This is week 114 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 791): The Stubborn Baby Vs. Professor Falken

It was the second day the baby was overdue, so #1GF! and I went out went out for a walk to help shake the baby loose. It didn’t help. In keeping with an ancient Dyer tradition, this baby wasn’t going to jump just because someone told her to.

The day was a prickled mess of waiting and pacing, broken up only by the wake of a close friend’s grandmother. One of the bereaved walked up to #1GF! and told her that she was “the cutest pregnant girl that she had ever seen in her whole life.” Not a bad compliment, especially for a wake.

Because #1GF! was two days overdue, I constantly asked her if she needed anything, and jumping up over the smallest noises. She couldn’t sneeze or shift in her chair without me hovering and asking if she was okay. I felt felt as useless as Professor Falken watching WOPR slowly cracking the launch code.

I didn’t sleep too well.

Monday (Day 792): How To Create A Serial Killer

#1GF! was working from home because she was officially three days overdue. I sat across our partners desk, alternating between writing LOR and asking her if she was okay. Because I cut back to using every fourth breath to ask about #1GF!’s condition, I didn’t finish writing until dinnertime.

I made a broccoli alfredo for #1GF!, and used the radio for background noise. I realized that “If You Seek Amy” by Brittney Spears isn’t all that subtle or clever. I finally got it. “Love me, hate me, say what you want about me, but all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy (F-U-C-K me).”

It bothered me, but not in the way you’d expect. When you’re used to listening to songs with titles like “Submerged in Boiling Flesh” or “Rotted Body Landslide”, spelling out a swear isn’t all that shocking. What bothered me was that if you have access to some of the top producers in the world and millions of dollars at your disposal, why can’t you figure out a lyrical way to remove the “to” from the above lyrics so that the masked meaning and the regular meaning both make grammatical sense? Seriously. Following “to” with “if” is pure lyrical laziness. Put some effort into it for if you see Kay’s sake.

After dinner, I finished reading JPod, and Douglas Coupland once again screwed me with one of his nonsensical endings. If you mention that a key is so important that a character needs to dig up a body for it, then you need to explain to the reader what the fuck that key was for. You don’t leave him sitting at his house listening to pop radio, waiting on a pregnant girl, and wondering about a goddamned fictional key. That’s how serial killers are created, Coupland. Or so I heard.

Yes, I like the way the Coupland creates his characters, but this is the second time his book’s conclusion was like a good conversation that trailed off to awkward staring. I doubt that I’ll invest the time in any more of his books because the world doesn’t need any more serial killers than it already has.

Tuesday (Day 793): Staring At Overdue Clouds

We went to #1GF!’s final prenatal appointment. It was hard to get excited over her one centimeter dilation, considering that she was already four days past her due date. #1GF! got another ultrasound, and got angry at me because I shrugged and tried to put the ultrasound pictures in my notebook without absorbing every little fuzzy blotch on them. She gave me a look. “That’s your baby,” she said with a fair amount of aggravation.

I sighed. “I know it is, but these are like pictures of clouds. You see a face in the clouds the first time, and it’s really cool. The second time, sort of cool. By the tenth time, you’ve moved on to things that are closer to the ground.”

“It your daughter,” she said with wide eyes and her head tilted a bit. She pointed to a white blob. “There’s her nose. Right there.”

I squinted at the blob and tried to reconfigure it in my head to make it more nose like. “I guess so…Hey, don’t think I’m not excited about this. Because I am. I can’t tell a face from a foot on those pictures though.”

#1GF! gave me a look that indicated that the discussion was over.

On the way home, we dropped into the library so that I could pick up another book to keep up with my increasing reading rate. I dropped #1GF! off so that she could work from home, and I went out to do the food shopping.

When I got home, I put away the groceries, mowed the lawn, showered, cooked dinner, and finally sat down for the first time all day. “You’ve now seen it,” I said to #1GF!.

“Seen what?” she asked.

“That I can completely lose an entire day while moving non-stop.”

We tried to watch My Dinner With Andre, and made it through twenty minutes before giving up any hope of being entertained. We decided that I Did The Dishes With #1GF! was infinitely more exciting.

It was a warm August night, and I cracked my neck opening the windows. Pain shot down through my shoulder blades and into my fingertips. It was one of those flukes, like throwing your back out while sneezing, that only seem to happen as a reminder that you’re doing a poor job of keeping the years at bay.

