouble.

Ultimately I relented. I opened the package and removed one of the eight finger-bone-sized bread sticks. Julie clapped excitedly as I walked it to her.

"Enjoy it, woman. This is all you get."

"Mmm. Thank you, sir."

The nurse came in to do God-knows-what to Julie's pee catcher. Probably get a test-tube of it and run it through a centrifuge and then bake a cake. I said to the nurse, "So what's the rule with food for this hungry, hungry girl?"

"Sorry," she said, then turned to Julie. "But would you like some juice maybe?"

Julie nodded vigorously. The nurse left and moments later returned.

"I also smuggled you some saltines. Shh. Don't tell."

So far, what everyone told us about nurses was true: they are the ones that make all the difference.

Our room had a TV and DVD player, so during these events we watched "Enchanted," "The Devil Wears Prada," and "The Family Stone," all sucky girl movies that I say I hate but secretly love.

After a second cervix door weakening pill, Julie had some contractions, but none so bad that she had to hold her breath during them. They weren't a party either, though, so it was promising.

It was past 4:00 by this time, and Julie was desperate for a cheeseburger. Our second nurse walked in, and I shared with her Julie's hankering. No cheeseburgers allowed, but would she like a popsicle? More vigorous head nodding.

Our movie supply was rapidly diminishing, and the nurse told us that inductions could take a few days. We called Julie's twin sister Jen and requested more. As I chatted with her on the phone, Julie struggled to open a single Lifesaver from its plastic wrapper. "Will you do this?" she said. "I have monkey fingers."

At around 6:00, they fed Julie a simple dinner of sandwich and applesauce, and she inhaled it. The nurse explained that they would probably let Julie sleep the night and then go hard-core on induction stuff the next morning. Literally 10 minutes later, the resident doctor entered the room and informed us that she would be breaking Julie's water.

With what basically amounted to a crochet hook.

Certain things get hazy from this point on. Jen was there by this point, I believe, and both of us averted our gaze as the doctor uncorked Julie and caused an amniotic waterfall to spew from her.

Then the contractions really began. After an hour or two, Julie was dilated enough for the epidural. We ordered it, and she waited in occasional agony. Skip the next paragraph if you get squeamish about needles.

The anesthesiologist was almost a major low point in the day. Without going into too much detail, he struggled to find a spot that worked. He kept poking Julie's back with localized needles to find where the super needle could make it through. At least three pokes were unsuccessful. Now, I don't blame the guy for struggling, but he would not shut up, and this made me want to deck him. "Well hmm, that one didn't work. Let's see. Do you have back problems? Okay, here comes another one." At some point, I told him to knock off the narration. Finally, he did deliver the epidural, and it was good. I certainly respect the guy for not giving up.

After that, we slept. Slept during labor! Thank you, epidural. The sleep was constantly interrupted by nurses and doctors, not to mention the blood pressure cuff on Julie's arm that tightened every two minutes. But still, there was some sleep.

At 6:00 AM on Thursday, November 20th, exciting things happened. I'll breeze through this part, but let's just say that at 8:11, we had a baby.

Important to note:

- Our attending OB-GYN was not originally scheduled to deliver but switched shifts to be with us. Turns out she's Jen's doctor, knows my uncle, and went to the same college as us. And she was amazing. In addition to being the best possible combination of cheerleader and drill-sergeant, at one point she grabbed Julie's hand and brought it down to touch the top of her daughter's head. Talk about motivating you to push.

- Our night nurse's shift ended at 7:30 AM. She left to check out and then came back, off the clock, to be there for the delivery. Also amazing.

- Julie was a champion. At one point they had her pulling on a sheet wrapped around a bar at the end of the bed. She didn't cry, scream, or give up. Not that I would've blamed her for a second if she had.

- I was in charge of Julie's left leg. During contractions, I muscled her knee toward her chest. This was a good job because it kept me busy and allowed me whatever vantage point I wanted or needed at any given moment. I witnessed things that amazed and horrified me. As a moderately squeamish person, I wasn't sure how I would react. And now I can safely say that I loved and will forever treasure every moment of that birth.

