Introducing Iain Kerr

Early Monday morning June 21st, at 6:11 to be exact, Iain Kerr joined our family to make us a foursome. At 8 lbs, and 21 inches long, the first thing he did outside the womb was pee on the doctoress who delivered him. Sorry about that Doc.

So far, so good. His name, Iain, is the Scottish version of Ian, pronounced E-an, and is a derivative of John. Labor and Delivery went well. I got through it without the help of any drugs or intervention, which, now that it's still fresh in my mind, was no easy feat. Natural birth isn't for everyone.

Dad likes him. Ada seems to be taking a liking to him. I'm thrilled to be done with pregnancy, childbirth, and maternity clothes. I'm excited to be able to enjoy my children and start the next phase of our lives together as a family. I have a feeling it is going to be a fun trip.

Moral of the story: Bringing home a baby is an adjustment with many good memories to be made.

Boy Oh Boy -- It's gonna be a boy

He looks like he's blowing bubbles...but that's just the umbilical cord. All is well in the land of the ultrasound. And he's almost a pound now according to the Doctoress. Pretty neat.

After a half-hour of rubbing goo on my belly and waving the magic wand, we learned that he has two kidneys, a bladder, a brain, four-chambers of his little heart, two hands and two feet, and a whole bunch of man parts.

Yesterday I went to the Doctoress for my 20 week appointment, which is just a checkup and a chance to hear his little heartbeat. It was also a chance to get the official Ultrasound results and reconfirm that all is well in the womb. Turns out, all is well. Also turns out that having an appointment late in the day on a Monday wasn't such a great idea. I rushed to get Ada up from her nap and even called to say I'd be five minutes late. What I should have done was called before waking Ada up to see if they were on schedule and then let her sleep another hour and rescheduled. Oh well. I'll be sure to try that next time.

Since I took Ada with me to the Doctoress' office, and we had to wait a long time, she got to be a bit unruly at times, but all and all was really good for me not having brought any entertainment since we were rushed out of the house in order to get there on time and --wait for an hour. She played with some other patient's coin purse -- that later spilled Tylenol onto the waiting room floor --oops! And danced in the waiting room. She sucked on a Starburst that she got from the receptionist (Don't give my kid candy, or crappy additive-filled unnaturally orange fake peanut butter crackers for that matter. Even if you ask me if it's okay--I always say "yes" just to be polite but I'm thinking "no" is a better answer since she always gets suckers I'm afraid she'll choke on or candy that will rot her teeth. It isn't good for her and you're a Doctoress' office for Pete's sake. Go with chocolates or rice cakes. Or chocolate dipped rice cakes even. Or carrots, celery and organic graham crackers. Yum.)

So here we are waiting in the reception area. Then we get to wait in our exam room. I visit the loo and pee into a cup as always first. Once in the exam room, Ada starts playing with the stirrups. Then she plays on the scale (she's 35.5 lbs). Then she heads over to the sink and the desk area with the tube of lubricant that is on the counter, and the other fun things she shouldn't be getting into. I lifted her up onto the exam table to sit by me and she made it into a slide since it is inclined for us preggos. That got old and dangerous fast. Then it was back to the stirrups and she had a long session with the button that locks and unlocks the door.

Finally the Doctoress appears and apologizes for the long wait. It's just one of those days. She reviews my paperwork, as Ada takes my folder from her and reviews it too. All is well. Time to hear the baby.

The wait was worth it for this picture alone. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with recent baby technology, when you go in for a checkup, they have this microphone on a cord that they push on your belly and it amplifies the heartbeat and gives the Doctoress a reading on the baby's beats per minute. It sounds kind of like a really fast whoosh, whoosh, whoosh -- like 140 beats per minute fast. So that's all the Doctoress had to do at this visit. Up with my shirt, on with the goo, she touches the microphone to my buldge, and Ada looks at me like "What's that mom?" She gets to her knees on the table to have a better look. Then she takes over for the Doctoress by grabbing the microphone and moving it around on my belly and we start laughing and predicting that she's going to be an OB/GYN when she grows up--which terrifies my Doctoress since she thinks it's a nutty profession with no life. I get all cleaned off and sit up. We move Ada back to the floor... and she goes right into OB mode. She even lifted her shirt up first!

Unfortunately, she doesn't realize that she won't get a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh because there is no baby in her belly. But I give her credit for trying.

Moral of the story: Good things come to those who wait, and having a camera phone handy when those good things come is always nice.

Pregnancy = Crazy

Recently, an old friend and his wife became pregnant. Shortly thereafter, he realized I write about motherhood and pregnancy and asked me to write a message to his wife imploring her to not act crazy toward him while her hormones are raging during pregnancy.

To my friend I say: Sorry bud, no chance of that ever happening.

Instead, my advice to expectant fathers goes like this:

Now that she is pregnant, your wife will be emotional, crazy, forgetful, moody, exhausted, needy, insecure, unsure of herself, exhausted, clumsy, forgetful, (see I'm already repeating myself as I type and I'm not doing it on purpose) and a million other emotions will take her prisoner for the next nine months. Once the baby is here, it could get better, but chances are that it will get worse first. Especially if she decides to nurse the baby as nursing mommy brain really turns to mush.