I took #1GF! out for another walk to see if we could convince the baby to join us in the cooling ocean air. The baby had no interest in oceans or other trickery. She stayed right where she was.

Wednesday (Day 794): Still Overdue

It was miserably humid, and my nose ran all day. Know what’s worse than poor air quality and runny nose that won’t stop? Writing a synopsis for your book in poor air quality with a runny nose that won’t stop.

In the afternoon, it finally rained and cooled things off. Rain typically improves outdoor air quality and the mood for writing, but I continued to sneeze, drain, and stare at my synopsis.

Later on, #1GF! and I went out for a walk to try once again to loosen #1GF!’s hips and get the baby moved closer to the outside world. As usual, the baby wasn’t interested in such nonsense and stayed right where she was.

On the way home, I picked up some allergy medicine at the local pharmacy, but despite it’s supposed extra strength, it didn’t help at all. After going through an entire box of kleenex, I stepped up to straight paper towels, with no chaser. You know that if the quicker picker upper fails to absorb all of your snot, things aren’t going so well.

Thursday (Day 795): Disneyesque Woodland Creatures Soaked In Urine

We went out to breakfast at Strawberry Fair, a small restaurant with the atmosphere of someone’s country house. When we walked in, the hostess took one look at #1GF! and cheerily told us that the next time we came we’d have to sit in another room. I raised an eyebrow.

She explained that the restaurant was a room for people with kids and a room for adults only. At first, I thought it was a great idea for people who want to have their breakfast without listening to the constant rhythm of kid banging a spoon on the table. And while I was excited about being so close to earning our entrance pass into the kids only room, I thought, “Fuck that shit. I’m not being relegated to a back room just because I won the baby lottery.

“Maybe I don’t want to sit so close to the table of old ladies that makes a department store perfume counter seem subtle, or maybe I don’t want to listen to the fucking guy to the right who wants the entire restaurant to see that his teeth are indeed capable of grinding his food into an unsightly mess. I’ll eat my fucking pancakes wherever the fuck I want to eat my fucking pancakes. Fucking strawberry this, you ageist strawberry fucks.”

I barely caught myself before pumping a fist into the air for babies everywhere, and a quick glance at #1GF! and the hostess revealed that neither would appreciate my animated opinion on the seating policy. It’s possible that the “constant on” state of waiting for an overdue baby may have chipped out just a wee bit of my sanity. I shrugged and smiled and we were led to our table to ingest a breakfast that ended up being more expensive than impressive.

When we got home, #1GF! sat on the couch, and I worked on my synopsis. I finished up at 4PM. I wrote a little LOR, and waited for the call for #1GF! to go to the hospital to be induced. She was a week overdue.

I had a goal of getting ten agent query letters done, and had none completed. #1GF! shamed me into going back to the computer to meet my goals. I wrote nine agent letters, and sent them out. #1GF! seemed actually proud.

Just after I finished, we got the call telling us to be at the hospital at 7PM. We zippered up the suitcase that had been packed and sitting open on the dresser for weeks, and stuffed all sorts of magazines, music, books, and games into a backpack.

We tried to have a leisurely dinner at the local family fish fry restaurant, but we were a little too excited to take it slow. We shoveled the food in and headed to the hospital a little early.

#1GF! was admitted to the hospital and we were put into room four, a windowless box, bleached with fluorescent light. There were no birds flying around holding “congratulations” banners, and there were no smiling, doe-eyed woodland creatures awaiting our arrival. As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, what the room lacked in woodland creatures and cuteness, it made up for with an overpowering smell of urine.

#1GF! and I looked at each other. “Do you smell something?” #1GF! asked.

My nose was wrinkled. “I thought it was just my nose.” It was not the way we expected to start our journey into parenthood.

The doctor was supposed to administer the first dose of pitocin at 8PM, but he was busy. I asked the nurse if we could change rooms to something that didn’t smell. She was accommodating, but seemed a bit annoyed under the surface. Room eight was still a windowless box devoid of cuddly woodland creatures, but it smelled slightly better than the first room. I could close my eyes and imagine standing on a train platform, but #1GF! couldn’t smell anything, so we unpacked and got comfortable.

Once we were settled, #1GF! thought the room was boring. I literally jumped around to entertain her. I don’t know if it’s against hospital rules, but jumping and flailing are usually effective ways to make #1GF! laugh. It worked for a short time. I managed to stop jumping just as the nurse came in at 10PM to administer the first dose of pitocin.

