"IT'S A GIRL!!!," said the Dr to us as he delivered my perfect little baby girl after a 36 hour intensive, blood-sweat-and-tears labor session. The room filled of 30 plus nurses, doctors and interns gave out a huge applause as our new addition cried as she dangled from the Drs arms. Rose and I embraced one another and kissed as our perfectly squeaky clean baby came over into our arms - a picture perfect moment.
Unfortunately, thats not what happened. We had a scheduled C-Section that was scheduled since like February. It was scheduled for 7:30am and she was born at 8:05am. Yayyyy. And we knew we were having a girl since May and there were only like 4 people in the room when she was born. I just didn't know how else to start this blog. ;-)
The Play-By-Play
Here's the play-by-play as to how it all went down for the birth of beautiful Ellie Danielle Bart:
We had a scheduled C-Section with Ellie. This is weird. You know when your going to have your baby like 8 months prior. Its a cool feeling but weird as fuck as the day draws near. With Ava, Rose went to the Dr's 2 weeks before her scheduled due date. The Dr didn't like what he saw and said that we are having the baby the next day. I then got a phone call at work and the rest is history. With Ellie, that didn't happen. We went to the end and made it to our scheduled date and time. That's weird as hell. It's just a waiting game.
We put Ava to sleep for the last time as a family of 3. We then both cried - something that happened sporadically over the weeks prior. Its amazing how having a family turns you into such a wuss. (If i offended anyone who is a wuss, i'm sorry)
We then cleaned our entire house; something that should have been done 3 weeks prior, and prepared it for Ellie's return. The night before Ava was born we watched How I Met Your Mother so we decided to do the same. It was an ok episode. Not as epic the last time we had a baby last year as, ironically, Marshall and Lilly had their baby in that episode. This episode they were still at that dam hotel/manor place awaiting for Barney and Robin to get married. Seriously, i mean how many freaking episodes are they going to do this for. I hope not the entire season! And is Ted EVER going to meet his wife!! ughhhh
Our c-section was scheduled for 7:30am. After a solid 3 hours of sleep we got ready by listening to our now-official baby playlist: Shook Ones Pt2 by Mobb Deep, Iron Maiden by Ghost Face Killa, followed by our wedding song: At Last by Etta James and finally No One by Alicia Keys. The latter is when the tears flow like the Bellagio fountains.
After our cry fest we made our way to the hospital. It was 5:34am when we left the house to be at the hospital for 5:30am.. ooopss we were late. So I went 90mph and went through every light on the way there. I didn't, but it was something i always wanted to do and now as i type i wonder why the hell i didn't I could have easily just told the cop if i got pulled over that my wife was in labor. DUH.
We checked in and Rose went in to get prepped. She was a nervous wreck. I was amazingly calm. Rose made a joke about our life insurance plan that we just got and how she hopes it is now in effect in case something happened. That was when I cried in panic because the dam plan doesn't take effect until mid November! Shit.
They wheeled her in. Go time. I wait in the recovery room as they cut her open. This part sucks. This happened with Ava. It was during this time last year that I got the famous CNN breaking news notification that MCA from the Beastie Boys died just as I got called in to see the birth of my first child. I then went in and the first thing i said to Rose is "Guess who died!!" This time I didn't get any notifications. I didn't even take my phone out of my pocket. I just stared at the wall in front of me. It was terrible. 15 minutes felt like 17 days. Finally, they called me in only to realize that I didn't yet put slippers on my sneakers. Oops.
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| The notification heard around the world |
I went in and immediately tried to check out the situation at hand. All kinds of loud beeps and noises and people all over. There is my wife surrounded by people in scrubs and goofy looking hair nets that every lunch lady wears. I went over to my wife and gave her a kiss and tried to show my support by saying support shit like "you got this" and "you rock" and "are they almost done. Im hungry".
A C-Section is not a walk in the park. It's major surgery. They take organs out and move shit all around. Its quite an amazing procedure. Unfortunately, it hurts like holy hell. Even under anesthesia there is still all kinds of crazy pressure and pain. Let's just say that this time around this C-section may play a major decision if we should have any more children. Rose was a trooper but i saw her in extreme pain for the first time in my life and there was nothing i can do. That sucked. That sucked BAD. However, she pulled through and Ellie popped out, literally, all slimy and gooey looking. It was beautiful.
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| This hairy man holding my child is not me but dam im jealous of that beard! |
My Jobs
As a new Dad, you have 2 jobs:
1 - comfort the wife
2 - send out pics to every single person you know
I succeeded at the first job with both children. This is what my wife told me at least. For all i know i could have been the worst support system ever and she wanted to make me feel good.
The second job I did AWFUL at the first time around with Ava. The cell service is treacherous in the hospital and the iPhone has technology to order Chipotle but yet cant send a text to more than 8 people at once. Go figure. I got yelled at by lots of people when 5 hours went by since the baby was born and I didn't send out any texts, phone calls, pics, emails, etc about the status. Boooo me. I suck.
