Living with a Preggo: Third Trimester

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you're getting this whole stream of information coming your way- much of which is horrifying- and yet you know you just have to pay attention?

The third trimester is a lot like that. Like, yesterday, the wife informed me that she had lost her mucus plug. While this is a pertinent bit of information, signaling that the pregnancy is probably within two weeks of its end, knowing that there was a plug of mucus in my girl's nether regions was just something I really did not want to know.

Don't worry, though- there are lesser horrors in the third trimester. Let's cover the two big ones.

1. The Baby Shower.

"What the hell, man?" My buddy Brian asked me. "Guys are coming to the baby shower? Are you serious?"

Yeah, I was. I guess it's some sort of new trend, but apparently these days adult males are expected to come along, eat the finger foods, and ooh appropriately at the little bibs and whatnot. Gone forever are the days where a man could expect to hit the golf course with his boys during this time. Now, you and your boys will be all dressed up and at the shower, too.

Fortunately, my homegirl Noelle was throwing this one, and she took a few steps to make it easier for the guys- she manned up the food a bit (hooray for a hearty breakfast casserole rather than cucumber sandwiches) and she put together a customized baby shower bingo game to keep the fellas occupied. Kudos to you, Noelle! Alas, few things will make this sacred bastion of femaleness palatable to some guys. If this is very much not your environment, I recommend smuggling in a flask.


2. The Childbirth Class

Okay, I've got to be honest: this was the single most horrifying part of the whole pregnancy process for me.

It started out so promising: It was a room full of fresh-faced first-time parents just like us, they served us a modest breakfast, did a round of introductions, then went through the stuff I was mostly there for: the process we'd be expected to follow when The Day came. All very good information!

It all went to hell from there.

Next we were told to separate by gender, and asked to share our greatest hope/joy, and our greatest fear, about the delivery process. Me and this group of guys look at each other with trepidation: none of us wanted to start "sharing" with a bunch of dudes we didn't know at all. The girls were already merrily chatting away. So, like an idiot, I decide to take the lead, and give it an honest shot. BIG mistake. I admitted that my biggest hope would be that all goes quickly and smoothly, and my biggest fear was for the health of my wife and baby- that something might go wrong and either might end up seriously hurt, or worse. My fellow dads-to-be smirked. They knew that whatever they said, it wouldn't sound as pansy as what I'd just said. Practically all the remaining dads insisted that their biggest fear was that they wouldn't actually get to see the baby emerge and be the first to touch it. They practically bristled with steely-eyed masculinity. I'm sorry, maybe I'm a giant wimp, but I neither want to see my wife's fun bits stretched to crazy, melon-size diameters, nor do I want to see my daughter's skull squashed down, and then reinflated to something near its proper size. I think I'll stay on the other side of the curtain, where I can pretend to provide moral support to my wife, rather that what I'll actually be doing, which is trying to stay conscious.

Anyway, after our nice little sharing session, we proceeded to watch some videos that looked to have been from the early 80s. The first wasn't too horrible- it followed the birth processes of a couple of very overweight and hairy Northern Minnesota women. Fair enough. The next video, however, was the one I hated. It went though damn near everything that could go horribly wrong during the delivery process, and what the doctors could try to do to correct those things. This is the stuff nightmares are made of, fellas. I can't say you don't need to know this stuff- it might be okay to understand what's going on should such a nightmare come to pass- but when it comes right down to it, I'm paying a team of doctors a HUGE pile of money to take care of any problems that should arise. I really don't need to see videos of tiny infants being extracted by very ungentle means, resuscitated, or what-have-you. That kind of education is only going to give me nightmares. And if that makes me a wimp, I suppose I'm a wimp, thanks. That's doctor territory; I'm a financial analyst for a reason.

With my stomach still doing slow rolls, we were coached on how to give our women backrubs. They got a one-hour backrub out of the deal, and I suppose I got a free hand workout. But they at least lowered the lights and played soft music, which helped with my recovery from the horror video.

All told, though, I guess it was something worthwhile to do, even with the thorny bits. I just hope some of you guys get- or got- a different video. Seriously.