They hooked #1GF! up to an I.V. machine to administer the drug, and wrapped two straps around her belly. One strap monitored the baby’s heart rate, and the other monitored the mom’s. If either of the heart rates dropped, an alarm would sound to notify the nurses that something wasn’t right.

It was late by the time everything was set up, so we went to bed. #1GF! had enough wires attached to her to negate any positive effects of the craftmatic hospital bed, and I was shown how the easy chair transformed into a single pullout bed. I could feel every spring, and the bed creaked like a Spanish galleon whenever I moved, but I was happy that I wasn’t going to be curled up in an easy chair overnight.

There was one thing that they didn’t warn us about. Okay two. First, the the bands around #1GF!’s belly didn’t simply notify the nurses if either of my ladies’ heart rates fluctuated. It sounded an alarm that sought to wake every living creature within a hundred yard radius. I suddenly understood the lack of small, Disneyesque woodland creatures and birds carrying banners. I wouldn’t put up with that noise if I were small, furry, and underpaid.

Second, in addition to being impossible to ignore, the alarm went off about every two hours, all night long. I guess that was it was engineered to prepare new parents for being up all night with a baby…or a payback to couples who complain about urine soaked rooms. We didn’t get much sleep.

Friday (Day 796): 616, The Number Of The Birth

#1GF!’s sister came by the hospital to check on #1GF!, but by the time we got the message, she had already left. I didn’t know this, so I ran around the halls outside the maternity ward looking for her. I eventually gave up and headed back to the room. I had more pressing issues to worry about.

I got back and shrugged, trying to mask my frustration. “She’s gone. I don’t know. I couldn’t find her.”

“Did you check in the hall?” asked #1GF!.

#1GF! was strapped to machines and under a bit of stress, so I gave her a pass on the idea that I walked into a broom closet and stood there trying to find her sister behind the bottles of hospital-grade cleanser. “Yes,” I said with a smile. “I even checked the cafeteria.”

I showered in the tiny room shower, which wasn’t easy, considering I couldn’t figure out how to get the shower seat retracted. I had to stand around it, all while trying not to touch any of the fixtures and get residual hospital germs all over me.

I threw on some shorts and a T-shirt just before the doctors came in to check on #1GF!. #1GF!’s doctor was still busy doing something else, and all of his alternates were all busy too, so we were given a replacement doctor. We weren’t really psyched that a team of five doctors didn’t have one available during a birth that they planned, but the replacement doctor put us at ease.

Contrary to most doctors that I’ve encountered, this doctor had an actual personality. He was funny, very personable, and explained the procedures in language that we could understand. Unfortunately, he didn’t think that #1GF! was dilated at all. He taught us a new medical term (F.O.S.), and even brought soap and towels in to us, which is normally not a doctor’s job. The best thing he did was give us the feeling that #1GF! was in capable hands.

The doctor left, and #1GF! watched 90210 reruns while eating her breakfast. I stole leftovers off of her tray because we found out that the hospital only provides food for the mother, not the spouse…or life partner…or man toy…or what ever the hell I’m called. Food is for the people who do the work.

I called my parents to let them know that we were in the hospital, and then #1GF! and I went for a walk around the halls. They like the mothers to walk around to loosen up their hips and help move the baby down the birth canal. #1GF! walked slowly with a couple of johnnies wrapped around her short, but very pregnant frame, and I walked beside her, pushing her I.V. machine.

As we passed by the maternity ward exit, we saw it #1GF!’s sister and mother walking down the hall away from us. They couldn’t get into the ward to see #1GF!, so I ran out to grab them before they left. #1GF!’s mother had huge news. Her illness was gone. I ran back to #1GF! who was just inside the maternity ward door and gave her the news. #1GF! welled up. The ladies stood waving to each other and welling up over the unlikely blessings on either side of the doorway until the attendant warned us all to stand back and closed the doors.

#1GF! and I went back to the room, and the doctor told us that #1GF! wasn’t making progress, and probably wouldn’t be delivering that day. On the upside, they moved us into room fourteen, which was a giant room with a window.

It was nice to have a window to the outside world, just to know that something still existed beyond the fluorescent boxes we had been in for the previous twenty-four hours. #1GF! ordered lunch, and I went to the cafeteria to forage. Nothing looked remotely edible. I grabbed a slice of pizza quickly choked it down, because it wasn’t worth the tiny amount of energy that it would take to carry it back to the room.

I ended up with a headache because I was eating migraine triggering food and wasn’t drinking enough water. I didn’t care. This wasn’t about me.

