Nipple Confusion, Uncoordinated Pooping, and Spittle: The Life of a Newborn's Father

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

An Introduction

33 Weeks Pregnant

Inching Slowly Closer

35 Weeks Pregnant

A Closer Look

37 Weeks Pregnant

Effaced and Dilated

38 Weeks Pregnant

My Broken Cup

39 Weeks Pregnant

The Joy of Waiting

40 Weeks Pregnant

The Big Day (Theoretically)

40 Weeks Pregnant

And the Wait Goes On…

40 Weeks and 1 Day Pregnant

…And on…

40 Weeks and 2 Days Pregnant

The Final Countdown

40 Weeks and 3 Days Pregnant

Happy Birthday!

40 Weeks and 4 Days Pregnant

Happy Birthday! (cont’d)

40 Weeks and 5 Days Pregnant

Fun at the Hospital

Leah’s First Week

Adventures in Breastfeeding

Day 6

Guests and the New Mother

Day 8

Where’s the Love?

Day 12

A Day in the Life

Two Weeks

Shifting Priorities

Three Weeks

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

Three and a Half Weeks

Leah’s First Infection

Four Weeks

Show ‘em What They’ve Won

A One-Month Recap

Naming Names

One Month

Even Worse than Diaper Rash

Five Weeks

Who’ll Watch the Baby?

Six Weeks

The Baby Answer Center

Seven Weeks

Why Isn’t She…?

Eight Weeks

When Does This Get Easier?

Nine Weeks

The First Checkup

Two Months

Angling for Change

Ten Weeks

A Daycare Dry Run

Eleven Weeks

Sex

Twelve Weeks

A Stumbling Start

Thirteen Weeks

Daddycare

Fourteen Weeks

Lines of Communications

Fifteen Weeks

Unfinished Business

Three Months

She Looks Just Like…

Sixteen Weeks

Grabbing Some Us Time

Seventeen Weeks

Sick and Pissed About It

Eighteen Weeks

Not Bad in Comparison

Nineteen Weeks

Feeding Time—Watch your Hands

Twenty Weeks

Lessons Along the Way

Four Months

Around the Clock with Baby

Twenty-one Weeks

Yet Another Turning Point

Twenty-two Weeks

Battle of the Babies

Twenty-three Weeks

Leah Learns German

Twenty-four Weeks

E-I-E-I-Oh, Make It Stop!

Twenty-five Weeks

The Enlarged Heart

Twenty-six Weeks

Feeding the Beast

Twenty-seven Weeks

The End of an Era

Six Months

A Reason to Go On

Six Months

The Girl’s on a Roll

Twenty-eight Weeks

Hitting the Road

Twenty-nine Weeks

Bringing Daycare In-House

Thirty Weeks

A Whole New Ballgame

Thirty-one Weeks

A New Family Tradition

Thirty-two Weeks

Proper Interview Techniques

Thirty-three Weeks

Everyone Into the Pool!

Thirty-four Weeks

How Long’til Potty Training?

Thirty-five Weeks

Not Quite the Dream Job

Thirty-six Weeks

A Crowded House

Eight Months

The Diaper Derby

Thirty-seven Weeks

The Dinner Party

Thirty-eight Weeks

Our Teen

Thirty-nine Weeks

Rise and Shine

Forty Weeks

Bubble Girl

Nine Months

Whaddya Call It?

Forty-one Weeks

Let Me Show You Just One More!

Forty-two Weeks

Our Broken Record Player

Forty-three Weeks

The Toy Chest From Hell

Forty-four Weeks

Everything in Its Place

Forty-five Weeks

The Magnetic Personality

Ten Months

Escape!

Forty-six Weeks

Our Jewish-American Princess

Forty-seven Weeks

A Barrel of Monkeys

Forty-eight Weeks

War Stories

Forty-nine Weeks

Road Trip

Fifty Weeks

One Giant Step…

Fifty-one Weeks

The Big 0-1

Fifty-two Weeks

To Leah,

the funniest person

I know.

