For fathers: remember when you first became a daddy?

[I.Rowboat]

I remember the births of both of our children quite vividly.

For the first, my wife had just begun her maternity leave, and the baby wasn't due for a few more weeks. It was 7pm and I was doing some work to my truck (long time project vehicle and money pit). I had rented an engine hoist to pull the motor, had a bazillion tools and parts spread out and had just finished removing the cylinder head; my arms and clothes were covered in grease when my wife came down stairs and said in a very quiet voice that her water had broken. My stomach jumped several feet upwards and to the left, and then I quickly stuffed tools, parts, and an engine hoist back into the garage, hurriedly got cleaned up, stuffed some clothes into an overnight bag, and drove us to the hospital. One funny story from the hospital: My wife had been consistent throughout the pregnancy that she wanted a natural childbirth, and did not want any drugs or an epidural. Once we got the hospital and the labor pains began in earnest, she reconsidered this decision, first agreeing to fentanyl and later to an epidural. When the anesthesiologist finally arrived, it turned out he was a classmate of hers from college, which was weird because she went to a small school (Swarthmore), on the opposite side of the country, and not a classic pre-med school. It was funny because it was so incongruous -- she's already almost hallucinating from the pain and the baby that's trying to get out, and here's this guy who's simultaneously putting an IV in her spine and asking her how people she hasn't seen in 10 years are doing. Very surreal.

The total labor took 12 hours, which is pretty quick for a first child. I was at her side and watched the delivery, which was fascinating, although my wife was squezing my fingers so hard i was worried she might break one of them, lol. Happily, our son was born healthy. The next few days are a blur, but my most vivid memory is when when we went home 48 hours later, carrying our sleeping son up the stairs, in his car seat, into our home, setting him down on the floor, and then my wife and I turning to each other and each having this feeling of, "Oh, [censored], what now? what have we gotten ourselves into??" LOL...that was five years ago, and we've come a long way since then, although I just spent the weekend with my brother, who had his first child 10 weeks ago, and it brought back a flood of memories.

The birth of our daughter was much quicker and much less traumatic -- labor lasted only a couple of hours, and we both had some idea of what to expect for the ensuing days/weeks/months.

It's been a surprise how different our daughter is from our son -- while our son is very sanguine, our daughter is much more opinionated and hot tempered. She really keeps us on our toes! I quickly bonded with our son, but I had a very hard time bonding with our daughter during the first year, as she was colicky and only wanted the attention of her mother. Since she turned one in August she mellowed a bit and has blossomed into a delightful, mischevious little girl who has her daddy wrapped around her finger. But boy, is she going to be trouble when she gets older!

I love both of my kids and couldn't imagine life without them.

[Gunny Highway]

Bwana,

Congrats. The being scared doesn't go away as they get older. The things you worry about just change. It's worth it. Try not to raise him with a stick up his ass though. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Telecaster]

I'm 42, my oldest son is 15, and another son thats 7. My wife had both kids all natural, no pain drugs. The first son was a long labor.. that head never wanted to poke thru. Finally after 17 hours he squeezed out, all purple, pink, slimy, and very stinky. My wife is crying with joy. I got to cut the umbilicle cord and -oops- I accidentally snipped the doctors finger instead. Got some good tasteful "over the shoulder" video that my wife loves watching every year on the boy's birthday.

The 2nd son things happened much faster. Again took some video but it didn't come out as good. I had run out to the waiting area to tell some relatives that it might be awhile.. when I returned to my wife a few minutes later son #2 was sliding out. Everybody was alot more calm and relaxed about it.. but the doctor never made it back to my wife in time so the head nurse got to do all the duties. I didn't cut any extra finters this time tho.

Kids are great, life's greatest joy. A good friend since highschool him and his wife have tried for years to get pregnant, and finally adopted a 1 year old girl last month. My friend says he's never been happier, that "now he gets it". Fun stuff.

[Analyst]

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colic - the dirty little secret of some newborn babies. Our little girl was colicky (sp) as well and there were nights that I was wondering what the return policy on her was. 2 things amaze me about this time in our lives : 1 - that we survived; 2 - how little of it I actually remember. I know that the first 6 months were incredibly hard and that she cried a lot and didn't sleep much during the day (she still doesn't), but only a few specific memories remain and they are actually endearing (me soothing her by dancing with her while Nora Jones played on the stereo (over and over and over again)).

