Week 7 - Little Ms. Grumpy Fuss, and Radiation

Fact: babies love being held.  They really do.  Ours also seems to hate not being held recently.  These past few days, any time we put her down, she gets angry, unless she's asleep.  Fact part two, it's getting really hard to stay awake with her.  This is mostly due to the new job that I have, which is awesome, but leaves me ridiculously tired.  I'll get to that later.  Because of the job, I have already been getting less sleep than when I just had school.  I didn't realize how much this was hitting me until this morning, actually. 

When I feed the baby, I sit with my back against the arm of the sofa, with my feet pointing toward the other arm.  Then, I raise my knees, and sit the baby with her back resting on my lap so that she's leaning back a little.  This puts her in a sort of sitting position so I can have the bottle horizontal and she's not getting too much formula at a time.  Well, this morning, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.  During the feeding, I fell asleep, and when I did, my head fell back.  I was very suddenly woken up by the back of my head hitting the arm of the sofa...twice.  Ouch.  

Also what was difficult this morning was that the baby decided to spit out the bottle when she was about half done.  This wouldn't have been a problem if she didn't start immediately crying when she realized the bottle was no longer in her mouth.  I tried to put the bottle back in her mouth, and she fed for a few seconds, then the whole process repeated a few times.  Needless to say, that got a little frustrating.  Eventually she calmed down, which was nice.  

So, this entry is going to be more about me than about the baby.  

A few weeks ago, I posted on my facebook asking what my friends would like to read about in the blog.  I got a few responses asking me to talk about the job, so I'll do that.  

One of the worst feelings was not being necessarily able to really support the baby these past few weeks.  See, I'd been unemployed since before the baby was born.  Let's see, we're about fourteen weeks into the semester, so for eleven weeks I was unemployed, starting when the project I was supposed to work on for my last job got put on hold, and then was started back up with a schedule that didn't fit my school schedule.  I applied at a few different places, even a place where they would "hire just about anyone" but couldn't find anything.  Then my father told me about Cardinal Health, who someone he knows works for.  I ignored it at first, but then, just out of the thought of "well, noone else is hiring, might as well apply," I did so, and got an interview.  

Most of the interview was us trying to hammer out what would be my schedule, which was weird.  

Then, a couple weeks later, I got the call from an HR representative at Cardinal.  Her words were "Well, we'd like to offer you the [official name of position] position at the [pharmacy  location]."  

I'm not a big crier.  The last time I had cried before that call is when I had found out I was going to be a father, and before that, uh..... good question.  But when I realized I had gotten the job, I teared up, both from joy and relief.  For once, I was going to actually be doing something.  

About two weeks later, after I did all the pre-employment stuff, I had my first day.  And I loved it.  

So, to those that want to know exactly what I do, I'm a courier for Cardinal Health.  They're a medical supply company.  The pharmacy I work at specifically manufactures and distributes nuclcear isotopes for imaging in hospitals.  I'm the person that takes the isotopes and drives them to different hospitals in the San Antonio area, takes them to their hot labs, and takes their finished doses back.  Then, with any down time I have at the lab, I break down and clean up the lead tubes (called "pigs"), dumping the syringe into lead barrels.  

For those that know me and would worry about it, don't do that because the exposure I deal with is less than walking out into the sunlight.  The company has very strict safety policies regarding our materials.  

The part of this job that I both love, and hate, is that I work weekends, and weekend shifts begin at 4:30 in the morning, ending at 1:00 in the afternoon.  On one hand, this is great, because I'm done with work really early and have the rest of the day to do with whatever I want.  On the other hand, If I'm not in bed by 8:30-9:00 p.m. the night before, I'll have to load up on caffeine pretty early.  Also, I get super tired pretty early on in the day.  For example, last Saturday was my birthday.  I had promised a few friends I would hang out with them later in the day.  That ended up not happening because by about 6:00pm, I was too tired and groggy to go out.  So I stayed home and played Halo 4 (not complaining, that game is incredible).  This is sort of a regular occurance for the morning shift.  But, overall, I love it.  The job is fantastic, the pay is good, and hell, just having something to do again is glorious.  

But, that's it for today folks.  Enjoy your day/night/weekend/holiday/whenever the heck you read this.  Good night!