To Jack and Callie,

welcome to the party.

To Jessica,

the one

who makes

everything possible.

And to Mom,

it would be

a lot more fun

if you were here.

We all miss you.

Acknowledgments

I could not have reached this point—either in the book or in parenthood—without the enthusiastic support of friends, family and colleagues who have unwittingly provided content for the book and continually validated my writing. Yes, Roger, it’s good. Yes, Roger, I laughed out loud. Yes, Roger, your hair looks nice. By the way, most of the names in the book have been changed in case those people don’t find their portrayal quite as amusing and good-natured as I intended.

Specifically, I’d like to thank Bridget Creney, who patiently read through each chapter not long after I had finished typing, who provided valuable feedback throughout, and who entertained my ideas of this becoming a best-seller.

To Seth Ackerman and Ed Radgowski, my guinea pigs, who gave me hope that real-life guys might actually read and enjoy the book.

To Jenny Sullivan, who made vast improvements before her work schedule and a newborn of her own overtook her. To Reggie Santiago, my editor as well as my colleague in neurosis, who caught all the errors I planted for her (it was only a test).

To all of my friends—and even some people I don’t know—who have recognized that this book is the perfect baby-shower gift, and have helped to spread the word.

And most of all, to the two women in my life, the two people in the world without whom there is absolutely no chance this book could ever be created.or my life could be so full. Leah, I’m glad for the sake of my writing career that your infancy was so interesting, and (I’m writing this on faith, here) I’m very proud of the young woman you’ve become. I wrote this for you. I hope you don’t mind that I let a few other people read it.

And Jessica, you are my subject matter, my editor, my toughest critic, my biggest supporter, my best friend and my wife. I love you for all these things and more. Thank you.

Foreword

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but my husband wrote a book. Over the course of our relationship, Roger’s had plenty of book ideas, but most of them remained just that. The one time he stayed with an idea long enough to write a short story, I hated the protagonist so much that he quit writing. It’s a wonder he even told me about this book before it went to publishing.

Thankfully, he did tell me, and as a result this book won’t be offensive to all Oklahomans. I hope the same will hold true for family members and friends who will recognize themselves with little, if any, difficulty. We’re just counting on everyone not to give a copy of this to Grandma Esther.

I must admit that I wasn’t so sure about the idea of sharing all of the information in this book with our daughter, Leah, let alone the general public. I mean, does everyone need to know that we let Leah eat dog hair off the floor or that Roger and I had a full-blown argument over our different diapering techniques? But, as Roger so patiently explained to me time and time again when I commented on the unflattering aspects of the book, sharing is what it’s all about. So I decided to play along, seeing as how it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to new parents if we left out the unpleasant parts.

It’s my hope that all this sharing will help a few people out there, if not practically then just by making them laugh. That will make it all worthwhile, at least until Leah finds out what we’ve done.

—Jessica Friedman

Nipple Confusion: A problem that arises when a breastfed baby is given an artificial (rubber or silicon) nipple and must try to learn to nurse both from his mother’s breast and the bottle nipple. While seemingly similar, these two feeding methods require completely different mouth and tongue motions and swallowing skills.

(source: www.breastfeeding.com)

Uncoordinated Pooping: Scientifically known as dyschezia, this refers to excessive straining with stools, specifically referring to a very common problem of newborns. Babies often seem to make quite a production out of a bowel movement, and sometimes even seem to be in pain as they strain and push. This is often labeled constipation by parents, but is technically not true constipation. True constipation refers to infrequent, hard stools—straining in and of itself does not necessarily mean constipation. Simply put, babies sometimes seem to have to figure out how to pull their legs up to relax the pelvic floor and let the stool come out.