- When our baby came out and was brought to Julie's arms, I cried. I was the only man in a room of women, and the newborn and I were the only ones crying. Suddenly a scissors appeared in my hand, then someone told me where to cut the cord, and I did. Life as we all knew it was profoundly, spectacularly altered.

Now we are home. And everything, everything, everything is perfect.






Postscript:

Thank you for reading this blog. I know a major reason that I wrote almost every day was because people were reading. As a guy who has always liked to write but rarely had much to say, I found my wife's pregnancy to be a strong muse. And now the text of this blog adds up to roughly 50,000 words. So what next? Who knows. I do know, though, that this blog is done. How do you keep up a blog called "My Wife Is Preggers" once your wife is no longer preggers?

Certainly there's more to say, but I don't honestly know if fatherhood will afford time to consistently write. Hell, I'll give it a shot anyway. Check out the new blog: Changing Lyla.

Life

Lyla Ann
8 lbs. 6 oz.
22.5 in.
Born 8:11 AM on 11/20/08

More later. For now:

Time

It's time. We're off. Wish us luck!

Page

I've been instructed to post pictures of the diaper bag. Julie's team at work bought her a gift card to an online bag-making site called 1154 Lill Studio This is the diaper bag she designed. Cool, huh? It's a one-of-a-kind diaper bag. Aren't you jealous? Okay fine, I don't really get it. I'll probably use a Cub Foods bag when I go out with the baby. But you should've seen Julie preen with this bag.


She's going to be a stylin' mom. Every time someone asks her about the diaper bag, she'll have a story. That's a mirror she's looking at, a woman approaching her 41st week of pregnancy, liking what she sees.


Women are confusing creatures. Really, I'm jealous I didn't think of this designer diaper bag idea myself.

Well, I think we're ready for tomorrow. I hope I can keep my cold at bay. It crept up on me on Sunday, and I've been fighting the good fight ever since. I've been taking vitamin-C supplements and Day-Quil, sipping hot tea laced with honey, and chugging gallons of water. Damn it anyway! I'll wear the SARS mask in the delivery room if I have to, but I don't think it'll be necessary. I think this cold is retreating. It is no match for me.

As I type this, Julie is playing Shaun White Snowboarding on the Wii. That's right: she's on the balance board, shredding down a mountain and swearing every time her avatar wipes out. I'd post a picture, but she's wearing pink pajama pants with bunnies on them, and I don't have a death wish.

There's a gigantic page in the book of our life, and it's standing straight up, teetering, and soon it will tip left and land on the pages that preceded it. It's best to pause and appreciate moments like these and acknowledge that they don't come around too often.

But enough of that. Since we're not parents yet, I think it's best that I go play some video games with my wife.

Induction

Socks are proving to be quite a challenge these days. It's tough for Julie to get them on without pitching forward off the stool and rolling out of the bathroom and down the stairs like Violet Beauregarde after the blueberry chewing gum incident.

Was that mean? I'm crabby. When this young lady is born, she's grounded.

The clock is ticking. If the induction goes according to plan, Julie could be in labor in two days. On Wednesday someone will call her between 5:30 and 8:30 in the morning and give her a time to go in. It's not unlike when you need a plumber, the whole "We'll try to fit you in, but no promises" kind of thing. If a bunch of ladies in the Twin Cities suddenly have pregnancy-related plumbing catastrophes, we might get bumped.

Knowing the birth date is a bit odd. Birth and death generally involve an element of surprise, which is what keeps us on our toes. I know it's morbid to discuss, but it would be unbearably weird if everyone knew what day they'd die. Likewise, knowing the exact day that life will begin seems like playing God.