-Jack, the Dude Dad

Week 6: My Absence and The Science Channel

Holy holy crap, it's been four weeks since my last post.  Sorry for that, I hit a major writers block, plus, I've been pretty busy and sleepy as ffffffuuuuuuuu......

So, that being said, how are you guys?  What've you been up to?  Oh, really!?  Wow!  That just sounds so awesome/terrible!  Well hey, I gotta split, but here's my number.  Call or tex me sometime so we can get together and hang out or somethin'.

Well that took a weird direction... Folks, this is what happens when I start writing a blog during my psychology class while the other students give really boring presentations.  I end up just throwing words at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Allow me to explain my absence.  First, the writer's block.  I haven't really had any ideas.  You know the saying "the hardest part of running the mile is putting on the shoes?"  Well, the hardest part of writing anything is coming up with the idea.  And I haven't had too many ideas for what to write these past few weeks, and any ideas I did have, I couldn't really develop.  Secondly, I've been really frickin' tired, which is probably definitely a major contributor to the lack of ideas.  In the last entry, I wrote about a night where I only got about four hours of sleep.  Well, as I was told it would, that night has sort of become a regular occurrence.  Which leads me to my next thought:

I don't really believe God.  I mean, I do, just not in the same sense most people do.  One of the biggest differences is that I don't believe in divine intervention such as blessings, miracles, etc.  I believe in those things, but I don't believe they are acts of God, nor do I really believe in the power of prayer.

That being said, there is a group of people that I do hope to whom God gives the best, happiest lives imaginable.  these people have done so much for me without ever knowing it, and I simply cannot thank them enough.  These are the people behind the creation of the Science Channel, and any people involved in their decision to not show infomercials at the wee hours of the morning.  I explained in the last entry how an infant can basically be the embodiment of sleep deprivation, and what exactly that's like.  Half-hour to hour-long periods of being awake for feedings, sandwiched between two, maybe three hour periods of being asleep can be murder, and you can't fall asleep during the feeding.  Afterward?  Sure.  During?  Nope.  And that half-hour to hour is assuming that the baby falls asleep or is okay with being put down right after the feeding and the burping.  Depending on your baby, that might hardly be the case.

So, it's 3:30 in the morning, and you're tired as all living hell, but you have to stay awake.  How do you accomplish this?

Focus your attention onto something that doesn't require you to have use your hands.  What could that be?

Television, of course.  But you flip through the channels, and here's what you see: infomercials, infomercials, infomercials, televangelism, infomercials, infomercials.  But then, hey look!  A show about String Theory!  Sweet!

I had stopped watching the science channel, despite how much I love it, due to not really watching T.V. in general anymore, but ever since the sleepless nights set in, I've started watching it again.

Enough about T.V. though.  I'm going to end the entry here, it's getting late and I have to be up early tomorrow morning.  I'll try to post again later this week, but that may be kind of difficult seeing as i'll be busy as hell with this new job and the holiday and my birthday.   Also, I got a new job, and I'll probably talk about that in the next entry.  Finally, I'll probably be moving this entire blog over to tumblr very soon.  With all that said, peace off, have a happy Thanksgiving if I don't post again before then.

Week 2: The Un-Sleepening

Ahhhh.... Nothing like waking up to find the sun has already risen over the horizon, or just before the sunrise.  If you're like me, you wake up, look around for a bit while your eyes adjust.  Then you slowly sit up with your feet hanging off of the edge, drink some water, then rotate your neck and stretch your arms back to get all the kinks out, savoring that popping sound peacefully, then quietly step out of bed, hoping your partner doesn't wake up.  Then you walk out of the room to either enjoy some time to yourself while everyone sleeps (I'm usually the first or second awake in my house), or to get ready for school/work/any other commitments.

I'm sure you have your own routines for the morning.  Now, close your eyes, and really think about that routine, and all the nice little parts of it, try to get as clear a picture as possible...

You got the image?  Good.

Now say goodbye to it.  All of it.  Because something else is about to replace it.

"What's that, you devilishly handsome blog writer?"  You probably didn't ask yourself but for the purposes of this entry I'm going to assume that you did.  Well my friend, what's going to replace that is waking up every two to three hours, probably more, that's what.