(source: drhull.com)

Spittle:

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English spetil, from Old English; akin to Old English spittan to spit

1: Saliva

2: Spit

(source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

An Introduction

33 Weeks Pregnant

I was reading my wife’s breastfeeding book the other day—not necessarily a sentence I thought I’d open a book with—and I was amused by the condescending tips the authors offered for expecting dads. For example, I learned I should be willing to support my wife and help out around the house without any expectation of fanfare. Clearly the authors of this book attend the same writers’ workshops as the people I encountered when my wife and I were planning our wedding three years earlier—"Give your fiancé jobs he can handle, like preparing the list of songs or choosing the alcoholic beverages…but be sure to check his lists when he’s done.»

I imagine there are plenty of unenlightened men who need this level of patronizing advice, and I’m sure they’re wholly uninterested in books on babies and breastfeeding, save for the pencil drawings of boobies. And I’m sure there are books for the New Age dad who wants to let his newborn gnaw on his nipples so he can truly empathize with his wife.

But there don’t seem to be books for men in the middle—those I would refer to as «normal» men—who are helping out with the baby on purpose, out of a sense of desire to be supportive and to develop a bond with the child, even before he or she is eligible for participation in sports. They want to play a part, but they don’t want to get carried away. My friends who have kids fall into this category. They all know how to change diapers, they take their turn in late-night feedings, they occasionally debate the relative merits of the Diaper Champ vs. the Diaper Genie, and one of them named his fantasy baseball team Nipple Confusion. If that’s not funny to you yet, give it a couple of months. But by no means are they touchy-feely. My group of friends and I watch football, drink beer and belch. It’s just that sometimes there’s a kid or two in the room and we all now refer to beer as «daddy juice.»

This, then, is our book, a first-person account of life as a first-time dad, giving dads everywhere a sense of what lies ahead. This being my first experience at pro creation, I really don’t know exactly what to expect, but I imagine it will be funny. I’m eagerly awaiting the first time milk accidentally shoots across the room out of my wife’s nipple—God, I hope that’s not a myth!

By the way, I’m not so freakishly involved in the pregnancy and fatherhood thing that I sought out my wife’s breastfeeding book in an effort to try to connect with her on a deeper, more fulfilling level. I was in the downstairs bathroom, unprepared, the same way I learned about the 72 steps to a tighter butt and 47 things guaranteed to turn him on. Note to self: Put some manly reading material in the downstairs bathroom.

Inching Slowly Closer

35 Weeks Pregnant

The joy of knowing there’s a tiny little person being incubated. The elation of feeling the first kick in mommy’s belly. The excitement of knowing that you will be welcoming a new addition to your family in just a couple of weeks. Yeah, that all means squat now.

We’re at 35 weeks in what is billed as a 40-week process and we can’t wrap this thing up quickly enough. Really, doesn’t the baby have someplace else to go? Days are bad. Nights are bad. Early afternoons are bad. Around 9:12 a.m. isn’t too bad, but that passes quickly. Even equipped with enough pillows to fend off an attack from a well-trained fighting force, my wife can’t get comfortable in bed for more than 20 minutes at a time. She’d sleep on her back, but the Pregnancy Nazis have dictated that such outlandish behavior will slightly reduce the oxygen supply to the baby’s brain, thereby setting back our precious little one’s mental development and dooming the child to a life stuck on the wait lists of prestigious universities or, perish the thought, enrolled in a state school. People in my parents’ generation smoked, drank and ate feta cheese with impunity all through their pregnancies and, for the most part, we turned out okay. But now it’s a federal crime if my wife wants to sleep on her back. You will learn to hate the Pregnancy Nazis and all they stand for, and they will be with you for as long as you own your baby (you might think it would make sense to change their name to go along with the progressing life stages, but having Toddler Nazis and Terrible Twos Nazis just confuses the issue).

I feel bad because I want my wife—we’ll call her Jessica—to be happy and comfortable at all times, and I feel like a personal failure if I can’t cure her discomfort or her blues. But there’s not a whole lot the guy can do at this point—back rubs help, I say nice things (No, you don’t look fat, honey, you look pregnant) and I do whatever I can around the house. But there’s a creature growing in her belly—stretching out her skin in ways I would find objectionable if it were me, changing her center of balance and wreaking havoc on her emotions—and I’m simply no match for it. I’ve offered to take a turn carrying the baby, but that joke stopped being funny a while back.