And then, there's the preggo herself. Third trimester is, to be sure, a little awkward for the ladies. And rightly so. I'm doing me best to be a good hubby, fetching as needed so she doesn't have to maneuver her way into that precariously tippy standing position nine-monthers tend to have. But a few things caught me off guard. Like, snoring. My girl, who to my knowledge has never really snored before, now snores the way you'd have to imagine Walter Matthau would. This is, apparently, totally normal. (I'll probably pay a price for revealing this, but hey- it's not like she can chase me down to beat me!) The kiddo is also taking up a lot of the room that used to be devoted to stomach and bladder space, so Katrina now eats about ten bites total per meal, but eats about twenty times a day. Ever buy a girl a nice steak, have her eat a tiny corner, and declare she's done? That kind of thing happens all the time with a preggo. The big difference is, she actually will raid the fridge for the leftovers. And then of course, there's incessant trips to the bathroom. I mean, all the freaking time. But, whatcha gonna do? The chick's got a bowling ball in her belly. Gotta cut her some slack, I guess.


Prognosis

We're short timers, now. I think we nominally have four weeks left, but with the appearance of the previously mentioned plug, it's looking like we're probably down to two or less. Her last visit to the doctor revealed that all is well with the baby; she's turned right and we're just waiting for the big day, at this point. Me and Chris are swapping out the flywheel in my car for a lightweight one, and replacing the clutch while we're in there. Just wait, this kid is going to decide to kick off the show while I'm covered in grease and clutch dust.

I'll keep you posted - 'till next time, take care.

Adventure a'plenty over Memorial Day weekend.

Sorry for the delay, folks. Work has been... brisk. So, had a great weekend. I took a gamble and left the preggo with her parents in favor of going for a bit of an adventure themed weekend. We started off by meeting for a hike the Art Loeb Trail in Pisgah National Forest. It rained most of the time, unfortunately, but it at least made for some good sleeping. The rain broke a bit for the hike back out, which made for a few good vistas. My dad caught this pic of me during a quick break on Tennant Mountain:

To be certain, even a crappy day of hiking beats a good day at the office, and it was nice to get out to places where there is no cell signal- where if someone wants to reach you, they've got to strap on a pair of boots and do a couple of miles of hard uphill. Of course... when your girl is 'in the window' to have your firstborn, that very fact can also be a tad bit unnerving.

After we got off the trail and grabbed showers, we met my brother back at my parents' house, where my mom served up an awesome meal of barbecue sandwiches, homemade coleslaw, and watermelon. After a short nap, we were off to see the new Indiana Jones movie. My old man and I have seen all of the Indy films in the theater, together. So this was a must.

Personally, I wasn't disappointed. It was what any Indiana Jones movie should be: ridiculously over-the-top. I keep hearing people complaining about how unrealistic this movie is- but as for me, I'd have been mad if it hadn't been. Let's review some key points of the prior movies:

- In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the biblical Ark of the Covenant spewed forth spirits and laser beams that melted and/or exploded a bunch of Nazis.

- In The Temple of Doom an Indian guy managed to punch through a guy's breastbone using just his fingernails, drag out his heart, which then continued to beat and then burst into flame during the next few minutes while the guy was being lowered into some lava.

- In The Last Crusade, they found a several-hundred-year-old knight guarding the Holy Grail.

Yeah, I'd say over the top is what the Indiana Jones series is about. And this one, in my opinion, does it right. You've got Kate Blanchett playing a rapier-toting, communist version of Betty Page. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that Indy wasn't tapping that. I don't know about you guys, but I always get a little creeped out when a 60-something year old leading man ends up hooking up with some grossly younger chick. I know that at one point I saw that as being cool. I guess that's one more thing that changes when you have a little girl, eh?

Anyway, bottom line is that if you can unhook your disbelief and try to take in this Indy the same way you took in Raiders back when you were 8 or so, I'm thinking you'll find it a good ride, and certainly worthy of seeing on the big screen.

Last but not least, we watched UFC 84, which was an all around good fight card. Tito Ortiz's shots- as well as his little comeback- were handily stuffed by Lyoto Machida. Even though Tito has cleaned up his act a lot in the past years, I'm always game for seeing him get owned; in my book he's still got a lot of arsehole karma to pay off still. Machida came out second in the Sherdog rankings, and word is that he'll be up for a title shot at the winner of July 5th's Rampage Jackson - Forrest Griffin fight.

Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva rather handily illustrated that Keith Jardine has, indeed, wandered out into deeper waters than he's quite ready for. It only took the big Brazilian 36 seconds to tuck The Dean of Mean in for a nice nap. I don't dislike Jardine, but I think this answers questions about whether Liddell was just having a bad day at UFC 76.