#1GF! got another dose of pitocin after lunch and then took a nap. She needed to make up for the lack of sleep the night before. I didn’t even try to sleep. I alternated between reading a book and staring out the window through a crack in the curtains. I looked at #1GF! laying there in the hospital bed, and I was glad that we were in the hospital for this long for something good instead of something bad.

I thought about how people hate hospitals, blood, needles, funerals, or loud music. I have a naturally poor sense of empathy that grows only as I experience things like death, birth, and joy for myself. Even with an imagination that turns shop vacs into robots, without the fertile soil of experience, little empathy takes root.

I looked out the window and emerged from the mire of trying to override boredom with depth. Even though I was starting to understand that exhausted look parents have when they leave the hospital with a new baby, I realized that a hospital room can be really boring when the patient is stable. Sure, there’s plenty of room to flail your limbs for entertainment purposes, but there’s only so much flailing you can fit into a day.

The pitocin still wasn’t kicking off labor as expected. Hours were passing and nothing was happening. If you have to ask a nurse if you’re having a contraction, you probably aren’t. The doctor gave #1GF! one final dose, and it didn’t go well. The baby wasn’t descending, and her little heart rate dipped on every small contraction.

The doctor didn’t want to panic us because the baby wasn’t at risk yet, but he said that the dip in heart rate could be a sign that the baby might be tangled up in her cord. He said that something was going wrong, and he’d like to take care of it long before the baby got anywhere near distress.

The doctor suggested a C-section, and left us alone to think about it for a few minutes. He stopped at the door. “Know what they call women who have c-sections?”

“Mom,” the nurse answered with a smile.

“Mom. Right. Gah. You totally ruined that punchline, Margie.” The doctor and nurse left us alone for a minute.

“What do you think?” asked #1GF!.

“I know that you didn’t want a C-section, but if the baby could be in trouble…” I trailed off.

“I know, but it feels like cheating…like I’m taking the easy way out.”

“Surgery isn’t the easy way.”

“I know, but…”

“No really. Surgery isn’t easy. There’s less effort during the birth, but you’ll pay for it later.”

“Are you okay with it?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I’m fine with any way that baby comes out as long as as you come through okay.” She nodded. And I kissed her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Once we made the decision, the doctor sent an anesthesiologist in to explain to #1GF! what was going on. They brought in scrubs and a surgical hat for me, and I went into the bathroom to put them on. I looked really strange. I came out and made the joke that I only play a doctor on TV. I imagine that they hear that sort of thing all the time, but they smiled anyway.

I gave #1GF! a kiss, and they whisked her off, bed and all, leaving me in a room alone. I looked out the window and hoped that everything was going to be okay. Those are the moments that when you don’t have a god, the ten feet to the door can seem like an immeasurable buffer between you and the rest of the world, and the silence of your surroundings presses in on you to reduce the small place that you think you have in the world to something that barely matters.

There was nothing that I could do except hope that all of these people were well trained and on their game. And soon I realized that no matter how hard I hoped and wished, I couldn’t control what was going on. When you realize that hoping and wishing aren’t effective tools in staving off the possible realities that you really fear, you sit in your chair alone, and you wait for what is inevitably to come.

A nurse came in, and snappily told me to grab all of our stuff. I picked up various bags and backpacks and followed her down the hall at what was a good clip for even my long legs. She rushed me into the recovery room and told me to wait there while they prepped #1GF! in the O.R. I put down my bags. The nurse suggested that I watch T.V., but that was the last thing on my mind. I was in the middle of something that I never thought I’d experience in my life, and I wanted to soak up every nervous minute of it.

When they were ready, they told me to put on my mask and grab my camera, before whisking me into the operating room. It didn’t seem as technologically advanced as years of television would have me believe. They sat me on a rolling stool next to #1GF’s head and I held her hand. “Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” she said with a small smile. A blue sheet blocked the procedure from our view.

I tried to look around the sheet to watch the actual incision, but they asked me not to look. I looked at #1GF! laying on the table in her hospital shower cap. “You’re doing great,” I said as hospital staff swirled around us. As I looked into #1GF!’s eyes, the doctor asked if I wanted to see the birth. “This is it,” I said to #1GF! and squeezed her hand.

For me, this was a once in a lifetime experience. I never thought that I’d be in the position to see the birth of my child, and I wasn’t going to miss a second of it. I stood up to see over the curtain, and took in what I saw. The doctor slid the fingertips of both hands into the incision in #1GF!’s iodine colored abdomen. His fingers were pressed tightly together with his thumb parallel, like he was stiffly performing a magic trick.