Now, before I get to my next point, I want to say I love my wife very much. She’s top-three-in-her-law-school-class smart, stop-and-take-a-second-look pretty, push-you-to-the-point-of-peeing-your-pants funny and she’s my best friend in the world.

That said, she can be a little, um, challenging in her new role as a very pregnant woman.

I remember how my wife used to be, but now she’s a little like the sun in Seattle—glimpses of her break through from time to time, but it’s more often obscured by the cloud of hormones. Frustratingly, she and other women in her condition know they’re being difficult but can’t do a damn thing about it. Her mantra has become, I’m cranky, I’m whiny, I’m sorry.

But pregnant women, as a rule, do not suffer quietly. I’m intimately aware of the aches and pains, the itches and the unhappiness, the annoyances and the aggravations, whether she uses her words to tell me, communicates through sad little moans, or if I overhear her complaining to our two sympathetic black labs, Zoe and Clark.

And just because I know about these problems doesn’t necessarily mean I can make them better. Returning from an exhausting weekend at the in-laws’ for our baby shower, Jessica, teary-eyed, decided we weren’t ready for the baby, primarily because the house was a mess. A good husband would immediately pull out the vacuum and start cleaning, right? That would be the wrong answer. Jessica didn’t want me to vacuum at all; she wanted me to hang out with her and listen to all the other problems of the moment and all the reasons we were destined to fail as parents, but meanwhile the general filth was eating at her. Yes, this is fun. No, you can’t win.

For a pregnant woman, everything is a big deal. Perspective remains an elusive mistress. Size, for example, is a major issue in our lives. It used to be that a gain of five pounds was cause for dismay—now she’s gained more than 30.

A homeless man on the streets of Washington, D.C., stopped his random ranting when he saw my wife, pointed at her belly and shouted, Basketball! I mistakenly found that amusing, but nothing is humorous when it comes to Jessica’s physical expansion. I regularly try to explain that there are extenuating circumstances, what with her incubating a baby and all, but logic is no match for shoes that pinch in places they never did and clothes that no longer cover her expanding belly. A recent maternity-clothes shopping trip ended in tears when Jessica realized she was going to have to advance to the next size of clothing after she convinced herself she had already reached her apex. And she simply refuses to buy a size 8 shoe because, damnit, she doesn’t have size 8 feet. Any man who has spent more than 20 minutes with a woman and has even a glimmer of awareness knows that these events are crises.

But in the new pregnant world order, so too are radio announcers who talk too much, bicyclists who don’t warn when passing, days that get a little too hot, bugs that unfairly target her, bumper stickers that espouse the wrong political view, carpool lane violators (though, in fairness, that’s always set her off) and, of course, telemarketers.

But I love her and I will happily abide these difficult times when hormones get the final say in every argument. I assume she’ll return to being my happy, wonderful wife once the baby comes. And, despite the complaining, she’s maintained at least a glimmer of her sense of humor throughout, like when she said to me the other day, I’m a burping, enormous, club-footed giant. Or, I’ve had it with being nice to people. Screw everyone. Or, Your evil spawn is sucking the life out of me. Good times. Yes, good times.

A Closer Look

37 Weeks Pregnant

We went for our 36-week sonogram last week and found out that Jessica is carrying some sort of monster-baby.

They tell us that within a pound either way, the baby currently weighs a robust 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Using my math skills and the formula that babies typically gain a half pound each week down the home stretch, we are looking at a 9-pounder if we go a full 40 weeks. Also causing Jessica to furrow her brow a little more than normal is the fact that while the sonogram shows the baby’s body is right on schedule for a 36-week baby, the head is that of a 39-weeker.

All of these things, they tell us, are good for the health of the baby—big ones sleep through the night better, they fend off infection better, and they can make other babies their bitches once they get to daycare. But this is, at least for the short term,