April, 2020 - We’re pregnant!
Imma read all the books. When I’m not reading, I’ll be listening. When I’m not listening, I’ll be watching. Hell when I’m sleeping, I’ll be role playing Dad-responsibilities in my dreams. Come Covid or blowout diapers, I’m gonna have this dad thing on lock.
January, 2021 - Baby A is here!
Oh, shit.
You see, I was super psyched to read about pregnancy and preparing for childbirth. It was going to be glorious. I wanted the midwives to write symphonies about my heroics. I foresaw our doula declaring me the GOAT of birth partners and requesting I retire and simply present my aura at all future births. The hospital would undoubtedly retire my likeness by the time we were discharged. Songs would be sung. Mics would be dropped.
And then I woke up.
It wasn’t until baby A was here, maybe an hour or two after birth, that I realized I’d made an enormous oversight. You see, up until then I was pretty solid. No songs were sung, but I held my own. Even when things got a bit hairy (more on that next week), I remained calm. I’d taken a hypnobirthing class with my partner each week for over a month, and I’d learned that as the birth partner I had three main jobs:
Make sure mama is breathing
Make sure she is hydrated
Help her to and from the bathroom
Basically, to try and prevent as much tension as possible.
I was determined to crush those jobs. I memorized the affirmations my partner appreciated from the hypnobirthing guide so I could get her breathing and calm when needed. I set alerts on my phone to remind myself to check her fluid intake and refill her water bottle. And since one of the major goals of hypnobirthing and having a doula, especially in the time of Covid, is to labor at home for as long as possible before heading to the hospital, I needed to prepare our home for laboring. I tried to put myself in her shoes and understand the things that I could control and get ahead of what would make her either stressed or uncomfortable and remedy it. I also researched the best apps to use to monitor surges (hypnobirthing lingo for contractions), so that we could communicate clearly with our doula and the midwives at the hospital.
All in all I was well prepared for the birth itself and my role as the birth partner.
And then baby A was here and I realized that the birth was just the beginning. Now we’re parents. The baby is here and we are responsible for keeping the little goober alive. Not going to lie, I felt some serious inner panic.
Obviously I had read about being a parent but it was mainly for stuff that comes later. Things like how to communicate with children and how to support their mental and emotional health. Fun things like which books to read to enlighten a child with diverse ideas and different cultures and areas of passion. Most importantly, whether or not it was okay to block every shot he shoots in basketball and bean him with a fastball high and tight if he gets a little cocky at baseball. You know, the important stuff.
Apparently I skipped over a slightly important step. For instance, I missed the part on just how difficult breastfeeding could be and how to support a partner through the process of learning how to do it. And not just from a technique perspective. It’s an emotional roller coaster. You have to put yourself in her shoes. She has literally taken on the sole responsibility of feeding the child so that they can, like, survive and grow. It’s intensely personal. Struggling with it can leave her feeling like a failure who has let the baby down and put their life at risk. She can feel like she’s at risk of failing at something that goes beyond just survival but an incredible bonding opportunity between mama and baby as well. It’s serious shit and I wasn’t prepared for how to handle supporting her throughout this process. I did the best I could in the moment but it was a major miss on my part and I let her down.
If I could go back, I’d spend a little bit less time preparing for my role as the birth partner and a bit more on the critical skills needed to be most helpful in those first two to four weeks. Things like:
- diaper changing
- how to give a baby a bath
- how to properly feed with a bottle and burp the baby
- seeing the signs of postpartum depression
- Matrix-like moves of recognizing and dodging flying pee and explosive poo
Overall, my goal was to be the dopest birth partner and Dad that I could be and at times I was dope and at other times I was more D’oh! Here’s a few examples:
Dope:
Birth Plan like the Back of My Hand
My partner and I discussed at length what our ideal birth looked like (limit interventions to an absolute minimum), what the ultimate goal was (a healthy baby and mama), and the general vibe (hypnobirthing-centric with dimmed lights and meditations, etc), among other things. It was my job to vet the birthing plan with our doula and make sure it was communicated clearly to our midwives and OB’s. My partner wouldn’t need to lift a finger and felt confident everyone understood her wishes. I printed out multiple copies, had one taped to the outside of our delivery room, and memorized it in case I needed to make a quick decision. This put my partner at ease and comfortable that any deviations would be well explained and in the best interests of her and baby.
One piece of advice about the birth plan: Keep it relatively simple and adequately flexible. Focus on the pieces that are most important to you and understand that not everything will go according to plan. The one absolute is to have a healthy baby and a healthy mama. It’s the only thing that matters. Nature may throw a curveball where interventions are necessary, some we may not be comfortable with, in order to deliver on that one absolute. And that is perfectly okay. The best thing I did was remind her that her body and our baby knew what they were doing, that we just needed to get out of its way a bit and let it do its thing. But even if we needed to do every intervention in the book, as long as the result was a healthy baby and mama, then we were smashingly successful.