You know those square, modern faucets that turn on like a waterfall? Imagine one of those about nine inches wide. Now, imagine blood instead of water. That was how it looked as the doctor pressed into the incision. There was a ton of blood (maybe amniotic fluid, but as I said, I only play a doctor on T.V.) flowing out.

I’m not someone to get nervous in an emergency situation. In fact, I tend to do better in emergency situations than when dealing with simple, day to day minutiae. I have no idea why. I guess that if you break your nose early enough, blood stops bothering you. There was no indication from the team of doctors and nurses that the copious amount of blood was anything out of the ordinary, so I watched intently and without worry.

When the doctor pulled his hands out of the incision, they were gently cradling a tiny head full of hair. He went back in and pulled one shoulder and then the other, announcing each part as he pulled them out. I was staring open mouthed, not that anyone could see my expression under my surgical mask. “Come on, Dad,” said the doctor. “Tell Mom what you see.”

I was so engrossed that I forgot that #1GF! couldn’t see any of what was going on. All she could see was a blue wall of fabric. For a guy who writes over a quarter of a million words a year, I was lucky that I could find three. “It’s a baby!” I said. That was about all I could say. I was in doe-eyed awe.

And out she came. The doctor held up my daughter. She was blue-gray, covered in blood, and completely amazing. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her belly and her leg like she was an acrobat in Cirque du Soleil. “See that cord? I knew something was wrong,” the doctor said. I stood there slack-jawed.

They asked if I had a camera, and I told them that I did. I was a little wary of taking pictures in a delivery room, but the doctors convinced me to take one shot. “Oh, yes. You need to take this,” the doctor said. The rest of the surgical team was nodding. He was right. #1GF! couldn’t see her daughter, and we could always delete the picture later. I took a single picture and held the camera up to #1GF! behind her blue blockade.

They cut the cord without asking if I wanted to help out. Had they asked, I would’ve had them do it, for the same reason that I wouldn’t want any of them working on my PC. It’s not about intelligence, it’s about experience.

They called me over to the station where they clean the baby up, possibly to distract me because they started pressing on #1GF!’s stomach really hard to get the afterbirth out before they sewed her up. They weren’t gentle, but birth isn’t a gentle process. I was glad that #1GF! was numb for that beating.

I went over to the station and the nurses were doing tests, cleaning off the baby, and cleaning out her airways. I stood there in complete awe, staring down at the baby and not knowing what to do. “You can touch her,” said one of the nurses. The baby’s eyes were scrunched shut, her hands grasped slowly at the air. I didn’t really feel qualified as a professional or a father, but I reached down and touched her little hand. It was sort of like an eight-year-old touches a haunted house before jumping back.

The nurses needed to do more tests, so they sent me back to sit with #1GF! while they finished sewing her up. They brought over the baby, who was wrapped up in hospital towels like a little papoose, so that only her face was showing. They held her next to #1GF!’s face so that she could see her. I wiped the tears from #1GF!’s eyes, while trying not to let any tears hit my own cheeks.

Ten fingers, ten toes. That’s about all that you can ask for. We were very, very lucky.

They gave me the baby to hold for a few minutes, and whether it’s genetic programming or not, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She was absolutely perfect. I was still in awe.

They told us that the baby scored very well on her tests, and sent our new little family into the recovery room. They weighed the baby, who was seven pounds thirteen ounces. They put her into a little bassinet with transparent sides, and attached one bracelet to the her foot, and another to #1GF!’s wrist. They were electronic devices that had matching info listed on them that the nurse would have to check when taking or returning a baby.

I got a coach’s bracelet to let me in and out of the maternity ward that had #1GF!’s last name scrawled on it in ballpoint pen. No electronics, no advanced info to check. I think that it might’ve been a consolation bracelet to make new dads feel like they were actually a part of the process.

Once we were settled, everyone left the recovery room. It was suddenly really quiet. “That was unreal,” #1GF! said.

“I can’t believe it,” I said shaking my head with wide eyes.

“Neither can I.”

“Hey, want some music?” I asked.

“Sure, okay,” said #1GF!

The three of us were the only ones in the recovery room, so I pulled out my cell phone. “Hold on a second.” I scrolled through the songs on there. I put on “Isn’t She Lovely,” by Stevie Wonder. We both welled up. “Perfect,” #1GF! said.

