Becoming a Father Part IX: Sex and Naming Rights

In my wife's family, all of the intentional pregnancies are girls. One boy was born out of wedlock (they married when he was 1). One boy was unintentional but they were going to try at some point. One boy was part of a pair of fraternal twins. My wife and I were pretty sure since this was the most intentional pregnancy of the bunch that we would have a girl as well.

We didn't know what sex he would turn out to be ahead of time. After all of the struggles that we had with infertility it seemed like a good idea to inject some mystery back into the process. So we never peeked. Every ultrasound we told the technician not to tell us. Everyone asked "Aren't you curious?" Yes, but we could wait.

I don't get why people peek. It just seems like cheating. And despite all of the coaching that people give themselves "I just want a healthy baby and a healthy mom. I just want a healthy baby and a healthy mom. I just want a healthy baby and a healthy mom. " Honestly, I think everyone has a preferred sex for their baby. Sure people will say otherwise. They're lying. I would be less than truthful if I said that I didn't want a boy. Finding out ahead of time just gives you a feeling of disappointment if the baby's gender is not what you hoped for. And then you go to showers where you are overwhelmed with blue trucks or pink flowers. Not that babies are gendered too early or anything. I just don't get it.

So three hours after the main event starts, my wife and I have our baby. Up to that point we hadn't absolutely nailed down a name. To start with my wife eliminated the Top 100 baby names. She didn't want to have Mike D or Jenny D. Then we hit the baby name books. I came up with a list and she shredded it. Honestly, I think Lord would be a great name for something, but maybe not for a baby. She came up with a list and I shredded it. Oscar would have been more often associated with a trash-dwelling curmudgeon. Back and forth before we finally found a name we could agree on.

His middle name requires some history.My wife's sister and her husband called their first Jochen (pronounced Yoken) after a Blues hockey player at the time. She still responds to Jochen. I liked the idea. When I was in college, I thought that I would have a dozen children that I would name by stacking the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and the Bible on top of one another open and point. I realized that that was unlikely to ever work no matter how unlikely Jehosophat was to be popular. But I figured that it could work for an Inside-The-Womb name. And that was what we called our baby for nine months. Eventually the name just grew on us.

Oliver Agamemnon. Probably not the people's choice, but it was ours.

Becoming a father part VIII: The main event

The night of 12/10 started off uneventfully. We had gone to see the doctor the day before and La Leche League that night. My wife had written me from work to ask if her nose was spreading - a supposed sign of labor. That night we had dinner and settled down to watch some movies. My wife was a little uncomfortable, but nothing was unusual. She spent some time draped over our exercise ball and then when she got tired she took a nap in the divan. Shortly after midnight, the movie ended and it was time to go up to bed. I walked over to my wife and shook her arm and said loudly, "Wake up! We're having a baby." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Time for bed. Come on upstairs." She blearily got to her feet and trudged up the stairs. She went to the bathroom and then went to lie down. And had to go to the bathroom again. By the time she got there, she was pretty sure that her water had broken because it HURT to sit down. We tried to see if walking would stop the contractions. Nope, this was the main event.

We went downstairs. I went to find a watch to time the contractions. She was walking around very gingerly. When a contraction hit, I said, "Okay, let me know when the next one starts." A minute or so later she took a breath and said, "Now." At this point I figured out that we were a good deal farther along than we had anticipated being at this stage in the game. If you think of the birth process as a hill with a long gradual slope that gets sharper towards the end and then levels off a bit, we were on the sharp part before the levelling. I called the doula and told her to come over to the house. A couple of minutes later I called the doctor and explained that the contractions were coming one on top of the next. He said, "It looks like you're having this baby tonight. Get cleaned up and head to the hospital." I called the doula back and told her that we were changing plans and heading to the hospital.

With the destination now set on the hospital, I flew around the house picking up everything we wanted to take with us. Camera. Video camera. Car seat. Clothes for us. Clothes for baby. Snacks. Belt for pants. [It turns out that I forgot our birth plan. Oops] I got everything to the car and then went back for my wife. We walked gingerly to the car. I helped her into the front seat. Then I ran around the car to the driver's seat. When I got in she was opening the door because it hurt too much to sit like that. Into the back seat she went on her knees draping herself over the back seat. And off we went to the hospital.