D’Oh!:
Google Maps Doesn’t Have an In-Labor Route
The only way I can describe the route and my driving to the hospital was that I fell from an ugly tree and hit every branch coming down. Obviously, you want to be smooth and silky driving a laboring woman to the hospital. Man alive was it ever an off-night for me. I stayed super calm but for some reason it didn’t translate to my driving. I would manage to make smooth turns but then hit literally every pothole (thanks, Portland). Then I’d avoid a pothole but only by damn near flipping the car over in the process. The route was the most direct but had insane elevation changes and awkward stops. And then when I mercifully arrived at the hospital, I realized I had zero idea of where to park in the middle of the night. We couldn’t enter through the same building we usually did because it was closed after hours. So we needed to go through the emergency building, and that meant a different parking area. Have a route and a backup that you’ve practiced together and understand the layout of the hospital. Oh and trust me bro, this isn’t Costco on a Saturday. Don’t drive around forever looking for the perfect spot. Get that wagon parked, find a wheelchair if necessary, and get mama bear where she needs to go as quickly and smoothly as possible. Basically, anything other than what I did.
Dope:
Massage Game on Point
In the understatement of the century, childbirth is like, really difficult. Surges (contractions) can be super uncomfortable and painful. Pushing out a baby is not like passing a kidney stone. It’s a whole different ball game and if one thing is clear, mama’s are freaking superheroes that have to be cherished, spoiled, fawned over, and worshipped in every way possible. To that end, we took a pregnancy and labor massage class online. It taught me the different sitting and laying positions for her to try when in the early stages of labor, where to massage and with how much pressure, the proper directions in which to send energy, and even what to say during the process. This knowledge was gold and it supercharged my ability to be supportive.
Pro-tip: When practicing these positions pre-labor, take pictures on your phone of the different positions she likes and make a note or two about the pressure and motions that feel best. It can be hard to remember these things in the heat of the moment, so having a visual reminder is primo. Anyways, do mama a favor and take a class on prenatal and labor massage, watch some youtube videos, reach out to Phoebe Buffay, and be as helpful as you can when it’s showtime.
D’Oh!:
The Hospital Bag Is Not The Last Bag You’ll Ever Need
Don’t get me wrong, packing a hospital bag well in advance and having it either in the car or in a very obvious spot, is critical. Bring it with you to each appointment beginning at 36 weeks, just in case. But don’t be like me and keep adding to it each passing day to the point that I might as well have rented a moving truck and reserved space in the hospital for the next 13 years. Make a list, check it twice, confer with your midwives/OB’s/doulas, and try to keep it to the necessities. You want to be highly mobile, keep as many hands free as possible, and be able to find things quickly. I needed a GPS unit and a flashlight to find anything and when you’re either in labor, or taking care of a crying newborn, you don’t have time to find stuff.
Oh, and another pro-tip: Rob the hospital blind. They pack the recovery suites with all the goodies from diapers to ice packs to wipes and so on. And anything you don’t use they have to throw away, even if it's unopened. So grab anything that’s not nailed down. Which means, of course, you need room in the bags or an additional empty bag for hospital swag. I packed so much crap that we not only had zero room to bring anything else home, I damn near needed to donate stuff to every family in our hospital wing.
Dope:
Family Planning?
Covid Ground Rules - Agreed in advance on the conditions of visits (testing, vaccines, etc)
Pack me a lunch, mom? Having family make frozen meals and scheduling drop-offs of freshly made and nutritious foods is a massive help
What’s a guy gotta do to get a nap around here? Organize family visits for a time when you can get a nap or run an errand, get some me time, scream into a pillow, etc.
A lot has changed since you were a newborn - Let your parents know in advance that you have certain preferences for raising a newborn that are perhaps at odds with the preferences they had as newborn parents (no tummy sleeping, man!)
D’Oh!
Appreciate the Little Things
Slow down! Practice patience. It’s easy to get caught trying to do too many things at once as fast as possible. Laundry, dishes, new episodes of WandaVision, Peloton rides, getting the baby to sleep in a bassinet, etc. It can all wait. Remember that before you know it, this little tiny baby won’t be hitching a ride like Yoda on Luke anymore and will start meandering around on their own. Cherish these opportunities to do skin-to-skin time, let them sleep on your chest, hold them in your arms and pace around as they try to sleep. I don’t know of a better feeling in the world than having your baby fall asleep on your chest with their little head nestled in the comfy nook where your shoulder meets your neck. Prepare by telling yourself that it’s not the end of the world if you’re not able to get the baby to sleep in its bassinet each night or if skin-to-skin time means missing an exercise. These magical moments won’t be around forever.
The last thing I’ll say about preparing for childbirth is to talk to your partner about their goals and above all, listen. Listen to what is important to her and do your very best to come up with a plan that delivers on it. Make sure to spend as much time preparing for the mental and emotional side as anything. Practice patience. Don’t for one second think just because only one of you is giving actual birth that you don’t have a major role to play. Step up dudes, be prepared. Think outside the proverbial gender box at how to be the most supportive birth partner and then put in the actual work to get ready.
Next week, I’ll share our birth story, which was an absolute doozy. At one critical point, I was told that there was a chance our baby would have brain damage due to a lack of oxygen, and then they all just left the room and I sat with that, alone. Have a child, they said. It would be wonderful, they said.
Follow our day to day adventures (and misadventures) on Instagram and Facebook.
Until then, may your diapers be fresh and your shoe game fire.
#worldsokayestdad