We have a baby boy!

His name is Captain Wedontsharehisnameontheinternetforsafetyreasons, and he is perfect. Stevie and
I went into the hospital on Tuesday, waited a few hours for the operating room
to open up, and then went to meet our little man. This is that story.

Note: I’m running on a level of fatigue and sleeplessness I’d
forgotten was possible. If this post ends up reading more like Kerouac’s “Desolation
Angels” and less like a dad blog, please forgive me. 

All the scary stuff
was up front this time

I was scared shitless, and I was pretending not to be.
Stevie was scared too, and she was pretending not to be. We both knew the other
person was pretending, and we both appreciated it. That’s how we work. We’re
both strong for each other, and we’re both incredibly bad at deceiving the other.
So when Stevie stepped outside our “tough couple charade,” tearfully
smiled at me over her shoulder and mouthed “Everything will be OK,” I wasn’t surprised.
I already knew that she knew that I was trembling in every non-visible way possible.

This one was supposed to be easy. We had a rough go of it
with the Duchess. Twenty-four hours of labor, a few hours of pushing and a
round of vacuum extraction had segued into lowered heart rates for mom and
baby, an emergency c-section, infection of the uterus and a week in the
hospital. I am not a praying man, but when it was over and I tiredly stumbled
into the bathroom to vomit my fear into the hospital toilet, I found myself on
my knees all the same. Like I said, we had a rough go of it with the Duchess,
but this time it was going to be better. Planned c-section, in-out, easy peasy.
And then Liz died.

Suddenly the far out possibilities of losing Stevie during
surgery weren’t so far out. People die. People you know. People I know – and no
amount of consultation with Dr. Google, no amount of statistic gathering or
studying could push that reality any further away. Liz’s death hit close to
home, and it wasn’t going anywhere. In my mind’s geography, worry had moved in
next door. So when Stevie cried a little, smiled and mouthed “Everything will
be ok,” and I smiled back and said “I know,” both of us knew that the other one
was lying… just a little bit.

And then I was alone – staring at my little blue sterile
booties and waiting for the nurse to come in and tell me it was time.

Smooth, quick and a
little messy

She came and retrieved me about twenty minutes later. Stevie
had been prepped, anesthetized and they were waiting on me to move forward with
the surgery.  

 “Hi dear!” Stevie
said when she saw me walk into the O.R.

“Yo, dude,” I replied “You ready to have a baby?”

“Let’s do this shit.”

Yes, that is really how we actually talk to each other.

From then on, all of the worry and all of the stress from
before was somehow left in the waiting room. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. I
peaked around the curtain a couple times and watched fascinated as the surgeons
delicately cut each layer of my wife’s abdomen.  

With the Duchess, Stevie had been exhausted and the Duchess
was in need of immediate attention. Stevie had not been able to see her right
away, or have the skin-to-skin contact that we had planned for in our “birth
plan.” This time, Stevie had made two requests of the doctor. She wanted to see
the Captain right away, and she wanted skin-to-skin as soon as possible.

Our doctor let us know it was time, and before she reached
in to pull him out we heard him start to cry. Then Stevie started to cry. Then I
started to cry. Our doctor quickly lifted the Captain up above the surgical
screen between Stevie’s head and her stomach.

“Here’s your baby!” said the Doctor.

“Hi little..” and Stevie didn’t finish the sentence because
Captain Wedontsharehisnameon-theinternetforsafetyreasons decided that this would
be the perfect time to purge his lungs of any remaining amniotic fluid – all over
Stevie’s face.

We all laughed. The anesthesiologist freaked out a little,
and Captain went over to the warming table to get checked out by the team of
nurses and doctors waiting to roughly welcome him into the world. I knew he was
fine just from looking at him.

I talked to Stevie through my surgical mask. “He is perfect.”

“I know.” She said smiling.

“I’m smiling behind my mask by the way.”

“I know. I can see your eyes.”

And then I cried again. (If you didn’t know already, I cry a lot.)

Hospital Room and
Going Home

K, I’m going to bitch for a second.

Look, I get that I personally did not have the baby. I
understand that I am not the patient. But seriously, hospitals really need to
institute some form of Dad program in the Maternal Recovery wings. How about a
pull out bed that doesn’t seem like it was deliberately made to put me in as
much pain as your post-op patients? How about some sort of meal plan that
allows dads to eat with their wives without walking down to the cafeteria alone
three times a day? How about in room, or group classes for dads on how to do that
awesome baby bundle thing the nurses do that turns your baby into a calm little
burrito?

I may write a whole post about this someday, but I can’t help but feel that I and the rest of the zombie-fied, unshaven, pajama pants wearing
dads traipsing the tenth of a mile lap around the recovery floor were being
incredibly underutilized. Anyway… bitching done.

We stayed until Friday. The hospital room was its usual
combination of boredom, fatigue, frustration and excitement accented with sporadic
visits from family and friends. Thanks to my awesome mother-in-law, the Duchess
was even able to stop by and meet her new nemesis. It was fun to watch it dawn
on her that we hadn’t just named mom’s stomach “brother” for the past nine
months. She took to him immediately and has been obsessed with holding him and
kissing him ever since.

Friday morning the doctors gave Stevie and the Captain the
all clear and we headed home to start our lives with our kids. Plural. Kids. We
have kids.

The Duchess meets The Captain

Anyway, thanks for all of your support, kind notes and congratulations. All the love on the Ask Your Dad Facebook Page was amazing! I promise to ramble
less in upcoming posts, once I’ve had some sleep. 

I leave you with one more special treat, posted with express permission
from my wife. Ask Your Dad readers, here is the first time that my wife got to
hold our son. Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Love,

Dad