And the cycle goes on…

Now I’m not complaining, mind you – Devin’s well worth the effort – I’m just saying. You really can take your freedom for granted before having a kid. As wonderful and life-changing as it can be as new parents, we certainly have a healthy level of respect now for those areas of our lives we took for granted beforehand.

Parental pride is going to be difficult to maintain, cause Devin’s just such a damn cute kid. Now we’re not sure, but are reasonably certain he’s already said his first word as of 2 months, and it was a surprising one – “elk”. I had no idea he was so literate with his wildlife, but after a few days of surprised looks between ourselves, Des and I finally figured out what it is he’s saying. Every time he feeds – without exception, he just keeps saying his new word over and over (with his mouth full, no less)…

elk
elk
elk
elk
elk
elk

Now we’ve no idea where he’s seen an elk here within the San Francisco city limits- or even less how he was able to learn to speak it’s name, but clearly our boy’s a genius. Or a naturalist wunderkind of some sort.

Or something.

He’s so freakin’ cute now it’s almost painful. But of course I’m biased.

At this point we’ve got a rudimentary form of communication down in the form of some hand signs/body & face gestures (i.e. I’m hungry, I’m bored, I’ve got a major poop on deck, change my diaper now), but his main vocabulary is a rather adorable series of grunts and noises that get downright expressive. Much like his dad, he ‘talks’ in his sleep a lot, and it’s not uncommon to hear almost lyrical phrases and themes in what he’s grunting or singing out (I may post an MP3 of this at some point, cause it really is classic to hear). Can’t wait til’ we’re all speaking the same language!

For one, I’m the kung-foo master of calming Devin down. Desiree is looked at as both mother and food source, but I’m the calming figure in his life. Between the strategies in “The Happiest Baby on the Block” and my general diplomacy skills, I can usually get him from pinchy-red faced screams to nap-time in about 5 minutes. Not to say Des isn’t good at it too, but somehow – whether it’s the sound of my voice, or the smell of my skin – he seems to calm down faster with me. Nice. I can feel like I have some intrinsic part to play in his parenting already.

It’s a dead-heat as to which of us can change a diaper faster now. I’m damn good, but as Des has been taking the night shift lately she’s got some tricks to do it VERY quickly I haven’t picked up (mostly as she’s so fast I rarely wake up before she’s crawling back into bed).

Most of all, my patience level and general sense of urgency have improved greatly with Devin now in the household. Trips outside take a lot longer to prepare for now, I find myself planning small outings hours in advance just to make sure everything goes smoothly, and with no work responsibilities to take care of, I’m generally unscattered and don’t feel the need to rush anything.

I think we’re learning as much- if not more – about life from Devin as he is from us.

Nice.

Desiree and Devin catch a quick nap on the sofa.

I then interrupt them with my flash.

Follow the saga here.

Our little guy gets his first gulp of real hospital air after 38 grueling hours of labor(!!). 10 fingers, check. 10 toes, check. Healthy cry, abs-checko-lutely.

There’s more pictures here, too

Devin Benjamin Fegette was born at 10:11pm on June 1st, at 8 pounds/7 ounces. Although you can’t see it here, he’s got his Grandpa Pete’s red hair, too. There’s a lot more pictures here, too.

Des insisted that despite the obvious signs it was all really no big deal, and that we should just go in to our scheduled prenatal appointment at 10:30am as planned. I argued that perhaps we should call labor and delivery and switch gears, but she wasn’t hearing any of that. It was just another day. We made the trip into the prenatal unit. Who am I to argue? Now it’s not always advisable to play ‘I told you so’ with a pregnant and contracting wife, but her ob/gyn agreed wholeheartedly with me that we probably should have called labor and delivery instead of making our appointment. Des was definitely effaced and dilated, and after a bit of back and forth between the three of us we came to the consensus that we’d just go home and monitor early labor ourselves- heading into labor and delivery once things started to progress beyond the early stages.

And here we are.

I spent the last couple hours tying up loose ends at work and preparing the bags/car/etc for the next phase of this adventure- a day or two of little-to-no sleep, coming out the end with a new little guy in our house.

Things could start happening any moment now, and I find myself with all kinds of emotions running – fear, anxiety, excitement, but mostly anticipation. Des has done such a good job of not making any step of her pregnancy an emergency, that seeing her in any kind of pain is a bit odd and disconcerting now. Expected, but I’m really anticipating getting it on and getting us both in for the delivery plan. Oddly enough, the contractions have reversed a bit now, and are getting shorter and further apart (which is contrary to the usual progression), but I’m there with my stopwatch throughout keeping an eye out for over a minute, less than 4 minutes apart, and an hour of ‘em straight. That’s the sign to get our collective asses into the hospital and get ready for the real trial of attrition.

So I’ll be here with the stopwatch until then.

Updates soon, most likely once this has all played out at the hospital and we’re settling back in at home.

I can’t freakin’ wait!

That being said- with all the baby stuff lurking throughout the house and no baby to use it on, we’ve discovered that a few of the items of infant gadgetry are actually kinda handy.