I was just putting on “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” when a nurse walked in. “Oh, I love that song. It’s so fitting,” she said with a smile. She let us know that we would be in the room for a few hours. It was only 6:30 PM. It felt like midnight. The nurse left and said she’d be back to check on us later. It was suddenly quiet again.

While we sat waiting for the feeling to return to #1GF!’s lower half, we went through our list of middle names for the baby. We considered naming her after different people, but in the end, we decided that she wasn’t going to carry the baggage of other people’s lives. Her name wouldn’t show signs of rust around the edges, and wouldn’t anchor her to a life that she had nothing to do with creating. She would forge ahead into the world with a name that was as new and clean as she was. We picked the middle name that sounded right in our ears when paired with her first name, and after asking each other if we were sure about our choice, I folded up the handwritten list and stuck it in a pocket.

Three hours later, #1GF! had feeling in her legs, so it was time for her to try to feed the baby. The nurses help new mothers with that sort of thing because new fathers are about as useful as a closet full of bedpans. You’d never know it, but seemingly natural process like feeding a baby isn’t easy. Babies don’t always latch on right away, and it can be frustrating and painful for the mom.

The baby didn’t latch right away, but we cut her a little slack. After all, she had only been breathing air for a couple of hours, so knowing how to eat without using her umbilical cord was something she’d learn eventually. I put away the math flash cards, and thought about canceling the foreign language tapes that were on order…at least until she had eating mastered.

After we got out of the recovery room, we got a phone call from one of #1GF!’s work friends. She had been transferred from room to room because there was another woman with the exact same name as #1GF! on the same floor who had given birth at the same time. The nurses had to keep them on opposite ends of the floor to avoid any confusion or baby swapping accidents. #1GF! doesn’t have a common name like Lisa Jones or Michelle Smith, so it was a little odd.

By the time we were settled in room 244, it was late and we were exhausted. All that stress finally came to a close. We called #1GF!’s mother and my parents to tell them that they had a new granddaughter. We had to repeat her name a couple of times and spell it because we made up her first name. We both could tell that the parents weren’t really going for it, but we didn’t care. It was a name that we really liked.

Now, maternity wards are sealed off from the rest of the hospital to stop crazies from coming in and stuffing babies under their shirts and running off with them. Or, in a more likely scenario, it is probably to stop people from coming in and wiping their snotty hands all over the babies. Or in an even more likely scenario, a locked ward will stop roving packs of hospital dingos from stealing babies.

Even though you’re isolated on the ward, they have rules to further ensure the safety of the newborns. In the maternity ward, you’re not allowed to walk around holding your (or anyone else’s) baby. When you move them around the halls (to the nursery or wherever), you have to push them around in a bassinet with wheels. You can only pick them up when you’re in your room. Again, this is to make the sight of someone walking with a baby an uncommon sign that the person has not been told the rules and might be preparing to stuff a baby under her shirt. That’s the low-tech baby theft prevention rule.

Now, where it gets cool is with the bracelets that the baby and mother were given right after birth. The nurses constantly do checks of bracelets between mother and child to verify that the information matches, but when the mother and baby are put together after ten minutes apart, matching bracelets will chime to let everyone know that the right baby is in the right hands.

And it gets better. If you get near an exit with a baby, whether you’re pushing them in a bassinet or not, the baby’s foot tag sets off an alarm, all the doors on the ward lock automatically, and security is called to the ward. It’s like baby lojack. Pretty cool, right?

At 11:30 PM, #1GF! got some dinner delivered, and I went to the cafeteria for another slice of pizza. As I stood in line, a guy came in with a very pregnant woman. They were buying dinner and didn’t have enough money, so the guy went to the ATM. While he was gone, the pregnant woman walked around the cafeteria. I knew what that pre-birth waiting period felt like, so when she wasn’t looking, I paid for their dinners and slipped out of the cafeteria with my slice of pizza. I always think that random, mysterious kindness is more fun than having someone thank you or refuse your kindness.

When I got back to the room, I set up #1GF! with some music to listen to on my phone while I tried to wrap my head around the day enough to get something scratched into my notebook. What I came up with was this: Birth is fucking awesome, but as a man, you’re the most useless person in the room during and after a birth. And you feel it. If you have a man in with you after childbirth, and you need any little thing, let him get it for you because he knows how entirely useless he is.

At around 1AM, a nurse took the baby to the nursery so that we could get some sleep. They would bring her back when she needed to be fed, which was every four hours or so during the night. We were completely wiped out. I didn’t even do anything, and I was wiped out. #1GF! told me to lay down, so I did. And I fell into a dead sleep.