This time around I was prepared. After Rose was in the recovery and Ellie was in the "clean up" room, I snuck away and sent out emails and pictures to every person i know. I even had a reminder list of people to send this too. Please don't get offended if you are reading this and I didn't send you one. It just means I failed at my only job... again.
Ava meets her little sister
We got our room and I made believe we were on vacation as I unpacked our clothes in the small drawers they give us. We then waited.. again. I feel like the day your child is born is a lot of waiting. Especially for the Dad. This time we were waiting for Ellie to bake a bit under the heater as her body temp was a little low. Of course, this made me a nervous wreck and I was that guy at the nursery checking her status every 20 minutes.
She made it to our room around 2:00. The next job was now to get my other daughter, Ava, so she can meet her little sister for the first time. She was staying at a close friend of ours and so I had to go and pick her up.
It was actually refreshing to get some fresh air - good ol' Hackensack air - but after waiting for 30 minutes for the car at the valet at the hospital (dont ask), my patience was getting tested.
I picked up Ava and brought her back to the hospital. I video taped the entire way from the car to the room. The challenge was to have my father in law use my phone to video tape our entrance as we walked in the room. Holy Anxiety! My father in law never even touched an iPhone and now he is in charge of taking video of the most important video..like ever. I panicked as I gave him my phone. He was instructed on what to push about 30 times just prior. We walked in..
Ava was in my arms and she immediately said "Baby". We made our way over to Ellie as cameras were flashing all around us. My father in law was holding my phone and pointing it towards our direction, but was he taping?? As we approached Ellie, Ava immediately went in for a kiss. It was one of the sweetest moments of my life. I created this bond that they will share for the rest of their lives. My only prayer is that they don't hate each other and if they do, then I will blame my wife for creating that bond.
After 30 seconds of loving Ellie, Ava lost interest. Immediately she saw the TV on and started yelling "TV TV TV" and "Gabba Gabba Gabba". Then saw the couch and said "Couch Couch Couch" and then saw a balloon and said "Ba Yoon Ba Yoon Ba Yoon". It was safe to say that she was done with Ellie and I was perfectly ok with that. I wasn't expecting her to cuddle up next to her sister and say 'I love you baby Ellie'. It was a perfect moment. I loved it.
The best part about all this is that my father in law came through. He actually recorded a PERFECT video. I couldn't be more prouder of him. I felt like a proud parent of a 70 year old man. Love that guy.
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| BFFs? |
We got a million likes on this picture on Facebook. Here's the truth behind it:
My father in law took the video. I then paused it to this moment, took a screenshot, opened the pic and cropped it and then took another screen shot of that. BAM. Because why would the iPhone have a simple option to take pics of frames as it records like every Android device has. Sighhh.
The 2-Peat
I wrote a beautiful blog last year about getting shit on, peed on and spit up on and cleverly called it the 3-Peat, the term given to the Chicago Bulls when they won their first 3 championships in a row in the 90s. I sorta forgot about this. I actually forgot about a lot of this and its only been 1.5 years since Ava was born. However, I already got shit on and peed on - the 2 Peat. It was beautiful.
Ellie cried. I jumped to the situation to play World's Greatest Dad and ran to my crying newborn. I unraveled her from her swaddling mummy straps to see a blue line on her diaper. For any parents out there, the blue line is the greatest invention and your best friend as it tells you when your diaper is soiled. Seriously, well done blue-line creators. There, I saw oil in her diaper. Yes, oil.
A child's first few poops are black as mud as they contain leftover amniotic fluid. Theres more to it than that but I have to stop this blog at some point. It really looks like oil. Its pretty gross.
I forgot how little a newborn is and how small the diaper is. Shit. No really. Shit. It was everywhere. I went to get a wipe.. wait, no wipes for newborns. Shit. No really. Shit. Now its all over me and the bed. I goto wet a paper cloth as my baby violently shakes and cries. Shit. I go back to a mini exorcism as my mischief night baby is shaking and screaming baby curse words - wahhhh wahhh wahhhh. I start to clean the oil. Its smearing everywhere. Shit. Finally i start making some progress as i mop it up with a dry cloth first and then clean it up with the wet cloth afterwards. Genius but still shitty.
I get her all cleaned up and swaddle her back up - a process that consists of wrapping your baby up like a burrito; i immediately got hungry. Just as i goto pick her up from her shitty bed.. FARTTTTTT - she shits herself again. Seriously?? This again!????
I unravel her to find oil everywhere again. Rose laughs. I do too but inside Im crying. I clean up the mess again and think if i should save some for fuel for my car. I then think that it would be a shitty ride and make myself laugh. Just as I go back to put a new diaper on her, she pees all over my hand. Seriously?
I can't believe I have to do this all over again!! How exciting!!!
Fucked up situations = awesome shit to write about. See you soon!!
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