Being that this is the week that our baby can begin deciphering our voices, my wife half-jokingly told me to talk to her stomach. But as I guy, what do I say to baby who doesn’t understand what I am saying, who just hears a blurry bass tone?
I became Daddy DJ:
“Helloooooo baby… I am yo Daddy. I will be taking care of you, along with your mother. As for tonight, I’m gonna set the mood right for helping you fall asleep…”
Then I begin singing a Barry White version of the first Hall & Oates song that comes to mind, which is usually “You Make My Dreams” or “Maneater” or “Out of Touch”.
*Note: Thursday marks the first day of the new week for our baby. I’ll probably be posting another one of these pretty soon, but it will be for the next week, not two in the same week.
The Bump Says:
Watch what you say… tiny bones forming in baby’s ears mean the little one can now pick up your voice. Eyebrows, lashes and hair are starting to fill in, and taste buds are forming. And, if you’re interested, an ultrasound might be able to determine gender.
My expectations of what it will be like for my wife and I to have a real baby are pretty limited. When I try to imagine it, I can only think about a few things: the baby crying, the baby being hungry, feeding the baby, the baby wanting to be held, holding the baby, the baby pooping, changing the baby’s diapers, the baby sleeping, us wishing we could sleep.
And aside from the 80’s sitcom stereotypes, I of course am well aware, thanks to everyone who has ever been a parent and given me any advice: There’s nothing in the world more rewarding than being a parent.
In November I will begin to feel like a real parent (once the kid is born). Until then I won’t really truly be able to understand or fathom this most rewarding thing in the world.
It’s funny to think that eventually we won’t be comparing our baby to the size of a certain fruit. (This week our baby is the size of a naval orange.) Eventually, our baby will be the size of a baby. Interesting thought.
Excerpt from “the bump.com”, regarding week 15:
“Continuing the march towards normal proportions, baby’s legs now outmeasure the arms. And, finally, all four limbs have functional joints. Your fetus is squirming and wiggling like crazy down in the womb, though you probably still can’t feel the movements.”
All pictures with the “JHP” logo were taken by Joe Hendricks Photography:
What makes old graveyards creepy, besides our sneaking suspension that the bearded ghost of a Confederate Army General will appear through the foggy mist and try to tell us a haunting story of he ended up with a hook for an arm? (Pirates don’t have exclusive right to those things, you know…) Take away the graves and all the preconceived ideas that human curiosity has handed down to us over the centuries, and chances are, the land itself is still not a beautiful piece of land to begin with.
I assume that the land used for graveyards and cemeteries often was the land that wasn’t aesthetically pleasing as the acres used for building homes, schools, and businesses. Safe to say it wasn’t feng shui.
Instead it was the leftover, out of the way, dreary land that someone was just trying to get rid of. So they sold it for less than they would have liked to an investor who saw its best potential and destiny was for it to become a graveyard.
We choose destinations for a reason. Why do coffee shops serve as such a great pre-date and unofficial first date venue? Because there are plenty of other people around in a coffee shop whose collected friendly conversations make for the perfect background murmur, so that while the two single people are surrounded by people, it’s intimate enough of a setting where they can, in a sense, feel alone- without the awkwardness of actually being alone when they don’t yet know each other that well.
If nothing else, the coffee itself serves as a convenient social crutch, as mentioned in Campfires. A coffee shop is a setting of safety, comfortableness, and relaxation, as well a symbolic “garden of growth”. I know this first hand:
Before I asked out my now-wife to the sure-to-get-a-second-date John Mayer concert, I primed our new friendship with several Sunday night meets at the local Starbucks. It was the coffee shop that watered and fertilized our friendship into dating, then a little over a year later into marriage, and two years after that (present day), a baby. A human life is scheduled to make its first out-of-the-womb appearance this November. And it all started, in theory, by me choosing the right setting- which in this case was a coffee shop.
What if instead of asking her to coffee when we first met as strangers, I would have asked her to dinner? It could have been awkward. Eating with a stranger she just met the week before. I could have ended up in a category of guys she had dated but it never really went anywhere- and I wasn’t willing to make that gamble.
I knew that if I built the relationship on true friendship first, it would be much more natural and relaxing to eventually eat a meal together at a restaurant. But not before coffee at a Starbucks.
We can choose where either good or bad memories will take place. Where does a guy propose to his fiancé? Where do parents announce to their children that they are getting a divorce? Because those places will never be the same again after that.
Where were you when you found out the cancer is in remission? Where were you when you heard about the two planes crashing into the Twin Towers? Those places will always be associated with the big news, good or bad.
It’s why the phrase “may I speak with you for in a minute in my office, please?” is so epic.
Whether we choose the place, or it chooses us, the setting is everything; lasting an entire lifetime as it attaches itself to a memory of hope or a memory of damnation.
For the past several weeks, my wife has been toying with the idea of “going natural” for the birth. In other words, no pain medication. And I’ve been impressed just by her willingness, because I know if it were up to the men of the world to continue the human population by giving birth instead of women, the human population would have died off thousands of years ago.
I had been seeing The Business of Being Born keep popping up on my Netflix as a recommended title that I would enjoy. Then recently, a writer friend (http://www.meetmissjones.com/) also told me I should see it after she read about our disappointment with our first two appointments at a standard hospital. (Of course, we ended up switching to midwives and are so happy, though I had no idea what a midwife really even was when we first met with them.)