The drive there was odd. I was very careful. Idrove the speed limit the whole way and stayed in the far right hand lane instead of speeding to the left and passing what little traffic there was like a maniac. The hospital has two entrances and I missed the first one and got a little confused before finding the right building and parking. My wife noticed when we drove through the main entrance, but we were in the right place quick enough that I'm still here. After we parked we got out and took the elevator up to the entrance level. A security guard there looked up and smiled at us. "Two checking in. Three checking out, " I said. He pointed us to the elevator to go up to Labor and Delivery.

It was about 1:00 when we got to Labor and Delivery. They gave us the forms to start filling out. I asked if there was somewhere where we could go because my wife had to go to the bathroom. That got the nurses hopping and we were ushered into a room immediately. My wife turned to me and said, "If this is a 4, then we might need drugs." I nodded. We started changing her into the hospital gown. While I was helping my wife change into the gown I noticed that she had bled some into a pad (I know - thanks for sharing) meaning that we were probably pretty far along. A few minutes later Barb the doula showed up and helped us finish dressing my wife. When we finally got her examined, the nurse popped up and said, "Honey, you're at a 10. Let me call the doctor because you're ready to go."

The next hour or so is a blur. At some point the doctor arrived and sat quietly in the corner. My wife stood up for most of that time because that was the most comfortable position for her. I had my arms around her and when a contraction hit she would sag with it until it forced her to curl up into a C. When she started to get the urge to push, we moved her to the bed and got out the squat bar. Barb supported her on one side and I supported her on the other. The pushing stage lasted about a half-hour and ended with the birth of our baby. When the doctor first held him up I thought he was a girl, but I was quickly corrected.

We spent some time in the delivery room trying to get him to nurse and just being with him. As much as possible we kept him with us. Anything that could be done while he was on her tummy was done there. Anything that couldn't was delayed until later. It was our time - two becoming three.

Becoming a father part VII: Telling everybody

One of the best things about getting pregnant is when you get to tell everybody. My wife wasn't crazy about the idea of telling everyone. She is a much more private person than I am. Besides you don't want to tell everyone before the pregnancy is well-established. The last thing you want to do is tell people, then have a miscarriage and have to catch well-meaning friends before they ask how it's going. But for me, I wanted to SHARE THE GOOD NEWS!!!!!

My parents were planning a visit to St. Louis a few or so after we would be well-established. We called my wife's mother and arranged to go out for a dinner. We got to the restaurant and ordered our food. Over appetizers and under another conversation between my father and my wife's mother, I told my parents that I wasn't going to be coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year. My mother gave me the big frown and asked why.
"Because I don't think the little one will be up to travelling by then."
Big pause. "Bob, hold on a sec. Can you say that again?"
"Because I don't think the little one will be up to travelling by then."
And then I broke out the ultrasounds. There were some happy tears and hugs. I could tell that my parents were as happy as they could be. My brother and his wife had announced the impending arrival of their first grandchild a couple of months earlier and now number two was not going to be far off.

Every year I have a big birthday party for myself, a Thanksgiving-style dinner in the middle of February. Last year it was delayed because of my father-in-law's funeral. So we decided to announce our good news at ThankDoyle Delayed. We invited my wife's family and the usual crowd of thirty-plus. Our house was filled to the bursting point. At one point I got all of my wife's family together and we made our announcement. Everyone was happy for us, especially now that they knew how long we had been trying. After congratulations all around I took my wife out to the deck where most of my friends had gathered. I went to the middle of the group and shouted "I love this pregnant woman!!!!" I guess it wasn't the most subtle of approaches but it was, in the end, effective. The next couple of days we burned up the phone lines calling friends who were out of town to relay the good news. I usually don't like to talk on the phone, but there are exceptions.

Our secret was out.

Results of photo session

Close up

Becoming a father part VI: The pregnancy

Next time I'm sure it will be different. They say that every pregnancy is different. But if we could have this same pregnancy every time, that would be okay with me.

My wife didn't have most of the common problems associated with pregnancy. She didn't have morning sickness. She had some muscle cramping, but not much. She was able to run into her 23rd week and did pregancy yoga after that. She didn't get any weird cravings. She wasn't unduly uncomfortable. There were no complications.

