Month 2 - Sleep please....

So month 2 was interesting because I was just wrapping up my vacation/paternity leave and soon I'd have to go back to work and Barbara was essentially on her own.  Lucky for us, her mom would come over 3-4 days a week to just help out and give her a break. 

It was still a trying time because Connor was still waking up every 2-3 hours for a feeding and Barbara would handle a lot of it mainly because 1.  She was the milk supply  2.  She knew I had to work and wanted me to get some sleep.  It was tough on her because it was hard to imagine doing anything on her own or having "free time" without the kid because of how much he depended on her.  The tough part of me was trying to keep Barbara's spirits up which wasn't as hard as the first month, but I could sympathize that motherhood wasn't very fun.  The other tough part was Connor just couldn't sleep on his own because of his acid reflux and always had to be held up.  So between Barbara and I, we'd have to sleep sitting up and holding him.  This meant surrounding myself with pillows and blankets and waking up with a sore back all the time.  Having a comfortable night of sleep was not in the cards for while.  The other item weighing on our mind was that Connor just wasn't gaining much weight, so it was always a constant worry of "is he getting enough to eat?" and for Barbara she would constantly feel guilty that her body wasn't producing enough milk.  The idea of giving formula to the little one always represented failure to her as a mother (which it wasn't), but she understood the idea that we had to fatten Connor up.

I think the thing that kept our spirits up is that around the 6 week mark, Connor started giving us some smiles.  It's just an amazing feeling to know that our presence could make him smile and it almost felt like he really started to know who we were and was showing us some love.

Connor with Uncle Phil

There's a smile for mama

Auntie Shan was such a big help during her Winter Break!

He didn't like being in a hoody.

Pictures like this kept us sane and happy.

Our little boxer.

Our lil T-rex

First time he made a grabbing motion

How we celebrated my birthday

Odd facial expression

First time being sick and dealing with a kid

One of my favorite sequence of pictures.  Apparently he liked bath time.

Scared and ready to swing.

Amazing that anyone can sleep like this.

Great mommy/son picture.

Our little bunny.

Finally got a smile out of him.  Look at those cheeks!

 

Month 1 - Did we really sign up for this?

Once we get home and settle in, we create a home base in the "man cave" room which was glorious in the 2 months prior to Connor showing up.  Videogames were played, movies were watched, and we rested / relaxed comfortably in that room.  When Connor showed up it now became a room of chaos, constant crying/pain, and very little sleep.

As I talked about in the previous post, Barbara still had some pains to deal - physical pains from labor/breastfeeding, but also now included more emotional pain.  She essentially had a feeling of being a slave to the child with little/to no reciprocation of appreciation or love.  All she heard was constant crying.  There was also a lot of guilt on her end on not being able to produce a lot of milk up front and constantly worrying - "Does he have enough food?  Is he still hungry?" Those thoughts add up and led to some postpartum depression.

As for myself, it was definitely a tough month for me as well.  I was extremely sleep deprived and my body wasn't used to waking up every 2 hours for 5 weeks straight.  I took about 6 weeks off of work (1 week prior to Connor's birth and 5 weeks post), but I can honestly say that this was the LEAST restful vacation I've ever taken.  It was constant work to keep an eye on Connor, give Barbara a break, try to support her emotionally, and still be able to provide love to our little guy.  I fell in love with Connor immediately, but it was a trying month and I can't imagine anything harder.  I truly understood what my parents, friends, employees had to go through when they had their kids and I definitely have a lot more empathy for anyone that has to go through this.

Lucky for the both us that we had SO much love and support from our family and friends.  Both would constantly bring over food, watch the kid, just hang out with us so we didn't feel excluded from the world.  Barbara's mom came over 3-4 times a week to help out and it was a life saver.  Auntie Shannon (who also introduced Barbara and I) spent time over her winter break to help us out and she even stayed over one night just so that we can get some sleep!  Uncle Brendan made his famous somen salad and Uncle Steve bought us dinner.  Others like Auntie Leigh and Rachelle brought over home made goodies - Things like that make me really appreciate having the friends that we do and just reaffirmed the type of support/love that we knew they'd provide not just to us, but to our son.

All in all - the first month was hellish, but we survived and a lot of that was due to the support from great family and friends.

Our sleeping boy - can't believe how small he was!

Great grandma meeting Connor for the first time.

Delirious night - posing Connor after a burping

1 week old!

After a night of fussing - hair is all over the place.

Always had a great scowl!

After his first bath - obviously did not have fun

Mad scientist

Angelic picture - didn't happen often

I can't believe this is Connor - looks so different

First smile!

1st Christmas OR had a tough day at work

Swaddled, but yet not sleepy

Family picture - Connor wanted to hide

We all survived his 1st month!

