The New Normal

Imagine if you will: a simpler time.

For me that was this past May.

You have a pregnant Carrie on the couch, fully rested and carefully filling out “our” birth plan, ever so forcing me to have an opinion on whether or not I want the “lights lowered when labor begins” or if I want to “touch my baby’s head when it crowns” or if we “want a mirror to view the birth”. But then in the end I was like, “damn lady, it’s not like we’re arguing over the Netflix queue. You’re passing a human being through your vagina; I’m willing to compromise on the mirror thing”.

In the same way Carrie’s nether-regions are still recovering from my daughter’s huge noggin, my brain is still recovering from witnessing the grossest miracle I have observed in my whole life. Because of it, I now have a 4th degree tear of my soul, and there are no amount of stitches that can repair my torn psyche. And if you don’t get the 4th degree tear reference, then consider yourself lucky. Let’s put it this way, with a 4th degree tear you can basically perform “the shocker” with one finger. Luckily, Carrie only has a minor tear, but that’s kinda like saying “we’re going to hit your nut sack with this book rather than with a crowbar”.

And we tried to prepare for the birth. We read books. We watched videos. We did the birth plan thing. All the while, I kept looking at Carrie with a forced smile saying “um, good luck with that”. But really, nothing can prepare a father for childbirth. I felt like I was preparing a boxer to fight Mike Tyson in his prime. You try to be supportive, but in the back of your mind you’re like “I wish I could get in the ring with you, but....um, good luck with that”.

The only way I can describe childbirth (from my perspective) is to try and imagine taking the most constipated, hard, dry, hurtful poop. Take that feeling and now imagine that, rather than passing out a regular size poop, you are pooping out an 7 pound burrito, fully intact.

Part of our preparation for the miracle was taking a birthing class. For my future reference, I’ve marked down some of the differences between the birthing class and what actually happened during the birth of Daphne.



A couple hours after the kid is born Carrie is passed out and I’m holding the baby. I decide to put little Daphne in the clear plastic bassinet at the edge of the room, but suddenly the stupidest question pours over my head:

How the heck do babies sleep?

Do I put her on her back? On her side? Do I keep her wrapped up in a swaddle? Do I hang her upside down like a vampire?

So I’m sitting there in the dark, holding my two hour old baby, thinking that my best option is to just hold her the whole night; totally oblivious to the fact that there’s a registered nurse just outside the door. I’m so sleep deprived yet so determined to stay awake; kicking myself for not knowing the simplest of parenting details. Within three hours of my kid’s life I’ve already f-ked up.

I’m so screwed.

It slowly comes to me that from now on this might be the new normal. That no matter how many books I read or how many mommy-message-boards I peruse, there's going to be a crap load of instances in this kid’s life where I have no idea what the heck I am doing.

And that in these instances sometimes the only recourse is to just stay awake, simply hold my little girl in my arms, and make sure that everything will be alright (even if I have no idea what the heck I'm doing).

As I’m looking at her tiny little face with her mother all passed out in the bed next to us, I realize that I’m alright with that.

I'm going hold this little girl in my arms forever.