At first, doing it is actually pretty easy.  These past couple weeks, I've done most of the waking up for the baby, but that's because complications with the epidural triggered migraines in my girlfriend that make it extremely difficult for her to get up sometimes.  But those first few days after my daughter was at home, I had no problems doing it.  About three times a night, I would wake up hearing her cry, change her, prepare a formula bottle, feed her, burp her, take care of hiccups if there were any (this could take forever), then she'd fall back to sleep in my arms, and I'd put her down in her bassinet and be back in bed within an hour of when I woke up.  Two to three hours later, be up and do it again.  Except for the Tuesday after, I'd stay awake around seven-thirty and spend some daddy/daughter time in the living room while my girlfriend slept.  No problems.  I got this.

And then, on a night where I was particularly tired, I took some Nyquil, and passed right the hell out.  Even though my girlfriend promised to wake up each time for the baby that night, I ended up having to do it because my girlfriend ended up with a pretty bad migraine.  Even still, that night was pretty easy.  But when the sun rose, and I tried to get out of bed, and I realized something.

Doing it the first few nights is easy.  Keeping it up after that?  Eh... not so much.  After the first few nights, it starts hitting you.  The exhaustion doesn't really hit me during the day.  The thing about it is that once I'm up and moving, I don't really feel it until I start slowing down.  But once I do, it's like my body goes, "Oh, we're stopping?  Cool!  Allow me to show you how I really feel.  Like CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!"  And that's how it was for a few days.

And then, Monday morning came.  And baby didn't want to go to sleep. So, from 3:30-7:30 am, I was forced to stay awake.  The first few hours by the second feeding and that she just didn't want to go to sleep, then she got the hiccups, thankfully, after what felt like frickin' forEVER, my mom woke up for work and took care of the hiccups (like a BOSS (like she always does), then about half an hour later, baby finally fell asleep.  But, at that point, the sun had already come up so I didn't fall asleep until 7:30, and even then, I only slept for an hour.

Bottom line: say goodbye to a full night's sleep.  The baby will have to be taken care of a few times every night (duh), and someone's gotta wake up to do it.  Changing the baby and preparing the bottle are the easiest and quickest parts.  Feeding can take a while, depending on how fast the baby wants to eat.  Hiccups can be pretty difficult, because those can take quite a while to get rid of, or they might just go away on their own, you really can't tell until they're gone.  Sometimes, though, your baby will want to sleep, but once you put them down, they'll wake right back up and you'll have to come right back to them.  Other times, they don't want to sleep at all, but they want you to be with them.  Or, you might feed them, just to have them mess their diaper again right before you put them in the bassinet, so you'll have to change, then that'll upset them, then you gotta calm them down again.  Even if all that goes well, if your baby starts moving around in their sleep, even though they're fine, they might make little grunts and other weird sounds that'll wake you right up from a deep sleep.  Even though most of these sounds mean nothing, for a new parent, each little sound makes you go "what does that sound mean?"  The result: you stay awake until the noises stop.

Babies are confusing and bad for sleep is kind of what I'm getting at.  A few things to make it easier: firstly, sleep when the baby sleeps.  Dear God, I cannot stress that enough.  Naps are lovely, your baby knows this, and you should realize it for yourself.  Secondly, work out a system with your partner.  Take turns, alternate nights, do something.  It doesn't have to be  something concrete, and you don't have to hold to it religiously, but share the load.

I'm glad I posted this late, because this morning was one hell of an experience.  When it came time to wake up for the second feeding, the exhaustion had me frustrated.  Everything seemed to bother me.  The water heated up slowly - annoyed me.  The baby needed a change after I fed her - even more so.  I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but my girlfriend's head hurt bad enough that she couldn't really get up, so I had to do it.

Finally, my mom woke up and took the baby off my hands to (again) take care of the hiccups, demanding that I go back to bed.  From the exhaustion, I almost cried.  I hadn't felt that terrible since I got back from Korea, and I couldn't even start getting tired until the sun had already risen.  Thankfully, my girlfriend took care of the next couple feedings and let me sleep until I woke up on my own around eleven in the morning.  I gotta say, it's a weird feeling seeing that it's 9:24pm, and yet, I've only been awake ten hours...not one that I'm adverse to, despite the fact that even before the pregnancy, I couldn't sleep past eight in the morning.

Despite only ten hours awake though, I am starting to get really tired.  That, and the episode of How I Met Your Mother just finished, so I might as well be off to bed, so I'm going to end this here (even though I could just continue this in a few hours after the next feeding).