And then the main event, BJ Penn vs Sean Sherk, for the lightweight title. I'm still mixed about this one. Penn punished Sherk on their feet for three solid rounds- but everyone was expecting Sherk's solid conditioning to keep him rolling into the fourth and fifth rounds while Penn began to run out of juice. At the close of the third round, Penn dropped Sherk with a flying knee and pounced in with strikes. Ref Mario Yamasake made as if to stop it as a TKO, but seeing Sherk fight back, he stopped short. Just then, the bell rang. Penn goes over to Yamasake, arguing that he had stopped the fight before the bell- which replays showed he hadn't, in my opinion. Yamasake seemed to reluctantly agree and ruled that Sherk was 'unable to continue'. This seemed pretty sketchy to me. I'm not terribly sure the fight would have gone any other way had it been allowed to continue, but I'll take a good clean stoppage over a ref taking direction from a fighter any day.

With all that goodness done, I returned home Sunday to find that the baby was still inside the wife, thank goodness. I'm not sure what, exactly, would have happened to me if little Tori had decided that she was going to make an appearance while I was gone, but something tells me that it wouldn't have ended favorably. After another good meal with the in-laws and yet another good meal with friends on Monday, I returned to work fat, but happy.

So that's all I've got for now! Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on posting by getting out my "Living with a Preggo" series finale by the end of the weekend. Stay tuned!!

Living with a Preggo: Second Trimester

Second trimester is often called the 'feel good' trimester for the women. This is because, while they're still not all that much bigger, most of the nausea and low-energy feelings commonly associated with the first trimester is gone, and they're getting a nice surge of happy hormones.


For us guys, however, there is limited feel-good in the second trimester. Because the ladies' surge of can-do is almost always focused on dragging you around to every store that sells baby stuff within a fifty mile radius. At least twice a week. And you've got at act like you're loving it.

Most guys, I think, actually do want to be involved in 'building the nest', so to speak, if for no other reason to limit the sort of stuff that's going to end up spread all over the living room, and/or to make sure their son doesn't end up with a wardrobe full of frilly yellow frocks. But really, I think there is a certain amount of deception when it comes to a guy's involvement in the registering-for-baby-gear process. Which is to say, a gal wants to believe a guy cares about this stuff, and the best way they have to test this is to quiz you. I'm willing to bet most guys with kids had a conversation similar to this, during the registering process:

Gal: Which of these high-chairs do you like the best?
Guy: I like the wooden one.
Gal: Really? Do you think the wood would be too heavy?
Guy: Um... no?
Gal: It might be a little dark for our dining room.
Guy: Um, okay....
Gal: I think we should get the plastic Graco one. Do you like the fuschia or seafoam one better?
Guy: The what? I... I guess I like the green one. That's seafoam, right?
Gal: Yes, but it doesn't match our drapes. Let's the the fuschia one. [scans it]

So in most cases, when she asks, "which one of these do you like the best," your job is to guess which one she likes best. It's like a game! And if you perform well, you'll probably get back to your Xbox and/or football game a lot earlier. Personally, I'm okay with it. She's the one that has to haul the kicking bowling ball around for quite a few months, she should get to pick out most of the stuff.

However, there are exceptions. Those of you expecting sons- it is certainly your sacred duty to protect them from excessive lace, and/or the notion that colors such as light purple and pastel yellow are 'gender neutral' colors. They, of course, are not. I was pretty stoked to see a reference in Juno to that effect.

Save for the 'stuff' issue, second trimester is mostly a breeze. Enjoy it while it lasts, because third trimester gets a heck of a lot more.... interesting. More on that later, of course!

Where a man's passion for gagetry maybe doesn't belong.

So my buddy Keith passed along this fine patent application, circa 1963:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=qtFaAAAAEBAJ

As guys, we've got to sympathize with ol' Geroge, there. He knew childbirth was tough and he wanted to make it easier for his lady. So he broke out his slide-rule and got to work. Vacuum? No good. Creating pressure on the other side of the baby? No access! What then? Well heck, let's sling momma around and around until the little one pops out and is handily caught in what looks to be a modified trout net! And as a bonus, mom gets a nice thrill ride, which she should surely enjoy! Brilliant! (Oooor, hey, maybe not)

Did you notice this guy's wife's name appeared on the patent? Surely that inclusion involved a phrase from her something like, "Yes love, whatever. Just be a dear and make me another cocktail, will you?"

Life with a preggo - first trimester

Most guys seem to be terrified of living with a baby. Really, though, there's something else to be worried about first: You've got to live with a pregnant lady for nine months.