Some key phrases you as a husband should quickly incorporate into your daily conversations with your wife include:
I love you. (That should already be there but just in case it isn't and I really have to start at square one, it made the list.)
You're the most beautiful woman in the world. (ditto)
I love your changing body.
You are not fat. You're body is making room for the baby and some things are going to be more flattering than others. We just have to find something that flatters your new figure.
Everything is going to be just fine.
You're going to be a wonderful mother.
Slow down, relax, incubate.
Can I get you anything? (water, backrub, footrub, heating pad, foot rest, you're favorite mac and cheese from down the street that you crave)

If it is supportive and reassuring, it should be on this list. You get my point.

You're wife's body is going through an incredible transformation. Most men I know could not handle pregnancy, and if they could, it wouldn't be any better than we women handle it.

Pregnancy is not easy.

Just think about it. We try not to get pregnant for years until we are "ready" (whatever that means). Then we try to get pregnant and worry that we won't be able to. If it doesn't come naturally, there are layers of issues that come with that. If it does come naturally, we're still told not to count our chickens before they are hatched since the miscarriage rate is so high. Then we are bombarded with what to eat and not eat, how to exercise to stay in shape but not overexert ourselves and stress the baby. We have to go to doctor appointment after doctor appointment to get poked and prodded and weighed and measured. We take blood tests to screen for potential birth defects and have to nervously await the results. We then go in for ultrasounds to find out the sex of the baby, or not, and again make sure everything is in it's place. We hear horror stories about preemies, SIDS, postpartum depression and all that can go wrong with a pregnancy, not to mention how every mom we meet will volunteer her awful labor and delivery story just to prove that she's done something incredible, thereby scaring the pee out of us, literally -- because our bladders can now only hold so much and we have to go to the bathroom every five minutes.

And then there are the foods that we crave and the foods that we find repulsive. Our doctors are telling us to gain weight or not to gain too much weight when all we want to do is eat, or not eat.
And we sometimes have morning sickness or feel queasy, we get heartburn and other ailments. We, near the end of pregnancy, can barely walk/get off the couch/tie our shoes. Not to mention the leg cramps in the middle of the night, wild and crazy dreams and nights of restless sleep.

And do I even have to mention feeling fat and unattractive and worrying that we are no longer sexy in our husband's eyes? Or the fact that our wardrobe doesn't fit and we have to buy new things to wear, but we don't want to spend money on ourselves since we are saving up for the expense of having a baby. Then nothing fits once the baby is here and our body is completely changed, so we again need a new wardrobe, and have to dip into baby's savings.

Add to that the fact that you may or may not be working and have to decide if you are going back to work or not, and how you're going to make ends meet when you sit down with the family budget. Can you say stressful?

On top of that, you must consider that the baby is going to need a name and everyone has an opinion on what you should or shouldn't name the baby. Maybe there is family pressure to honor your twice removed great great uncle Elvis even though it totally doesn't sound good with your last name or his initials spell out something that he'll clearly be made fun of for his entire childhood. Can you live with that decision?

And what if you are having twins? It might be a two-for-one deal to some, but it terrifies the rest of us completely.

Briefly, let's chat about post-pregnancy. She'll doubt her mothering skills. She'll wonder if she should nurse, maybe feel like she's failed if she is unable to nurse (which she hasn't failed...sometimes it's just not meant to be and you need to be supportive of all of her choices.) Your friends may change now that you have a child and your social life might just go MIA for awhile. (Not everyone wants to talk poopy diapers over dinner you know.) Your sex life as you know it is over for at least 6 weeks until you get her doctor's clearance. And then who has time for sex? And how hot are you when you have spit up all over your shirt? Just you wait and see.

Then she'll wonder if doing sign language is good for the baby, if the baby is developing on schedule, if his height and weight percentile are okay, if he is getting enough milk, if she should vaccinate the baby (YES, but do your own research to form that opinion), and if she should get a nanny or enroll in daycare. Her mother and your mother will be all over her parenting skills, and that advice my fall on thankful, or insulted ears. (Don't get me wrong, Dad may be in charge of many of the decisions, but that's still pretty rare and to those fathers, I feel your pain.)

I mean, seriously, you want me to be on your side and suggest your wife go easy on you? No chance in hell buddy. Not a chance.

Now go give her a hug and tell her she's the most beautiful woman in the world.

Moral of the story: Having babies is not for the weak or unstable. It is a daunting process on an emotional roller coaster that will change your world forever. Be supportive of one another, prepare as best you can, and know that it won't be easy, but it sure is rewarding.

The blank snow globe...

This past weekend we learned a little factoid about the consequences of naming our daughter something unique and more unusual. Even though she's named after great great grandmothers on both sides of our family, Ada isn't a very common name nowadays.

While at my parents house, I was perusing a shelf of trinkets and noticed that my dad had purchased mini snow globes with all of our names on them. There was Bob, Diane, Rick, Amanda, Rob, Anna and then a blank one. I asked my dad what the blank one was all about thinking that maybe he bought them before Ada was born and assumed we'd add her name later, but he said, "Well if you named your kid something common, I'd be able to find her name pre-printed on a damn snow globe."

When I told this to Rick, he was pleasantly surprised by this revelation and saw it as a sign of our success in naming Ada something that wasn't common. My comment, being less than materialistic was more along the lines of, "That's awesome. Now she won't be tempted to by crap with her name on it."

Moral of the story: Not only do you need to think about what the kids at school will call your children, how they can be made fun of, what rhymes with their name, how the name will work with your last name, and what the baby's initials will spell, but you also need to consider if you want it to be readily available on key chains, street signs, mini license plates and other kitschy tschotkes. No pressure.