~FishNChips

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Starting at two weeks, my now-almost-14 daughter was either sleeping, eating or screaming literally twenty four hours a day. We were worried, of course, especially when every book said that colic doesn't kick in until they're one month old, but the doc said it was no problem - for the baby, at least. I remember walking laps around the house in the middle of the night carrying her, hoping to get her to sleep; then when she did I'd hold her and watch dog-sled races on ESPN2 at 3AM. It was a case of colic fit for the record books, and no remedy worked except time. This time the books were right, and almost exactly as the clock struck 3 months, the light switch flipped and her crying stopped almost overnight.

You feel like you're going crazy during the colic phase, if it's bad enough. Two years later, when we had our second child I found myself panicking every time he started to cry: not again! God, not again!

[bravos1]

DB, great thread!

I have 2 kids now, but the first is something I will NEVER forget! My wife became preclamptic very early on in her pregancy and was on total complete bed rest at week 28.

The doctor had already decided to take her 2-3 weeks early if all was going well. At 34 weeks, we go for a checkup and the doc tells us to go to the hospital and check-in. She told us that she wanted he in the hospital for the remainder of the pregnancy. My wife and I look at each other and and are like. great, 3+ weeks in a hospital even before the baby comes. We end up running home to pick up the "over-night" bag we had already packed and headed to the hospital. I was going to return later and pack some more things. We get to the hospital and they tell us to check-in at Labor and Delivery. We're like WTF? We're not having the baby yet... we're just checking in until the doc decides it is time.

They tell us they have a room in L&D for us, so we comply. We find out shortly after that the doc had changed her mind and planned on delivering the baby in a few days. We get settled in and the nurse takes my wifes BP (185/105ish) and is concerned. They give her magnisium to help and start the enduction. We had now been in the hospital for only about 1 hr! Through the night my wife got progressively more and more sick and her BP kept rising. They had the BP machine set to take a reading evey 5 minutes, yet they wanted my wife to get some sleep.. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Her BP reached a max of about 210/120 (at which I started freaking out!) She had multiple nurses and docs checking on her during the night and every time the BP machine was about to take a reading, I would whisper in my wifes ear that is was coming. If I did not do this, she would totally freak out when it started. So there I am from about midnight till 6am whispering "OK, there gonna get a BP reading now" every 5 minutes and I had been holding off on taking a leak for about 3 hours now!

6am rolls around and my wife's doc walks into the room looking like a trainwreck. She had been up much of the night talking to the L&D nurses and on-call docs at regular clips.

I quickly make a bee-line for the restroom and am back in like 2-3 minutes and they are already wheeling her in for an emergency c-section as there is some concern that she could stroke out. So I begin to quickly don a gown, cap, and booties. The doc begins to scrub-in and has me turn on the water as she can't get it to work!!! I say something along the lnes of.."OK, I can take care of this, you do the hard part in there".. she comes back with.. "Don't worry, this is the hard part" and gives me a big smile. My wife's doc is awesome! We go into the OR and the baby is out in what seems like 30 seconds. My daughter, even at 35 weeks, is pretty strong, but they rush her off to the NICU after a few seconds of bonding for observation. My daughter staed in the NICU for 9 days before she could go home. She was 4lbs-6oz and 18in at birth.

My second was born 15 months later (not planned to be so soon) and my wife had a repeat C since the births were so close. The second pregnacy went much better and my wife did not have hardly any issues with preclampsia.

My kids are now 4.5 and almost 6 and are so friggin great!

[vulturesrow]

db,

Just saw this thread. I might recount my experience with my firstborn later. I just want to let everyone know that I go into with my wife very early in the am for the birth of child 4 (planned C-section). Wish me luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[OrigamiSensei]

bravo, that story seems all too familiar (see mine above). Scary, especially for a first time father. I was luckier that my boy didn't have to spend any time in NICU but yours turned out ok so that's good.

[Empty_House]

My parents tried to get a refund.

[poincaraux]

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db,

Just saw this thread. I might recount my experience with my firstborn later. I just want to let everyone know that I go into with my wife very early in the am for the birth of child 4 (planned C-section). Wish me luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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GL vulturesrow!

My first is due Aug. 27th. I'll bump the thread myself then [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[diebitter]

Given the current theme of childhood/babies/etc, I asked NT to move this thread to the Lounge,m and he kindly agreed.

enjoy the reread.