Goodnight, Readers!  I'll try to post again this Thursday.
-Jack, the Dude Dad.

Holy Crap, I'm a Dad, Week 1

I don't get nervous very often.  Even though I'm not very confident, I don't typically get really nervous doing a lot of things most people get nervous doing.  Speeches, tests, things like that - I mean yeah, I get nervous, but not to the point most people do.  Typically, I only get nervous in social situations because my self-esteem is low enough I might accidentally step on it, and I feel like I'm going to be tripping over myself.

But when they took my girlfriend into the operating room to give her the epidural, the nervousness shot through the roof.  My stomach tightened and I had this sinking feeling that made me regret the bacon and egg taco and single sip of coffee I had had that morning.  That clock ticked by so slowly.  And there were no distractions.   I tried to read a few articles from cracked.com, but as I read, I could only think "baby baby baby baby funny phallic joke on the internet baby baby baby baby baby."  And that was it.  Oh, and  it didn't help that I heard some lady screaming to her chosen deity over and over again from pain and I had NO WAY of knowing if that was my lady.  So yeah, to recap: extreme nerves, nausea, ineffective dick jokes (that would otherwise be hilarious), and random screaming lady scaring the living shi uh...lights out of me. On a side note, to Random Screaming Lady, if you're reading this (I'm being so vague that there's no way to know if it's you) I hope all of whatever pain you were feeling is gone, I wish you a speedy recovery, and the best for you and your newborn.

And then, all the nerves went away when I heard my newborn cry for the first time.  Everything changed then.  The nurse had me get so many pictures of my tiny, five-pound, fifteen ounce baby.  Then they wheeled us out to recovery, then our suite we would stay in that day.  The rest of that day was a blur of visiting family, nurses in-and-out, and learning how to take care of the baby.  

Yes, I did say learning how to take care of the baby.  Here's the thing: in the last post, I mentioned that I am exceedingly uncomfortable around infants - from that, you can accurately infer that I had no idea how to take care of one either, but not for the lack of people trying to teach me.  My mom would always try to get me to learn to change a diaper, or to feed a baby, telling me "you'll have to learn when you have your own kids."

And to that, I'd always say "Yeah, and when that day comes, then I'll learn."  

......Aaaaaaaaaand that never happened.  Even when my girlfriend was pregnant, I never took the opportunity to learn.  So, at the moment of my daughter's birth, my baby-taking-care-of statistics were:

Diapers changed: 0

Bottles fed: 0

Baby's burped: 0

Baby's cradled:  I dunno, like, 3?

Baby's cradled successfully (success being measured by the baby calming down):  1

See the pattern?  Very limited experience with babies.  So the nurses had a lot of teaching to do.  And they did so marvelously.  By the first few hours, I could change a diaper like a boss, bottle feed like a gangsta, and cradle like a pro.  Here's one piece of information that nobody bothered to share with me that freaked me out and surprised me:

Newborn poop looks like tar.  Seriously.  I mean it.  Go look at the tar on the highway, photoshop some brown into it, and bam: newborn poop.  At least that's what I, and all the nurses I brought this thought up to, thought it looked like.  

Fast forward a few days, and it's a Sunday night, and we're already home.  The baby started crying.  I went to go change her, she was clean.  My girlfriend and I tried to feed her - she didn't want food.  We tried singing, cradling, we tried everything we could think of, and nothing seemed to work.  Yet, as soon as my mom gets the baby in her arms, she gets my daughter to stop crying in the matter of seconds.

Guys, and future parents, let me tell you something:  I've been through some pretty bad stuff, most of which I don't think I'll ever go into detail about on here.  But the absolute worst feeling I have ever felt is the feeling I got when I couldn't calm my baby down, even a little.  It's an absolutely terrible feeling, and it makes you feel inadequate.  From what I'm told, this "baby won't stop crying the first night they're at home" thing happens a lot.  That's just your baby not being used to the new smells, sounds, and general atmosphere of that house after they'd been in the hospital literally all of their life.  

Here's some things that help: talk around your baby in your normal tone frequently, even if there's no one around.  That'll establish a feeling of normality.  Talk to your baby while they're crying, but try not to talk over them.  If you do, they'll cry louder.  Lastly, be patient, and try not to get frustrated.  Psychological research shows that babies are mind readers.  Not literally, but they are incredible at reading facial expressions and vocal tone - it's a survival instinct.  When you're upset, it gives them reason to be upset.  If your baby won't stop crying, gently lay them down somewhere safe, or leave them with your partner, leave the room briefly to regain your composure, then come back and try again.  

