Learning to Daddy

In my last post you read about the need for my bride's labor to progress. Well, progress it did, and now we have a son. Before I get into the topic of this post, let me share a little about the labor and delivery.

First, we were in the hospital on two separate occasions with contractions, expecting a baby, but were sent home after a few hours. My father and stepmother came up for the weekend since they would not be able to come up for Christmas as my father was beginning radiation treatments for prostate cancer (prayers are appreciated), and we were all hoping they would meet their new grandson, but it was not to be. We will be visiting in a few weeks so they can meet each other. At a regular appointment they told us that if we wanted them to induce at 39 weeks, they would do that as everything was going well, but DW was in constant pain and progressing in labor. We agreed and the date was set, just a few days before Christmas.

My parents had returned home, but my mother and the in-laws came up for the delivery. We arrived at the hospital in the early morning and had arranged for the family and our little girl to wait for a call so they wouldn't be sitting in the waiting room all day. Good thing because our little boy wasn't born until nearly 12 hours later. His sister was the first one in, all alone, so she could meet him and find out his name. She's a great sister and loves him dearly. She's very helpful. In just a few minutes I invited the rest of the family in after the doctors had cared for mother and baby, and they were excited as well.

The delivery was a surprise to both of us because the doctor would come in every few hours and just check on my bride's dilation and effacement, and look at her contraction monitor. In the evening she came back to do the same thing and when she put her hand down there she made the usual comments, then said, "Just give me a little push." We thought she just wanted to feel something. "One more."

"Again." At this point, my bride and I looked at each other and realized she was going to have a baby in a few minutes. The doctor and nurse nonchalantly made preparations, the doctor asking for some olive oil and the nurse removing the bottom half of the hospital bed. I was on one side of my wife holding her foot and the nurse was on the other holding her other foot and so the delivery began. It was rather uneventful for a delivery. I was more aware with this one than I was with our daughter's. With hers it was sudden and surreal. With this one we kind of...faded?...into it. I was involved in supporting my bride when they gave her the epidural, then when she felt every spasm, then again a few hours later when they redid the epidural because the first one had pulled out. I'm a runner and was wearing one of my race shirts and the second anesthesiologist (who did the replacement) asked me if I had run it this year, too, which I had not. She said she had run it but didn't like the new tech shirts. So while she's sticking a needle into my wife's spine, we're talking race fashion, which actually put everyone at ease (it's amazing the commonalities God aligns in stressful situations).

Back to the delivery, about an hour after the replacement epidural, and my baby mama was feeling much better. I'm on her left holding her foot, and watching the delivery. The nurse is on her right, near the sink and the towel cabinet. "How are you feeling?" the nurse asked her. "I think I'm going to throw up," she said. The nurse turned to grab a kidney bowl, but by the time she turned back around, my wife's chin, gown, and pillow were soaked. The nurse consoled her and rested the bowl on her left shoulder, the dry one, so it would catch the sequel. Weeeeeellllll, it didn't.

She projectiled.

Onto me.

My face.

I tasted it.

As soon as it happened, I turned away, still keeping my cool, holding her foot, spit a little, wiped my mouth on my shoulder, and looked up at the doctor, who looked at me with a look of pity and "Huh, I've never seen that before." Silently, she returned her attention to my wife's vagina and the head that was protruding from it. It was not until I requested a washcloth that my bride realized she had sprayed me, and she apologized, embarrassed. Soon enough our son was born, they cleaned him up, weighed him, and rested him in his mother's arms. Meanwhile, she had her feet in stirrups and the doctor was sewing her up. When I looked over from my corner of the room, there she was, oblivious to her wound, to the, in my estimation, excessive blood coating her thighs, pelvis, and the bag and floor beneath her, the umbilical cord still attached inside somewhere. And she was asking about the baby. "How is he?"

And so the parenting began again, starting fresh. Here I am learning to daddy all over again. Now when I get up in the middle of the night it is no longer only to attend to my own bladder. My schedule is not run only by my own stomach and work commitments, but now involves the cries of a complete dependent. My son is strong, though. And bright, we can already tell. It appears that he is mild-mannered, but when he has something to say, he is not timid. That's how his sister was and is.

But now I have to learn to do father-son stuff. My responsibilities to him, while in many ways the same, are in many ways different. What I am to teach him comes from a place of teaching him to be a man. A godly man. A hero, a leader, an authority. But first I have to teach him how to submit. And I'm starting from scratch. I know God has blessed me with a son, and He has therefore entrusted him to me. And I have to believe I am equal to the task. Maybe one day he'll read this blog and will learn from The Groom the mix of struggles and joys in being one, and will look forward to the privilege of leading a family of his own.