• The changing pad makes a perfect cushion for sitting on while watching TV. I’ll probably revise my opinion there after it’s been pooped upon a few times, of course.
• The nose bulb is really handy for blowing dust out of my laptop keyboard. I’ll definitely reconsider this once it’s got some snot in it, tho.
• The cool ocean noise generator we got for the baby room (came with the playpen, if I recall correctly) puts me to sleep lickety-split. If it works half as well with the kid, I’m set.
• And finally – baby wipes are the most awesome and handy item of all. They should just call ‘em people wipes.

I guess it should go without saying that we’re getting more than a bit stir crazy over here. Argh.

Technorati Tags: parenthood, journal

We finished up the baby room last week, which means that Des officially has nothing left to do other than prepare herself both physically and mentally for the delivery, and exercise her obsessive-compulsive disorders. The subsequent week has been mostly the latter, I might add. Rooms being rearranged, various surfaces being cleaned repeatedly, the vaccuum cleaner making more appearances in a week than in most pre-pregnancy months, anything to burn off that nervous energy she’s feeling right now. My particular favorite is finding any possession of mine that (formerly) resided in one of our closets being deposited in neat piles in my office, for me to somehow will into a new and non-existant storage space. As if there was any room left over with all her shoes… hah!

And me… o’boy things are feeling edgy these days. I feel like I’m a third grader in the last week of school before summer vacation. Yes, there’s things I need to do between now and then, but I can only think about the baby. I’ve been combing over lists of things we need (or at least think we need) and really making the UPS delivery folk earn their pay. During the day I’m diligently nailing down loose ends that may fray in the wind whilst I’m out on paternity leave, and doing my best to not get sucked up into any new projects all the while. Mentally, I’m definitely on edge. Not on edge as in being a grade-A hater and spouting passive-aggressive screed while biting my lower lip, but on edge as in finding weird humor in everyday moments, and possessed with far more nervous jitters than even my long-standing addiction to caffeine could instill.

I swear – if we both weren’t so adept at finding things to occupy our time, we’d probably both be sitting perched in front of a clock watching the second hand tick by waiting for contractions to start.
It’s so close now it’s aggravating.
Argh.

Although she dealt with the first two trimesters without much of a blip in her daily routines, Des now has trouble with balance, walking, and even just moving around- and is starting to feel back pain due to the load she’s carrying in front. She left her therapist job at the chiropractic office several weeks back, which has been both great for her energy levels, and bad for her morale. My daily routine has been largely unaffected- work during the week, home at nights and weekends – but hers is now far less active, with far less social interaction than she’s been used to now that the office life has been cut out. This has definitely manifested itself in more ‘nesting’ around the house, and a fair bit of crankiness and anxiety.

While Desiree was a very active person before, and up through the first half of the pregnancy, it’s now become a major effort to get up from a chair, move around the house, and generally get about her life. I’ve been picking up a lot of the small ‘odd jobs’ she used to do about the house – but although the reprieve from discomfort is welcomed, the fact that it’s necessary is a bit of a hard pill for her to swallow at times.

My issues around the pregnancy are mostly mental and stress-related. I’ve admittedly been less active than before only as we used to exercise together (hiking, running, walks, bike rides, et al) most of the time, and I’ve had a hard time readjusting to her lack of mobility in this respect. But most of what I’ll remember about my ‘pregnancy experience’ isn’t the bit of sympathetic weight gain I’ve picked up, but the sense of paranoia and urgency in solving every little problem that hits my conscious mind. In the last three weeks I’ve:

• Readjusted all our investments
• Acquired a prequal letter from our bank to shop for a new house
• Repeatedly set up playpens and carseats for sake of practice
• Hired contractors to fix broken tile, unsafe steps, etc
• Set up a college fund for the kid
• Scoured the garage and packed/repacked all our storage
• Started donating/selling unused clothes/possessions like mad
• Upped our life insurance coverage
• ‘Babyproofed’ the car and major household areas

I’m all about stressing on the future right now- will we have enough savings/retirement/college funds, where’s a better place to live, how safe is our immediate surroundings, what happens if I get hit by a bus, etc. I’ve always been pretty organized before now, but holy shit- my level of organizational detail just stepped up a whole new level due to the anxiety of imminent parenthood. I’ll have 6 weeks of parental leave from work when our boy is delivered to help adjust – and I know that I’ll have plenty of time to sort things out after the fact, too – but for some reason no amount of preparation I can do right now seems like enough.

A palpable, constant state of anxiety has utterly consumed us.

I’m not sure I’ll ever settle down entirely for well past the delivery and probably even the first year of our son’s life, but at least I can find comfort in knowing I’m certainly not the first man to go through these paranoias. If I recall correctly the mantra is ‘all good things in time’ – but that slice of wisdom is far easier for me to give than receive right now. I just can’t stop thinking about the ‘what ifs’, and ‘whens’.

There’s a crib here with your name on it, buddy.
Can’t wait to meet you.