There's two things that guys without kids think they know about pregnant women: they get morning sickness, and they have weird cravings.

Here's what you actually need to know about pregnant women: they're completely unpredictable. Will they having morning sickness? Er, maybe. Will they have weird cravings? Dunno.

I wouldn't have known this if my buddy Chris and homegirl Noelle hadn't gone though this first. But even knowing it didn't really prepare me for Katrina's first trimester rollercoaster.

Take the morning sickness thing: I had no idea that morning sickness can well be evening sickness. Now, Katrina has always had a real iron stomach... through ten years of marriage, I don't think she ralfed even once the whole time, at least not without the help of señor tequila. So when she said she was getting queasy one night while we were walking, I thought she was messing with me. Being the ever-caring husband that I am, I broke out an old favorite elementary school song. You may know it:

Great big globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
mutilated monkey meat
little dirty birdy feet
two big eyeballs rollin' up and down the street
and I forgot my spoon...
but I've got my straaaaaw!

Yeah, right about then, she lost her cookies all over the neighbor's lawn. And then she delivered a well-deserved beating to the father of her unborn child. Ooooops. Guess that iron stomach is no more, eh? Even in the evening!

We didn't- and still haven't- seen much in the way of weird cravings. As far as I can tell, the only thing that's changed, food-wise, with my girl is that she went from being a long-term sweet-cream nazi (prior to the pregnancy, we pretty much could only go to ice cream places that had that wierd new sweet cream non-flavor that they serve at Marble Slab and Cold Stone) to her being practically addicted to the darkest ice cream she can find. But heck, I'll take it; that beats having to go out at 3am to try to find bok choy or something.

So anyway, the best advice I can give prospective dads about dealing with your girl that first trimester is to stay on your toes and expect damn near anything. Chances are good it's not going to be anything like you expect.

Introduction

Yeah, I'm definitely in trouble now.

Seems like some guys are just cut out for fatherhood. I mean, they can be 21 and freshly married, and they’re ready for some babies.

Yeah, that wasn’t me.

But I put up the good fight! For the last ten years I’ve enjoyed an extended youth- we traveled when we felt like it, bought cool toys, went to plenty of late-late movies and slept ‘till lunchtime on Saturdays. But now that me and the missus are into our thirties… well, let’s just say that someone’s biological clock made itself known. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that sometimes I didn’t want a little one to warp however I wanted. Plus, several of our closest friends also spawned, and the products of those operations weren’t nearly as awful and life-wrecking as I’d come to believe. (Although, to be fair, it sure isn’t me waking up in the middle of the night!)

And so, given all that, she tossed her pills, I tossed my condoms.

A month and a half later… yeah… just a month an a half… the missus wakes me up. Not the normal way, though- normally she wakes me by shaking my foot until I hide it someplace she can’t reach, and then she steals my covers, and then starts threatening me with water. This time, though, she climbed in bed next to me. Just as I thought she was having a rare spell of morning friskiness, she stops me cold with The Phrase: “I’m pregnant.”

Now, I haven’t checked lately, but I’m reasonably sure that there’s something in the Geneva conventions that outlaws doing something like that to a man first thing in the morning. Most women don’t get this, but there’s just something about that moment that does something to a man, something strange and terrifying, even if you’re expecting it. It’s like going to sleep in your own bed and waking up in the middle of a skydive. Even if you wanted to go skydiving the night before, you weren’t necessarily ready to wake up mid-air, you know?

But hey, you know what? I’m all in. In the ensuing months we learned that it’s going to be a little girl, we named her Victoria, and acquired a bunch of white and/or fluffy stuff. We’re currently 35 weeks into the pregnancy, which means we’re within the window where Little Miss may show up any day now.

What I’m really wondering, and hoping to document here, is how much, exactly, the life a guy like me will change. It’ll be huge, I know, but how huge? What’ll happen to my racing, my love of videogames and beer, my time with my buddies? Can a guy like me have as much fun with a cute, dribblin’ little girl in tow?

I think so, probably. But maybe not in the ways I’m expecting.

So, I’m hoping some of you might like to come along on this ride with me. I’ll be talking about movies, beer, videogames, TV, cars, sports, and … of course … a lot about my little girl, and how she relates to all this. I’m totally not prepared for this, so you may get in a laugh or two at me as I fumble through it. Maybe a few of you will have some helpful advice… throw it my way, if so; I’d love to hear it! But, should be a good time.

See ya next time!