For the last couple of weeks of the pregancy we told people that it was 4-6 weeks away. Then 3-5 weeks away. Then 2-4 weeks. We didn't have any sort of deadline mentality. My sisters-in-law had always been a couple of weeks late and had to be induced. We didn't mind the couple of weeks late, but we wanted to avoid the induction.

In fact, we asked for the doctor to not perform any internal exams for the last four weeks of the pregnancy. We didn't want to get frustrated by a lack of progress or get an any-minute-now message with weeks to go. We were comfortable that we were progressing and that was enough. We had the feeling that the doctor looked forward to our visits because we generally had few questions and, with no internal exam, we were a quick appointment to help get back on schedule.

Yep, I'd bottle that one and sell it if I could.

Becoming a father part V: To Doula or Not to Doula

When my wife first brought up the idea of a doula I thought that this was a new kind of restaurant. She (somewhat) patiently explained to me that a doula was a labor attendent - someone who could help us out with our birth. I said, "Doesn't that kind of sound like my job? Isn't that what we've been going to all of these birthing classes for?" But she was determined and after talking to our Bradley teacher and some friends who were planning on using a doula I relented.

We contacted a few doulas and set up interviews. It was odd interviewing the prospective doulas. The two that we talked to had had some limited experience with unmedicated childbirth, but not enough to give us a warm fuzzy. Were we looking for the normal 7-and-a-long-needle birth, we would have been okay with either woman. As it was our search ended with Barb.

Barb was everything that we were looking for in a doula. She was an experienced doula with over 300 births under her belt. She was experienced with Bradley births and other natural births. She belonged to the St. Louis Midwives group and was a La Leche League leader. But besides her qualifications, she just had a calm, relaxed manner that put us at ease. In short, she was perfect.

After talking with her a short while I could understand while my wife wanted a doula. Here was a grizzled veteran of the delivery room while we were the green recruits just hoping to get through our first trip. Here was a voice of experience when things got rough. Our doula.

Becoming a father part IV: Birthing class

My wife and I decided that we wanted to have a natural birth. By natural I mean an unmedicated birth with little medical intervention (that's the trouble with learning - most people would have got what I meant by natural birth, but now I know that some people would have taken offense...) Having just gone through the most intervention-filled conception process, we decided to go the opposite direction in terms of our birth process. Our family was convinced that we were nuts. "Medication is there for you to ease the pain and you're not taking it?"

Maybe I should start by explaining that my wife and I are marathon runners. Not Olympic caliber, but we get the job done. Training for a marathon is a long process ending in something painful but well worth it in the end. I don't fault people who like to run but think a 10-K is just about as far as anyone should have to go. We just keep on going. Looking at birth the same way, our decision fits in context.

We began by going to Bradley birthing classes. Every Tuesday for 10 weeks, we spent two hours talking with a group of similarly minded folks and a knowledgable teacher. We learned signs to watch for, relaxation techniques, and laboring positions. We saw countless birthing videos. We talked about nutrition and exercise. We discussed about the benefits of unmedicated labors and breastfeeding. We went to additional classes on breastfeeding and infant care. And by the end of the class, we had an inkling of what to expect. I felt empowered and confident that we could do this.

I can't imagine what the people who just did a Saturday Lamaze felt like after leaving their class. Not that they're wrong, just different. And comparatively unprepared?

Becoming a father part III: The Infertility Ends

When my wife and I first started out trying to conceive, we did what we had always done, but this time without a net. It was new, different, and exciting. And unsuccessful. So we read a bit and decided to work be more focussed. "If it doesn't happen naturally, we can adopt." And were unsuccessful. So we went to see my wife's doctor. He put her on increasing doses of Clomid. "If it doesn't happen with pills, we can adopt. But we don't want to use injectables." And we were unsuccessful again and again. We tried an IUI. And were unsuccessful. Finally we went to see a specialist. One course of IUI after a course of injectables ("If it doesn't happen with injectables, we can adopt.") and we were successful. Three years after we started.

