Thursday, June 12, 2014

The Name Game

The biggest thing the Wifey and I did that pissed off a lot of people was to not find out the gender. Well, pissed off is a pretty strong word, I would say it frustrated a lot of people. The second most frustrating thing was to not share the names for either scenario.

I've always felt that names should have some sort of significance besides, "it sounds pretty." Or to randomly pick a name off a website or take a very nice name and butchering it with added and random letters. But to each their own. The reason I got my name was because the original name wasn't liked by the nurses. My mom was a huge Michael Jackson fan and also a Charlie Daniels fan  (she loved country). Since English was her second language, she found no issue with the name Jack Daniels. The nurses felt that name would destine me to become an alcoholic. She then decided Jackson would suffice. Anyways, here are the names:

Penny Lea.

Penny is the Wifey's grandmother's nickname growing up. Based on the story told by the Wifey's mom, as remembered by me, even though I wasn't paying attention, was that the grandmother was a waitress and she used to carry pockets full of change. The local neighborhood children would run up to her and she would throw pennies at them to keep them away from her or something like that. We've also felt Penny was an appropriate name because one of our favorite artists, Rhett Miller, is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Old 97's. In one of their songs, 'Rollerskate Skinny' (which is named after a line from J.D. Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye, a favorite of every boy in the world) Rhett sings, "you're pretty as a penny..." So Penny was the chosen name

The middle name, Lea (pronounced lee), is actually the middle name of the Wifey's best friend. It was the best way for us to show her how important she has been in our lives.

Since we plan on no longer gracing the planet with another adorable baby, we found okay to share our choice for a boy name.

Rhett Allen.

It was hard to come up with a boy name with considerable significance. If I named our next boy after one of my best friends, it would have a horrible nickname because I still refer to my most of my friends by their college nicknames. Dogballs or Nuttin' Bitch probably wouldn't get them a decent job. Or names like Hutch or Fowler or Mr. Smith would be kind of weird as first name. So we felt the name Rhett would be the most appropriate. The middle name pays tribute to the Wifey's best friend but I was partial to having Lea as the middle name - but the Wifey felt that would be too feminine of a name. Plus Rhett Lea sounds delightfully white trash.

But those are the names and I think we did good. Our newest daughter really is pretty as a penny.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

There's No Going Back


The Wifestradamus told me before I went to bed, "hey, I really think I am going to have this baby at 3AM. So I'll wake you up at that time." Then at 3AM she jolts me from my golden slumber and in a panic state, says, "I think my water broke."

Now, I guess I didn't initially believe her so I just thought it was a dream and casually flopped out of bed to grab a towel. And for some odd reason I looked at our linen closet and thought to myself, "hmm, which towel would be the best for water breakage?"

The Wifey contemplated going immediately to the hospital because she didn't want to risk the disappointment of driving all that way, in that much pain, and being told she hadn't dilated any. So she called her doctor and the doctor confirmed that she needed to get her ass to the hospital.

While this was going on - I didn't feel there was any real urgency - so I figured I would grab a quick shower, put up my laundry, and send some work emails. The delivery with the first baby took about four hours so I thought I had plenty of time. Meanwhile, the Baby decided to wake up with us and rather than just sleep through it all she decided that at 3:30 AM would be the most ideal time to start belting songs from Frozen.

The pain from the contractions had finally set in for the Wifey and just like the first pregnancy, all I could hear was "mother f!" She also hates any noise because that distracts her from focusing on not focusing the pain. I don't understand but as I was mentally going over the hospital bag checklist, I quietly mumbled to myself and was met with a loud and bitchy, "SHHH BE QUIET".


So barely an hour later, we were off to drop off the Baby at her grandmother's house in order to meet Pillow. The grandmother only lives two blocks away so it's not a far drive but the Wifey felt that she could not sit down at all. So she sat in the passenger seat, on her knees. Now, being the safe driver that I am, realized that not only was sitting with your butt facing the windshield unsafe, it is completely illegal. But the Wifey would not budge. In her words, "there is no way hell I am sitting down."

I drove two blocks with a backwards, unbuckled pregnant woman in my front seat.

Considering the hospital is a good 20 minute highway drive, I was able to convince the Wifey to at least lay on her side and buckle up. I made a quick call to her best friend to let her know what was going on and off we were to the hospital.

I turned on the radio, despite the no noise policy, and the first song to come on was Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse'. I just thought this song was funny because one of the lyrics is "there's no going back." And in our situation, there's no going back. This new baby was coming out. I kept on singing and emphasizing that lyric. But the Wifey didn't find it amusing as I did and shut me down.