Educationing in Parenting Day 1 & 2

So shortly after Connor was born, my sister came in and was his first official visitor.  It was great being able to share that moment with her and I can see the absolute joy on her face as she now officially an aunt.  She was awesome enough to buy us snacks and Subway, which absolutely hit the spot given that we hadn't eaten since around noonish and with the adrenaline wearing off, I was getting a little dizzy. 

Once she took off, we got settled into our hospital room and then the "fun" began.  Barbara got her first taste of attempting to breast feed and it wasn't pleasant.  I think there are any words to describe it other then painful and uncomfortable and on top of that the epidural was starting to wear off so she was starting to feel the damage that occurred during the pregnancy.  Even worse, her feet became so bloated that you could leave thumb prints in there and it became painful for her to walk.  And when you think it can't get any worse, she also developed awful hemorrhoids which impacted her ability to sit and made it super painful when she went to the bathroom.  So while she's dealing with all of that, I'm working on changing a diaper & trying to get the little man to sleep.  The diaper was horrifying because even though I was warned that the poop would be gnarly at first, you never really realize how bad it is until you have to clean it.  It was like cleaning up a bunch of tootsie rolls that melted in the diaper.  And then attempting to swaddle the kid + get him to sleep was a total mystery to me.  I didn't really know the right way to hold him and how to get the swaddle so tight that he wouldn't break through.  Luckily the nurses were around to help out, but I came to the quick realization that I had NO CLUE what I was doing.  The nurses ended up taking Connor away for a little bit just so Barbara and I could catch up on some sleep.

When we woke the next morning, Barbara was REALLY feeling the pain and it wasn't pleasant.  She held up well especially since we had our first visitors around ~10AM - my dad and step mom and Barbara's mom/dad/brother.  From there on out, it was a constant rotation of visitors coming in and out, taking pictures, bringing us food/coffee, and just holding our little guy.  All the family / friends that showed up, texted, facebook'd, etc. really made us feel loved and supported.  It also got Barbara's mind off the extreme pain she was going through.  Unfortunately once everyone left, it was back to the pain and it was tough to watch.  She'd be in tears as she struggled through the breast feeding and just generally sitting in bed.  The bathroom was her enemy as she went through a major routine of cleaning and doing other unmentionable things just to go pee.

On the 2nd day, we essentially took EVERYTHING we could from the hospital that would help ease Barbara's pain.  I also had to deal with watching what I thought was the most painful event I have ever seen....Connor's circumcision.  The tools they put around his penis are things that you see in horror movies.  Luckily the kid was a champ - he barely cried, though he did leave a poop present for the doctor.  We also had a lactation consultant come in and try to give Barbara some tips on breast feeding.  They're super nice people, but they're a little snobby when it comes to feeding.  Essentially their job is to tell that breast feeding can be easy and at no given point in time should formula been given to your child.  I'll write more on this later as there are more horror stories to come.

Around 11AM, we packed up, got Connor into his car seat (which he HATED off the bat) and got into the old RDX and went home.  It was an exciting / scary day, but it was only the beginning of our little adventure....

Little man sleeping - of course his arm popped out of the swaddle.

One of my favorites - he's the cutest kid here.  We're watching Sunday Night Football together.

Philrin holding Connor

Connor giving a little yawn to Holly

My mom holding her grandchild.

Proud grandparents (Bob's parents)

Picture of Connor after being cleaned up

My dad

He decided to open his eye and see what was going on

    

My water broke....

Those were the words I was dreading to hear.  Barbara would wake up multiple times a night to go to the bathroom and I'd always wake up hoping that she wouldn't say those words.  Not because I didn't want Connor to show up, but more because it signified the end of one era and the beginning of a new one.  One that we had no clue what we're doing, but were going to be responsible for this little life and to ensure we gave him the best life that possibly could provide him.  It meant we'd transition to a life of spontaneity, to one of endless nights of trying to get the little one to go to sleep.

The morning after we put the tree up, Barbara woke up around 5 AM and said "Bryant, I think my water broke."  I woke up asking if she was sure and she described what had come out of her (gross) and I knew it was time.  She called the hospital to verify and because she wasn't having any contractions they asked her to wait an hour to see if she was still leaking.  As we waiting, I got up and started cleaning the house.  For some reason the only thought that ran through my mind was "Barbara will hate seeing a messy house when she comes home from the hospital."  So I did all of our dishes, I took out the trash, and put out the bins knowing that we'd be in the hospital for a couple days and if I didn't put out the bins, we'd miss a week of trash day.  After the hour passed, Barbara called the nurse again and verified she was still leaking.  They essentially said since she wasn't having contractions, we could take our time getting ready and just to get to the hospital some time that morning.  After hearing that, I started to relax a bit, made some coffee and I ended up playing with my newest toys - Xbox One and PS4.  I played a few games of Madden and a little Assasin's Creed while Barbara took a shower and ate some breakfast.  Once she was all done, we ended up packing the car and headed out to the hospital.