So last night we watched the documentary, The Business of Being Born, directed by Ricki Lake and produced by Abby Epstein (yes, they are both Jewish). I went into it thinking it would be a tiring movie telling how much money is made off of strollers, cribs, daycare, etc.
Instead, it is a one-sided film about the importance of the long-lost tradition of natural births. And we loved it!
I took notes:
-Induced labor increases the chances of C-Section by 50%
-In Japan and Europe, 70% of births are delivered by a midwife. In the US, only 8%
-The US has the 2nd worst newborn death rate in the developed world
-The US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized countries
-Since 1996 the C-Section rate in the US has risen 46%; In 2005, it was one out of every 3 American births
While there are obviously certain situations where a C-Section is absolutely necessary (like the baby being “breach”), it is a major surgery that has become the new norm.
Interestingly, in the movie, a group of young doctors are asked how many live births they have witnessed. Basically, none of them had.
And to me, that’s scary. That it’s easier, less time consuming, and more profitable to induce labor and perform a C-Section that it is to let the baby born naturally.
In the documentary they explain how the peak times for American babies being born is at 4pm and 10pm, the times at the end of the work shifts so that doctors can go home.
For me, the desire to have a natural birth all comes down to observing the downward spiral of having a baby in a hospital, with a doctor, the American way:
The mother is given Pitocin, to induce labor. Which causes longer, more intense contractions and cuts off oxygen to the baby, putting both the mother and the baby at risk, as well as potentially causing birth defects (even ADHD or Autism in the child later on, though not enough evidence can back this yet, but I won’t be surprised when it can).
So inducing labor increases the chances of having a C-Section by 50%, which puts both mother and child at greater risk. And the epidural slows down the birthing process- which in addition to the Pitocin, is another drug that may also affect the health of the baby.
Until last night, I had never witnessed a live human birth. But now I’ve seen at least four or five. All of them natural.
It’s pretty interesting to watch. I didn’t think it was gross, and I’m not artistic enough off a person to go on and on about how beautiful it was. It just seemed natural and normal. Like watching someone poop. But a baby came out instead.
The Business of Being Born does contain a large amount of nudity, as most of the mothers are nude while giving birth. But we were so intrigued by watching the births, that it didn’t register, “hey, this is porn”. It was just a woman giving birth. The documentary is not rated, because if it was, it may have to be rated NC-17. But to that I say, What Movie Rating Does Real Life Get?
One of the major reasons I now support natural birth (and denounce induced labor by a doctor, with certain exceptions) is the fact that in a hospital, the mother lays down flat on a bed. Common sense tells us that gravity will naturally help pull the baby out. Plus the fact that by having the mother lay down flat, it gives the baby less room to come out.
I also learned that when a baby is born naturally, “a love cocktail of hormones” is released by the mother, causing a unique bond to occur between the mother and the child.
This is where we’re headed. This is what we will attempt. A natural birth overseen by midwives. Yet just down the hall from an M.D. in case something goes wrong.
Like a baby discovering his hand in front of his face for the first time, sometimes I get these profound revelations that were there all along, but I never really grasped them before. Yesterday, it hit me: “Be”. The verb “be”. While it can be used in so many different ways and instances, it’s a pretty deep word to think of it in its most simple human terms when relating to one’s self.
To be is to exist.
Take away any adjective or noun that could follow “be”. To not “be” anything. Just to be. What does it mean to just simple be? To simply exist.
Is it all the day to day tasks we do each day? Driving, working, eating, resting?
Is it simply being alive? Having a heartbeat? Breathing?
It’s too deep for me. I don’t know how to “be”. How exactly do you “be”?
At least, I don’t know how to “be” myself- though I know how to be myself, by not being someone else. But I can’t “be” alone. I can sleep in a house by myself but that’s being alone, not “being” alone. Where this is going is this: “Being” makes a lot more sense when someone else is “being” too.
It helps to observe the lyrics of a legendary rock song like “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2: “I have climbed the highest mountains, I have run through the fields… I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, these city walls… only to be with you”.
This is sort of song that stops people in their tracks when they hear it. So full of passion. A song everyone can relate to, even if they can’t relate to the major spiritual undertones. If a person simply just hears this song they will most likely walk away subconsciously agreeing that they still haven’t found what they’re looking for. And, that they would go through extreme measures, only to “be” with another person.
Whatever “being” is, it’s something that is accomplished with other human being who is also “being. And that’s what “being together” is. “Being”. Together.
I am constantly trying to corner down in my mind what it is to “be”, so that I can “be” with everyone important to me in my life. There’s that annoying balance of figuring out what are truly life’s distractions (worrying about money, getting stressed over uncontrollable things like future plans, etc.) and still doing the things it takes to be a responsible person (working, providing, supporting, listening, teaching, etc.).
Sometimes deliberately focusing on something so simple can be the hardest thing to do.
“Now an ambulance screams, while the silliest things are flopping around in my brain. And I try not to dream up impossible schemes that swim around, wanna drown me insane. And don’t know how to slow it down. Oh, my mind’s racing from chasing pirates.”
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