We pulled into the hospital at about 4:30. The Wifey said she couldn't walk and she also said was going to get an epidural. I wasn't really paying attention, I was off to find a wheelchair. I wasn't able to find one as quickly as I had hoped so I headed back to the car to walk her in. But here she comes waddling in and she doesn't even make eye contact with me. She disgustedly tells me, "don't even worry about it."

We start the check in process and the nurse takes the Wifey to the room. I was parked in a 30 minutes or less spot so I needed to move the car. Not wanting to be a jerk husband, I asked her if it was okay, in which she responded, "do whatever you need to do." I came back and the Wifey was standing next to the bed as the nurse was trying her hardest to get her to climb into the bed.

When you're in that much pain, a lot of common sense seems to disappear. The Wifey was refusing to take off her pants to put on a gown and refusing to get into the bed. The nurse also wanted to put on some monitoring stuff and wait twenty minutes to get vitals. The Wifey was not going to have any of that. This new baby was coming out and coming out soon.

Realizing the speed in which things were developing, the nurse called in her reinforcements and the resident doctor. The Wifey's regular doctor was still on her way.

The Wifey eventually got her pants off and into the bed was refusing to lie on her back. I could see the resident doctor think about her schooling and come up with reasons why she needs to deliver on her back. And as soon as the Wifey turned to her back I could see the color vanish from her face.

Alarms were going off, the on-call doctor was being paged and then the resident knew what was going to happen: she was going to deliver this baby. And in twenty minutes the new baby was out and crying. TWENTY FREAKING MINUTES. It took you more time to read this post than it did for the Wifey to have this kid.

The on-call doctor comes strolling in, still asleep, and asks if anything is going on. As soon as the Wifey's regular doctor showed up, the resident was out the door to handle another call. I think she went to go throw up but either way, she did great.

At 5:05 AM, we were introduced to the newest female of the house, Penny Lea and we are smitten.


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The Day has Come and Gone.

The Wifey's doctor, with all her years of schoolin' and practicin', has failed to correctly predict our child's due date. That is two strikes against her.

Pillow was supposed to be squirted out as of yesterday 6/9. The Wifey, using her Ouija board and advanced Sabermetrics, feels that tomorrow, 6/11, is the actual arrival date. So we'll see if Google is a better doctor than our trained professional. In all seriousness, the Wifey has an amazing doctor. She's patient and honest but let's the parents entertain crazy scenarios before squashing it with her incredible knowledge and reassurance. She has great bedside manner (maybe OB/GYNs actually have feelings unlike my old robot of a family doctor, Dr. Allen). Plus her assistant is pretty hot.

Friday morning, I worked from home because the Wifey had an appointment. I had an early meeting and the Wifey was considerate enough to wait until I was finished before she said, "hey, I need to go the doctor now." With the last pregnancy, urgency was never my wife's strong suit. It drives me crazy because I am used to Hollywood depicting when women go into labor. Look Who's Talking, 9 Months, Knocked Up - they all have crazy scenes where the driver runs red lights and goes airborne and drives on the sidewalk and then drifts into a parallel parking spot or blocks the fire lane and the dad casually throws his car keys to the paramedic and says, "take care of it for me".

But no, that dream won't happen because I married Miss Laid Back Birther who on the way to the hospital says, "oh can you drive down this street? I like looking at the pretty houses."

Anyways, spoiler alert, the new baby wasn't born over the weekend. But we did manage to finally put the Baby front facing; we follow the car seat manufacturer's safety requirements on maximum height/weight which now means I get kicked in the back when I drive anywhere. We also installed Pillow's car seat, so the cars are good to go.

 

So just like Baby four years ago, the waiting game has started. We managed to avoid a weekend hospital stay ; even though nearly everyone at my office thought it was going to happen.


I just hope when Pillow does arrive that the hospital has cable because the World Cup starts on Thursday and just like me knocking up my wife, that only happens every four years.
 

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Are You Ready?

The question, "are you ready?" is what I have been getting asked the most. This isn't my first rodeo, I know what to expect when I am expecting.

We haven't taken the time to get things ready for Pillow as we did with the Baby. Pillow won't have a nursery with his/her name on the wall. We opted to not have a baby shower (we still have most of the baby stuff from the first one) but my office was generous enough to throw a surprise party for me. Our office tradition is potluck walking tacos; so the element of surprise was ruined when I saw everyone bring in their crockpots but I was a good sport and acted totally surprised.



But if I really think about it, as of a few days ago I wasn't ready. The thought of another mouth to feed hadn't sunk in until yesterday morning. I was waiting for the Wifey and I to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary before I could mentally prepare. I just wanted one last date with just the Wifey and myself. We decided on a nice dinner and a movie. Nothing special but something more our speed.

So now Pillow can arrive whenever it wants.