While I slept, the nurse came in to get #1GF! up and walking around. #1GF! later told me that she didn’t think that the pain was that bad until she got up that first time. She nearly passed out from the pain, and I had no idea because I was asleep. Nice job there, coach. #1GF! asked me if I was tired, and I answered “yes”. I have no recollection of the conversation.

Saturday (Day 797): There Is No Jon. Only Zuul

I walked to the nursery and asked the nurse if I could have my baby. It was sort of weird, like I was asking to check out a DVD or something. It’s a really exciting feeling to wheel your baby down the hall. Her tiny little face looked peaceful and I couldn’t believe that she was ours. I brought her back to the room and I could see that #1GF! felt the exact same way.

For #1GF!, the morning was made up of feeding the baby and trying to nap. I had to learn how to swaddle the baby and got really comfortable holding her. I’ve never been comfortable with any child that can’t walk upright, but this one was mine. The sooner I got comfortable with holding her, the better. I spent a lot of time sitting in a chair watching TV and staring down at this little peanut of a baby that didn’t overflow much out of my two hands.

In the parenting classes, they told all the coaches that after the baby is born, you have to act as a gatekeeper for the mom because she is usually too exhausted and polite to keep people from showing up when she should be resting. I was determined to be Zuul, Gatekeeper of Gozer, so I pushed off calling people to let them know about the baby. I really wanted to give #1GF! chance to rest because, just as the class predicted, she was exhausted.

Her sister and mother showed up just as #1GF! was falling asleep. I wished they had called first, but people have been waiting for #1GF! to have a kid of her own for decades, so there was really no way to blame them. Sure, I tried to lock them out of the room, but they eventually threatened me and I had to let them in, proving that I wasn’t a very good gatekeeper.

While they were there, the baby had to nurse, so I took them down to the cafeteria. I spiced up my typical pizza order with a side of strawberry milk. I was eating pizza at every meal because it was the only edible thing available, and I was topping it off with strawberry Quick because that seemed healthier than a Coke. Hospital cafeteria food is complete and utter crap and birth warps your sense of everything.

While we ate, I got a call on my cell phone from #1GF!, and she hung up before I could pick it up. I called back, but she didn’t pick up. I didn’t know what was going on, so I left #1GF!’s family in the cafeteria to finish their lunch, and ran back to the room thinking something was wrong. It was nothing. #1GF! was just letting me know that we could come back because she was finished feeding. Why she didn’t pick up, I still don’t know. Maybe she wanted me to get a little exercise to work off all of that pizza.

#1GF!’s brother showed up, and then my family showed up soon after. I made my sister hold the baby because I didn’t think that she had ever held a baby so small. People have done this to me over the years, dumping tiny babies in my arms and watching me try not to break them. It was funny to finally be able to do it to someone else, but my sister handled it like a champ.

We told everyone the baby’s full name. They needed to get used to it a little, but I think they were warming up to it. My dad asked what some of the other names that didn’t make the cut from our list of fifteen now stuffed in a pocket somewhere. I shrugged and said that it didn’t really matter. He grinned a little. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

Once everyone left, I called a couple of my closest friends and told them the news. They both asked what the baby’s name was. They were the second and third people who asked to speak directly to #1GF! because they thought I was making things up. My propensity to turn everything into a joke over the last thirty plus years, has finally turned me into the boy who cried wolf.

I wanted a name that was unique, but not so outlandish that it would end up being a burden. I wanted something that my daughter could use as a movie star, a writer, professor, a lawyer, and anything in between. We couldn’t find what we wanted in the baby name books, so we made something up.

Sure, we made up the baby’s name. Sure, you can do that. You can name your kid Pepsi, Seven, Morgan Mindy, Mistatee, Mocha Latte, Mulva, or even Knightsu Sainee Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptang Zooboing Zowzing if you want to. This is America, little kid. America. It’s not Sweden. You can name your kid anything you want, as long as you remember that whatever you name them could end up shaping their futures.

Once all the calls were made, a woman brought us the birth certificate. We signed and set the name in stone.

They dropped off dinner for #1GF! soon after, and removed her I.V. and exposed her twenty-two staples to the open air for the first time. “I wonder how the outside world is?” #1GF! asked. I shrugged. We had been in the hospital for two straight days. Other than the scenery outside the window remaining pretty constant, I had no idea. The world seemed to still be there, which was good.