The car ride was a little bit of a blur.  Reality started to sync in that we were about to enter the hospital as just husband and wife and that we'd be leaving as parents.  There was a lot of excitement, anxiety, and a thousand thoughts in my head on what this whole experience would be like.

We got to the hospital around 11AM, checked in and then went to our room which was already all set up and prepped.  Since Barbara was still not having any contractions, they ended up giving her a drug called petocin to help speed up the process.  The way the drug worked was that every hour, Barbara's uterus would be dilated 1cm per hour until she reached 10cm.  When we got there, she was only 1 cm dilated, so we were in for a long ride.  Once she got the drug, she started to feel the contractions and the pains that went with them after roughly an hour or so.  She got to 2.5 hours before she had me run out to the nurse to get an epidural.  Barbara loves to tell folks about how she's a light weight when it comes to pain and she contrasts this with her best friend Michelle, who lasted 20 hours in labor before she needed an epidural.  So a nice Japanese man comes in, tells us he's the anesthesiologist, and starts prepping Barbara for the meds.  I didn't watch the needle go in because I hate needles, but I gave her my hand and could tell there was some pain based on how she was squeezing my hand.  The irony of it all was that the anesthetic needle was the worst pain she felt all day.  Well, actually, she ended up having 2-3 IV needles poked in her because the nurse had messed up the first time.

Once the epidural was in, we were both living on "easy street" for the next 6-7 hours.  We killed some time by catching up on episodes of Bones & Castle.  Barbara also got a small nap in while, I just lied in the dark, trying to get some sleep.  The combination of me being a light sleeper and room being so noisy with all the machines running in the background + just the anxiety of being a father in less then 24 hours had my mind just completely racing.  "What will he look like?  Will he like me?  I wonder if he'll have my attitude or Barbara's?" - things like that would creep in my mind.

As the time passed on, the nurse comes in around 8:15PM and says we're going to prep Barbara to push.  I had zero plans on watching any part of that birth because blood just creeps me out, but the nurse asked if I can hold one of her legs up while she pushed and just felt like it'd the wrong move to say no.  Auntie Michelle showed up around that time and was in charge of holding Barbara's neck up and also to give some words of encouragement.  The pushing started around 8:45 PM and it was just insane to watch how much work it was for Barbara.  Every 2 minutes, Barbara would have to push as hard as she could for 10 secs, take a deep breath and push even harder for another 10, and take one more deep breath and push as hard as she could.  I was watching her in pure awe and amazement on how she was able to dig deep to keep this up.  In between pushes, we'd have some pretty casual conversations with the nurses who were fantastic at keeping things light.  One time I ended up yawning and of course Barbara calls me out and says "Is this boring you?"  This pushing and pausing would keep going for roughly an hour or so.  They've now given Barbara an oxygen mask to catch her breath and they've now called in the doctor to help deliver.  Barbara's normal OBGYN was off that weekend, so Dr. Dang, her back up came in.  She was super nice and soft spoken and was definitely a calming presence in the delivery room.

The part that I didn't totally realize is that the hospital doesn't call the doctor in until the last possible minute OR because there are complications.  There was a little bit of both for our little guy - the umbilical cord got stuck around him which was slowing down his breathing, so it was key for Barbara to push him out soon or they'd probably have to resort to surgery.

Around that time, I could start seeing Connor's head and once I saw that it was like I couldn't take my eyes off of him.  I couldn't believe that I had ever thought that I wasn't going to watch this miracle entering our world.  Honestly it was the most amazing thing that I had ever seen.  By the time the doctor showed up, they had put Barbara's legs in stirrups and had moved me to be closer to Barbara's head and to hold her hand.  As the last pushes came out, I could see this little face appear.  He indeed had the umbilical cord around his neck, which the doctor promptly cut to break him loose.  After his shoulders came up, he just slid right out into the doctor's arms.

At 10:40PM on November 30th, 2013 - the most beautiful little guy entered our world.  They laid Connor on Barbara and immediate tears came from her, Michelle, and myself.  We all knew what a struggle it was to even get to this point and there was even a point in time where we lost hope that we could even have a kid, but all of that was forgotten in that moment, because it was truly pure bliss.  Connor let out his (now signature) soft cry and let us know he was breathing.  My initial thought was "Man he looks a lot like Barbara!" and that I couldn't wait to hold him.  They picked him up and started cleaning him off and weighing him.  He came in at 19 inches long and 7 lbs even.  

