Four Days Ago, I Became a Father

In case you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to over the past several days, I’ve been getting schooled in the art of parenting by our beautiful new baby boy, Jason.

A little after midnight on October 21, 2015 my life changed forever. My awe-inspiring wife gave birth to our first child, and I’ve never been so overcome with such joy, love and purpose. The entire experience thus far has been unbelievably fulfilling, as well as overwhelmingly exhausting. As cliche as it sounds, I genuinely consider myself to be the luckiest person in the world.

What follows will probably be most interesting and useful to expectant parents, and those who would one day like to start a family. I want to share a small portion of the many things I learned over the course of this incredible journey.

First and foremost, for me, waiting until my mid-thirties to have our first child worked out perfectly. I certainly didn’t plan it that way, but there’s no way I would have had the maturity and introspection to embrace this challenge in the same way when I was in my twenties. Of course, everyone is different and I’m not trying to speak for anyone else. For me, the emotional and mental growth I feel like I needed only emerged over the last few years.

One thing I suggest every expectant father do is be as involved as possible throughout the pregnancy. This doesn’t simply mean running off the store to get your partner whatever snack she craves, it means going to as many doctor’s appointments as you can. It means interacting with the baby in utero as much as possible by talking to it, playing it music, etc. Whatever makes sense to you and is safe, just do it. One of the more beneficial things we did during my wife’s pregnancy was read about the fetal development from week to week. Being conscious of when the heart, brain, lungs, etc, are developing, is a great way to bond with an unborn child and makes you feel incredibly connected. It also teaches you a vast amount about the miracle of life, and leaves you completely bewildered by the entire extraordinary process.

All that said, the single greatest highlight of the whole pregnancy was the 20-week ultrasound during which I teared up at the sight of my unborn child. To see him yawn, smack his lips and move around inside there was one of the most surreal and moving experiences of my life. The only downside of that moment, was it made me want to meet him so badly, the thought of having to wait another 20 weeks was difficult to swallow.

Which brings me to the next subject. The due date. Let me tell you that no one ever expects to go past their due date. It doesn’t matter how many times you read about the fact that over 50% of first time moms fly through their due dates, when that day comes and goes it really sucks. It’s especially hard when you end up being 10 days late by the time you leave to the hospital, which is what happened to us.

But it wasn’t just that. There’s a little something called “prodromal labor,” during which a woman experiences early-labor type contractions (not Braxton Hicks contractions) which would typically lead to active labor and birth, but in this case suddenly stalls completely. This happened to my wife not just one night, but two nights in a row.

In the late evenings, the contractions would start and would carry on all night before simply stopping mid-morning. It was by far the most frustrating and exhausting part of the entire pregnancy. So by the time the third night of contractions began we were already somewhat sleep deprived. This is not the way you want to enter the real deal. By 4am on October 20th we were off to the hospital. The main event had commenced.

When we arrived, my wife’s cervix was checked and she was far enough dilated to be admitted. I was pretty pleased with the progress, but nothing could prepare me for the next 9 hours. Throughout this time my wife was experiencing the most intense and painful contractions yet, all spaced very close together. At around 1pm she had her cervix checked again to see how she was progressing, and the cervix hadn’t budged at all since being admitted. We were devastated.

Like many people, we had a “birth plan” and nothing was going according to plan. Everyone tells you to be prepared for this, but it’s still extraordinarily scary when things take an unexpected turn and you’ve barely slept in days. Since Caitlyn wanted an intervention free birth, our best option was for her to get some sleep and get started again in a few hours. This is easier said than done considering the continued frequency and pain of the contractions. We tried Benadryl and it did absolutely nothing. The other option was morphine and we felt extremely uncomfortable with that. In the end, she opted for an epidural along with an extremely small amount of Pictocin. She flew through the rest of the labor and we had our adorable baby boy several hours later.

The reason I decided to share all that detail, is because we feel it was our extensive research and preparation which allowed us to calmly and comfortably make the right decision for us at the right moment. For the first time in my life, I was left with an incredible appreciation and sense of gratitude for what doctors and nurses can do when they are professional, knowledgable and respectful of their patients’ wishes.

The last thing I want to mention is the delivery itself. I had read about the wonderful experiences of fathers who “caught their babies” and then personally placed them on the mother’s chest at birth. It’s actually more like “assisting the delivery” than “catching” anything, but it was without a doubt the single most intense experience of my entire life. If you have the stomach for it, do it. Just make sure you’re up for it, as dads sometimes pass out.

The days that have followed have been equally rewarding and challenging. All I will say is you’ll be amazed at your ability to function on essentially zero sleep for several days in a row. I guess it’s all that adrenaline kicking in, and the fact that you basically have no choice but to step it up, yet I was still dumbfounded by our ability to be up all night, every night, for a string of several days as we took the first steps in this amazing rite of passage. .

We were discharged by the hospital on Friday, and the transition home with our growing family has been immensely heartwarming. Things remain incredibly busy, but have slowed down some from those unimaginably hectic first few days. I hope to start writing posts again early this week, but as you can imagine, it’s hard to do anything else, when you can be doing this.

With endless love to my precious, adorable son Jason, and my extraordinary and beautiful wife Caitlyn.

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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