Greetings from a new father of a beautiful baby girl! Grace Madelyn was born on December 18th and our lives have forever changed. I know I've been a little behind on posts here, but from day one of her life, I knew what I had to write about. Let me set the scene:
Grace was all of an hour or two old. Sara was recovering and relaxing in the hospital bed and Grace was laying in the little hospital bassinet. A multitude of family was with me as I stood there in surgical scrubs looking at my new baby girl as she held onto my finger. I was hooked! A beautiful scene and memorable moment to be sure. At that moment, all was right with the world.
Then, she started to cry. It's important to realize at this point that as far as I can remember, I can count on one hand the number of babies I've ever held. I basically have zero experience here so I don't know what's wrong or have the slightest idea of what to do. A bright idea springs up from the throng of people now closely surrounding me, "Check her diaper!" Of course....check her diaper....I can do this. I am her father and I am going to take the bull by the horns here and take care of business.
Full of confidence, I undo the straps of the diaper and look inside. Tar. That's what I see.....tar. I immediately think back to the things I read preparing for the baby and I remember the clinical term for what I'm seeing.
meconium me·co·ni·um (mĭ-kō'nē-əm)
n.
A dark green fecal material that accumulates in the fetal intestines and is discharged at or near the time of birth.
At this point, it was like the scent of fresh blood was released in the room and our once calm family morphed into a hungry mob of hecklers, anxious to laugh at me as I tried to clean this up.
Have you ever seen those hospital dramas where they have a viewing gallery where other surgeons and medical professionals can watch a surgery? That's how I felt. I was in a fishbowl. I had full play-by-play heckling from the peanut gallery behind me as I struggled.
The definition of meconium leaves out one very important description: STICKY! It was like some hot tar roofer decided to splatter my daughter's diaper with a mop full of hot tar. It stuck to everything! The diaper, the wet wipes, my hands, her legs, my hands again, her heels, my hands AGAIN, etc., etc. It was everywhere and apparently hilarious to the pack of wolves behind me. I don't know how many wipes I went through or how long it took, but I can safely assume it was the longest diaper change in the history of mankind; we are still awaiting the official determination from Guiness. I did it though, and let me tell you, that was one clean butt (legs, my hands, her heels, my hands, etc., etc.) when I was finished!
A little more than two weeks have passed since then and, of course, I'm a pro at the diaper change by now, but I will never forget that day. The first day I changed a diaper. The first day our family gathered around me to laugh at how the tides had turned and that now I was the clueless dad trying to figure it out. The first day I helped my little girl with a problem that she couldn't do anything about. The first day I knew that I could do this. The first day in this adventure of fatherhood.
P.S. Not all posts will be about poopy diapers, I promise. :-)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
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