Each time we were unsuccessful we bumped ourselves up to the next level of intervention that we had never envisioned going to. Adoption was out there as an option of last resort, but we never really thought that we'd need to do it. We are young and healthy and in our primes. It had to happen eventually, right? It turns out that we needed a lot of help, but once we got it, we did well.

Getting pictures

So I found another career that I would be ill-suited for. Yesterday my wife and I took Agamemnon to get his picture taken at Kiddee Kandids. Evidently Agamemnon was the best kid that the photographer worked with all day. And that was still a bit of a chore. Not because he was screaming or anything. He was relatively cooperative in terms of smiling. Until his tummy got upset during the tummy pose. I don't mind if he spits up on me. I may not even mind if my friends' children spit up on me, but some stranger's kid? And I certainly wouldn't reach my hand out to catch it.

Definitely not Kiddee Photographer.

No Hockey This Year

The various sports writers seem to side with one side or the other in the NHL labor dispute. "The players are greedy." "The owners are incompetent." Either way it doesn't matter much who is at fault to me. There will be no hockey this year. It is really too bad because hockey is not going to gain any fans this way, and it was already a minority sport. The fans it does have suffer while millionaires and billionaires bicker over how to split a shrinking pot.

Well, good luck to you guys. Let us know when you are back playing again.

Italy is wasted on the ill-informed

So my wife and I decided to take a trip to Italy. We wanted to have a more relaxing trip rather than the standard American dash through fourteen cities in fourteen days. We picked Verona, Venice, Milan, Pisa, and Florence as our cities. Everything was going great. And then we got there.

First, let me explain that this was my first "Ignorant American" trip. We didn't speak the language at all. There is only so much that my high school Latin was going to help us out in any regard. So leaving the plane and having to try and figure out what direction north is (we got in at night) or what bus will take us to the hotel while wearing a fifty pound backpack tends to make me a bit grumpy. I'm not a control freak, but I like having a clue. My wife wanted to have some flexibility in our itinerary in case we fell in love with a place or decided that we wanted to linger somewhere. It was probably a good idea, but it added to my grumpiness. Every city we arrived in was a most hated place until I found my bearings. Being able to understand the language would have helped to a large degree.

Second, we didn't realize it when we planned the trip but evidently February is the rainy season in Northern Italy. Put a baseball cap on my head and I could care less about weather. But put an umbrella in a short person's hand and surround me with so-armed short people and it is a recipe for disaster.

And lastly, my wife and I are somewhat cultured people. We listen to classical music. We go to plays on occasion, but nothing could have prepared me for the cultural onslaught that was our trip. We saw cathedral after church after museum after cathedral. It was all very fascinating, but after a time it all blended together. There were some highlights - The Uffizi, The Last Supper, The Duomo, The Leaning Tower - but some places just turned into a search for something tall to climb so that we could look out over the countryside. I'm sure that in that blur were some significant historical treasures that got lumped into the Another Historical Treasure category.

But the food was excellent. I'll have to go back some day.

Becoming a Father Part II

"Quit 'cher belly achin', Dad. The story obviously has a happy ending." Yeah, but it doesn't mean that it was always happy. My wife's father was dying of cancer. He had come home from the hospital to die. One night I arrived at the house to find the whole family was gathered around his sick bed. He was talking to my wife and asked her why we didn't have any children. We had to come clean in front of her rather fertile brother and sisters that we were in fact trying and not succeeding. It seemed to give him some comfort. But there is not much you can do when he passes on and will not get to meet our child.

Becoming a father part I

Becoming a father was the most interesting part of the year. My wife and I had been trying for three years to conceive. Trying doesn't really describe the problems of the infertile couple. Every month started with a glimmer of hope, proceded with a frenzy of sexual activity, followed by breathless anticipation, and then trailed by crushing disappointment. Really the only good part about failing each month was that during the crushing disappointment stage, we could drown our problems. I would not recommend it as a good strategy, but sometimes it was effective.

First post

I started to enter my first post and ran out of things to say. Embarassing to sign up for a blog and then get writer's block, huh? I'm actually not sure where to start or how I want to say whatever that is. So where to begin? The last year has been really significant in my life. I took a trip to Europe. I became a father and turned 30. I guess that's as good of a place to start.