#1GF! got up to change the baby’s diaper, and I thought it was time that I got involved with the process. I had never changed a diaper in my life, so my involvement was in an observational capacity more than anything else. Look, you don’t just jump into a war zone without doing a little reconnaissance first. It didn’t look all that complicated, but it was a first for me.

We sat down to watch TV, and saw Billy Mays advertising some crappy infomercial product. He died the week before, but his commercials were still running. #1GF! was not really happy about it and thought it was creepy to have a dead guy hawking useless crap.

I ate a couple of the gourmet cupcakes that my parents brought, and got an Italian ice for #1GF! from the little cafeteria in the hall. The Italian ice was free, as was tea, if you wanted it. It’s not a big deal, but when you’re cooped up in a hospital room for a few days, even small treats turn into a big deal.

I went down to the cafeteria late at night to inhale what seemed like my ninetieth piece of pizza since we’d arrived. I walked down the hall, looking at the floor, completely lost in thought. Once I arrived at the cafeteria, I realized that I could navigate the twists and turns to get there without so much as looking up. On the other hand, I also had absolutely no idea what day it was.

When I got back, the baby kept crying and refused to sleep, but we decided to try to figure out what was wrong with her on our own. Sure, we had the impulse to call a nurse, but the impulse was smaller than our desire to keep the baby close to us and do it ourselves. We were going to have to figure out how to take care of her at some point, and it would be better to learn in a closed environment with nurses available than to be bludgeoned with the situation when we were home and on our own.

For new parents, trying to figure out what’s wrong is a huge guessing game. It’s like old school auto repair before computers were introduced. With an old car, it’s either air, gas or spark. With a newborn, there are no personality issues to deal with. Your solution is generally simple: it’s either food, gas/poop, or sleep.

The baby’s problem turned out to be a whole lot of gas. And she shit while we were changing her. The possibility of the baby shitting while she was being changed had never entered my mind. I continued observing, and revised my battle defenses for the day I would change her.

We finally got the baby to sleep at 1AM, and we decided that she should go to the nursery so that we could get a little sleep. Even when a newborn isn’t crying, they keep new parents awake because they could suddenly stop breathing at any time for no reason at all. If you want test the limits of paranoia, strain to hear a newborn breathing in the dark.

At a little after 1AM, I rolled the baby down the hall to the nursery (in a bassinette, not like Violet Beauregarde) . I might have been tired, or possibly genetically predisposed to say this, but she was the best looking baby in that nursery. I wanted to tell the nurse specifically not to park her next to some of the other babies, but I didn’t want to cause a stir before I knew for sure whether a baby could catch ugly by proximity.

I loped back to the room, hoping to get a couple of hours of sleep. The baby was due back at 2:30AM for a feed, so a couple of hours was being a bit generous. It was going to be a power hour of sleep during a week when sleep was meted out like chocolate and nylons in WWII.

What I Learned

• Brittney Spears can’t buy good writing.
• Douglas Coupland’s book endings pork me every time.
• I’m getting old enough that throwing my back out with a sneeze is a distinct possibility.
• Walking to get an overdue baby out doesn’t work. Neither does spicy food.
• Some restaurants are segregated by age. I get it, but it sort of bothers me.
• You don’t use any of the things you bring to entertain yourself at the hospital for a birth.
• Easy chairs in hospital rooms turn into beds-uncomfortable beds, but that’s better than sleeping in an easy chair like a hidden corpse.
• Hospital showers are small.
• Feeding S/Os is not the hospital’s responsibility.
• Hospital food is bad enough that I ate pizza at every single meal.
• If you wear a johnny backwards over your regular johhny, no one can see your butt.
• I understand why new parents look so tired.
• Fear is listening in a dark room to hear if your baby is breathing.
• Birth is fucking awesome.
• They have rules and baby lojack to keep dingos from stealing your baby.
• No one believes me anymore.
• Feeding a newborn for the first time isn’t an easy process.
• If you’re drinking Strawberry Quick because it seems healthier than a Coke, you’re probably staying in a hospital.
• They aren’t kidding when they say newborn poop (meconium) is like tar. That shit sticks enough that you have to scrub it off a baby’s bum. Although, it doesn’t smell, which is a pretty good trade off.
• Babies don’t care if you’re in the middle of changing them. If they want to poop, they’re going to poop.
• If Free Italian ice seems amazing, you’ve been in the hospital for a few days.
• Ugly can’t be spread by simple proximity.

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