As things calmed down a bit, they had me hold him while they cleaned/stitched Barbara up.  I called our families to let them know that he arrived - all with different reactions.  My dad and mom were both kind of calm, but could tell they were happy.  Uncle James was thrilled and excited, but had to focus on his date.  Bob's Mom and Dad were dancing in their rooms.  They moved us into our recovery room where we started our first night as parents and truly learned what life will be like with no sleep.       

After the whole experience, I learned 2 important things:
1.  Barbara is an absolute trooper.  Pregnancy and labor was not easy, but Barbara did a great job in making it look easy. 
2.  Being a father is one of the most special experiences that I've ever had in my life.   

First Family Photo

Connor opening his eyes

Showing his signature pout

Really looks a lot like Barbara here

The last 4 weeks before parenthood.....

So the last 4 weeks of Barbara's pregnancy were filled with anticipation, preparation, and getting as much sleep as possible before the big day.  She went on maternity leave on Halloween and spent the month just really catching up on "me" time.  Barbara doesn't take a lot of vacations and doesn't take a lot of time to be by herself - she thrives on being around people (which is totally opposite of me), but this was a time for her kind of wind down, relax, and enjoy a little time where there wasn't much responsibility.

We went to a few baby classes which were long (4 & 8 hours), but they were informative and useful.  It was comforting to be in a room with other 1st time parents.  I learned quickly that I knew nothing about changing diapers or how to properly bathe our kid.  We learned some labor exercises for Barbara which ended up never being used because she had an epidural.  We had to watch this cringe worthy video where they played Bette Midler's "The Rose" while watching all of these parents holding their new born babies.  You'd think this would be a touching video, but it was just more awkward because a lot of the moms had their "labor faces" on and those were more comical then anything.  The only thing I walked away with was that I was CONVINCED that I wouldn't watch the birth mainly because I'm not good with blood and also the birthing of the placenta was the most horrid thing I've ever watched.   

After the classes, Barbara went to the doctor pretty much every week.  There was a minor scare that the baby wasn't facing the right way, but she was diligent about making sure we went for walks and did some exercises to increase the chances that he'd turn himself around.  I think we were as prepared as we could be - hospital bags were packed, I was working but ensured to delegate/assign tasks for people while I was out, and Connor's room was prepped (though ironically he hasn't used it yet...that's for a later post).  Her two good friends had their babies early, in fact right after they went on maternity, but for us Connor wanted to stay in there until the end.

As we got to his original due date which was 11/24, nothing had happened and it was pretty uneventful.  Admittedly though, I was always on edge and anxious because I knew Barbara's water could break at ANY given time.  She went to the bathroom multiple times at night and I always prayed that she wouldn't wake me up that it was time to go.  Who knows how my brain would function at 2AM with little sleep!

A week later, I started my paternity leave/vacation and got to wind down a bit myself.  I was actually relieved that Connor hadn't shown up because that meant I could play with my new toys - Xbox One and PS4.  I knew Connor was MY SON because only my kid would understand that daddy needed to play some videogames first.  We ended up spending Thanksgiving with our families - all of them concerned and wondering when baby Connor would show up.  The day after, we were getting kind of stir crazy, so we ended up getting a Christmas tree and decorating it.  It was our first house, Barbara loves Christmas, and loves real trees, so it all made sense.  It also got us out of our house which was equally as important.  Once we finished decorating, Barbara took her last pregnant picture - signifying that she reached 40 weeks.   Little did we know that the next day, miracles would begin to happen....

Barbara - 40 weeks pregnant

     

Common Questions + we're getting down to the wire....

So I talked a bit about the journey, but hadn't really discussed much about the details and some of the questions related to Barbara's pregnancy.  Here are some common questions that are usually asked and/or things we asked our parents...

1.  Did she ever have morning sickness?
Nope,  though every one in a great while she'd be nauseous. 

2.  Did she have any cravings?
Nope, other then things she couldn't eat below.

3.  What did she miss not eating the most?
Coffee, then spam, the hot dogs.  Barbara used to drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day and then she ended up dropping it while we were trying to get pregnant + through out the pregnancy.

Moving on...it had been a while since we last got to see Connor on the screen.  We're around the 32 week mark (~October) where we got to see our little guy again.

Connor - 32 weeks

Our first thought was man, he looks evil/angry.  But we then started imagining more about what he actually looks like - does he look like mom?  dad?  neither?  The only thing we could confirm is that he had some hair which was great and that he was pointing in the right direction, but facing the wrong way.  Over the next few months, Barbara had to do various exercises (let her belly hang down, while leaning on the couch/chair) and also did a lot of walking to get Connor turned around.   

As the weeks went by and days were closer, we started getting to the 36 week mark which meant more frequent trips to the doctor and also that he'd be at term and could come out at any time....