But if you're talking about God, then you might argue that life begins long before the actual birth, but that's an issue we don't need to explore here. I think most can agree that at least in many practical ways, life begins at birth. The feeding, the changing diapers, the telling your mother what her granddaughter's name is--that stuff happens at birth. But I can understand why some people prefer to go naturally, for then you're not taking control of something that maybe, maybe, just maybe you're not meant to.

Blah blah blah. If God gives a rat's ass about such things, then I'll do 100 push-ups at the pearly gates. When people preach about the importance of going naturally, I want to flick their ear with all my finger's might. I saw part of a TV show that had all these smug women talking about birthing without drugs, without anything. "Oh, it was such a beautiful experience," one said without blinking. "I don't understand how women can--" and at that point I flipped the channel.

So we're excited about the induction, at least I am. I want to meet this kid. Plus I'll get to finish this blog, maybe start another one.

Thirty

Well, she's done it. Julie has managed to avoid motherhood in her 20s. Whereas I have fathered children with various women all over the world, okay I'm kidding.

I think Julie harbored certain fantasies of being a mother before her 30th birthday. For one, she wouldn't have the same birthday as her child, which is still yet to be seen today. Still yet to be seen.

For another, when answering the question of when she had her first child, she could say "In my late 20s" or "29" and no one would know the real answer was "29 years and 364 days."

But the real reason, I suspect, is that I don't turn 30 until the end of May. Now when the little one stalls her bedtime by asking us question after question, the answer to one of them will be, "Daddy was 29 and Mommy was 30." The imp will inevitably reply, "Mommy, you're older than Daddy?!" and question time will promptly end.

It doesn't matter. Julie represents the ideal situation, if you ask me. She has a career, she has traveled, she has (if I do say so myself) a rare husband, and now she's waiting on a child. She's the handbook on good living.

Mother at 30. That has a nice ring to it.

Target

Last night Julie began to have small contractions just as we were about to leave to have dinner with friends. I called and canceled, then sat on the couch and watched her like she was TV.

"These aren't real contractions," she said.

"You don't know that."

"The real ones will be so bad that I won't even be able to talk. Hear me talking?"

"They might get worse," I offered helpfully.

"You don't have to sit there and watch me."

I decided making a bowl of popcorn wouldn't go over well.

The contractions ultimately did go away. After eating whatever we could find in the house, Julie wanted to go to Target.

"Um, why?"

"Target is fun. Get me my jeans; I don't want to wear fleecy pants."

At Target, Julie looked at fun things to buy.


In the kitchen aisle she picked up a glass mixing bowl. Suddenly she handed it to me and said, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeee."

I looked at the floor, expecting to be standing in Lake Amnio. Something was moving above my sight-line, so I looked up to see Julie waving a hand. I grabbed her wrist to stop the hand and saw sticking out of her finger a tiny shard of glass that had apparently broken off the side of the bowl. "Heeeeeeeeee," she said again.

"Hold still." I removed it.

"Did you get it all?"

I had. Now, when your wife is two days past her due-date and a glass bowl at Target attacks her finger, it's tough not to overreact. I've never struggled to express frustration in any situation, so off I marched with her to customer service.

"Can you page an ETL, please?" I said to the befuddled cashier. ETL stands for Executive Team Lead, which I know because Julie works for corporate. I was hoping that using the abbreviation would make me sound important and like kind of an asshole.

Julie explained what happened, and the cashier ran to look for bandaids. By this time the wound had just about stopped bleeding on its own, and I was hoping it would at least remain visible until the ETL answered the page. Finally the ETL hurried up to us, apologized, and asked if there was anything she could do. I felt stupid by this point, so I made a joke about us being okay as long as the cut didn't send Julie into labor.

Although in retrospect it would've been great if it had. But anyway, we finished our shopping and headed home. This morning, she's had no contractions, but she's definitely feeling nervous about being induced on Wednesday. She's heard that it hurts more than going naturally. I suppose it makes sense because they're making your body do something that it doesn't think it's ready to do, as opposed to letting the process start gradually and then build.

Regardless, it'll be a bit worse than a tiny cut on the finger.