That first week is SOOOO much learning about your baby, and so much adjusting to things like lack of sleep, which I'll get to next entry.  

Now, my daughter will be two weeks old tomorrow, which is Thursday, but I could be pretty busy tomorrow.  Keep in mind that any advice or information that I offer on this blog was either taught to me or something I learned on my own that works for my daughter, being offered as I'm learning it, so it may not work for you.

Please, any readers, share this with friends and family.  Thank y'all for reading.

-Jack, the Dude Dad.

Holy Crap, I'm a Dad: Prologue

First things first: I hate babies.

Okay, I don't really hate them, but I've never felt comfortable around them.  I also never thought they were cute.  I mean, no cuter than a puppy, really.  Sure, if one was sleeping and their mother or father said "Hey, can you hold my child while I _________?"  I would, reluctantly, say "okay" but be fine with it otherwise.  But once the little bugger initiated the blaring sounds that, to me, could make a police siren sound like a meowing kitty, I would sort of panic and try to hand the baby to the nearest responsible adult (usually my mom).  This never really went away.

So, needless to say, when my girlfriend came to me and told me she was pregnant, it hit me so hard my heart stopped ( I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it literally did).  In hindsight, I'm glad I skipped my Ethics class that morning because that happened to have me placed at home with my girlfriend when she found out and we were able to go through the shock together.

That day was stressful, and seemed to go on forever, so slow that molasses would beat it in a race.  And the next few weeks felt absolutely hopeless.  I remember coming home from a good day working as a sever at a restaurant in a small town right outside my city one night, (I had a good day, mind you), and when I got home, I locked myself in my room, closed the door, and cried in my bed for at least an hour, just repeating in my head that I didn't want this, and that I wasn't ready.

And guys (I'm sort of writing this blog for y'all), that's perfectly fine during the pregnancy.  If you weren't planning on, or wanting to have kids, this news is emotionally traumatic.  It's scary, it's confusing, and it's scary.  And yes, I intentionally added "it's scary" twice in that last sentence, because it is pretty frightening.  But you can't let the fear paralyze you.  A little fear is good but letting the fear paralyze you is the worst you can do.  Speaking from experience, you gotta push through it all.

As scared as I was the day we found out, I knew that whatever my girlfriend's decision in regards to whether or not to keep the child was, I was going to go along with it.  She chose to keep the baby, and even though I was terrified, I knew what I was doing when we were intimate, and so I knew I had to man-up.

And i'm glad I did, because the sheer joy of seeing my daughter move in my girlfriend's belly, feeling her wiggle over to whatever side of my girlfriend's belly my face was resting on when I spoke, seeing her in the sonograms made it all well worth it.  It was amazing, seeing how much the belly bump moved when we played Sinatra or Tom Lehrer, feeling that little hand move all over mine, and SO much more.  It's amazing in a way you can't describe.  I always hated that cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason - it's just simple truth.

I condensed about 8 months of the pregnancy into a few paragraphs because this blog is going to be about fatherhood during the first year, not the pregnancy.  I'll try to update this weekly, if not bi-monthly (not sure if that's supposed to be hyphenated or not), probably on Thursdays.  Do Thursdays sound good to y'all?  Yeah, Thursday sounds good.

This is for my sister, who is out of the country right now: I want her to be able to keep up with my daughter's life while she's away.  This is for my daughter, so she can see, in detail, both what the first year of parenthood is like, and so she can see what our life was when she came, obviously she won't be reading it until much later.  This is for my girlfriend and I to read later, and for our friends' entertainment, and to maybe offer insight into parenthood when they want/have children of their own.  And lastly, this is for anyone who wants a guy's perspective on fatherhood without all the cheesiness you usually get, especially since the literature on the subject from a male's perspective is kind of limited.

Lastly, I have a very tough time committing to long writing projects, so keeping up with this for a year could be pretty difficult.  So, to my sweet heart, my sister, my parents, and friends, if I end up going two weeks without updating this, please yell at me (not literally), blow up my phone (also not literally), and harass me (also also not literally), and very strongly remind me to, and insist that I update this (literally).