Catching up (part dou)

(WARNING: IF YOU HAVENT READ THE PREVIOUS BLOG "Catching up...but definitely not on sleep", THE JOKES CONTAINED HEREIN WILL BE SHALLOW AND STUPID. THAT BEING SAID, THE JOKES HEREIN WILL PROBABLY BE SHALLOW AND STUPID ANYWAY BUT FOR THOSE FEW PEOPLE WHO DO READ THIS AND CHUCKLE, A COMMENT WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED TO HELP MASSAGE THE EGO OF THIS BLOG WRITING AMATUER.)


The hospital room was bustling with testosterone and masculine pheromones for the new life that had emerged only moments before. Noah was chilling out in the baby incubator glass container posing for the next issue of GQ. The nurse called me over because she had heard me count from 1 to 10 for the last 2 hours and had me use my skills to verify digits of our little burrito. I was remotely disheartened to find that he didnt have his father's extra 11th finger but was relieved to see that he did get his mothers webbed toes. (Neither of the last two statements are true.) He was awake and staring down the nurse with her cold instruments poking and prodding him with a cynical and angry expression on his face. The next thing that happened will scare me for the rest of my life, he turned his wobbly head toward me and pointed his right index finger right at me and opened his eyes extra wide. The look he gave me was almost accusatory as if he was saying, "You just wait.....you'll get yours. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day you will be lying naked in a glass container with people snapping pictures of you, *snap*, mocking your cry and rubbing cold metal objects on your chest and I will just stand over you and laugh." I think he was just mad that I emasculated him by cutting his umbilical cord ( a very clean and easy process in all, not nearly as disgusting as I expected.)

I decided it was a good time to go check on the wife, so I left the quivering ball of skin and turned around to face a bowl full of vomit inducing unhappiness. (For those of you who are queasy, skip ahead.) Prior to the birth, I had told Crystal that the one thing I would least like to see is the placenta. The doctor decided that she wanted to leave it in a cereal bowl in the middle of a table as if saving it for later. Traci (the nurse) and I had joked around about religious beliefs and how they would coincide with this whole birth process. I told her we were of the religious perspective that feels it necessary to, (how to put this politely), indulge in the life giving sack that my wife had just passed. (Yes it is true that some people actually do eat the placenta). When the conversation was being had earlier in the day, I thought that I had made it very clear that we were joking, but looking at the veiny bloody matter, I feared that Traci would pull out a blender any moment and hit "puree". I simply lifted a hand and blocked the bowl from my view as I meandered around the bed to Crystal's side.

She was laying back smiling, enjoying our son's induction to the cold cruelness that is this world. We watched from a distance as Noah was moved from the incubator to the scale and roll from side to side trying his best to make things that much more difficult for the nurse. Eventually she put her hand on his side to hold him still and he saw his chance to spring free. He grabbed the edge of the scale and nearly rolled out. (Check out the picture : sdgphotography.blogspot.com) Im on my tip toes trying to watch the numbers go up when the doctors calls out "T.O.B. 22:03". I turn to Crys and I say, "Thats 10:03."
She turns to me incredulous and says, "TEN POUNDS?!!"
Me and the doctor laugh and I say, "No, his time of birth is 10:03....military time is 22:03." The doc says, "He weighs 7, 10." (Now, I was expecting my kid to come out wearing shoulder pads and screaming "send me in coach." Nearly 6 weeks earlier the ultrasound said that he was a VERY LARGE 5 and a half pounds. The pregnancy math says that for the last 5 weeks the kid will gain anywhere from half to a full pound per week. In other words, I got gipped! Crystal said that he was "big enough" and we have left it at that. The nurse inked up his feet for the birth certificate then had papa lean in with his scrubs on and stamp the chest pockets with his little imprint. I told Crys that I would run out and let the stalkers know that everything was ok and then I would be right back.

So Mama, Papa and Burrito were put together on the bed and we were given the opportunity for a little prayer time. The kid was calm and started flirting and cooing at anybody that would get near enough. The funny thing is that all this happened within the first 3 minutes of him being born. The doc smiles at us and says congratulations with that "You Owe Me $13,000" smile. The next thing we know the door has burst open and in floods a sea of tearful women. There are shrieks of glee, and awwwws and a plethora of shallow comments that one would hear whilst following a group of pre-teens through an Ambercrombie and Fitch store:
"Oh, he is so cute!"
"I want one."
"I just want to kiss his little face off."
"Is this sweater on clearance?" ( I couldnt help myself )
I get to sit back and watch them pass around my little midget as the men start coming in. My brother pats me on the back and me and my dad shake hands. "You're a father."
"The Ferrell name shall live on!"
People lingered for a bit and talked about this and that. I mostly just sat back and watched and waited patiently to pass out. Crystal has said that she would much rather be the one delivering the baby than the one who has to watch the spouse go through that pain. Well, I was dead tired just watching and she was dead tired for some other reason and so the fam started to head out due to prompting from the nurse. Crys and I had that cliche moment where we looked at each other and said, "Now what?" I prepped my pull out bed chair from Satan's home and shopping network and asked Crystal to pass me the phone so that I could call room service to scan her preferred card for a memory foam bed. (In all actuality, the bed wasnt that bad. It did pull out to a reasonable length for any 4 foot tall husband whom is used to sleeping on a file cabinet.) ***(Not my best description, but give me break, still trying to get back into the swing of things.)
Too our luck, our nurse had to change shifts again so we met the next wave of interesting people. By now it was about midnight and in walks the nurse to discuss Newton's 2nd law (an object at rest remains at rest, an object in motion.....constant velocity..unexpected force.. blah blah) with me. I politely explain that the door was shut and the lights were off for a reason. She gives Crystal another plastic bag full of water *click* and rolls Noah out of the room to get him tagged like a stranded whale.
I have to speak for a moment on the security precautions that Delnor takes to keep their babies safe. Crys and I both get a little piece of paper wrapped around our wrists that seem innocent enough, but oh no, thats how they trick you. Noah gets a plastic jaws of life clamp that attaches to him from a hoop around his foot. The hospital pays someone millions of dollars to sit in a room and just watch the little red dot being transmitted from our bands move around the hospital, if by chance, you get too close to a door exiting the ward, the man in the room will give you an electric shock of 10,000 volts. If you feel like trying your luck and just sprinting to a door and running out with a baby, the little clip detaches from around babies foot and acts as a hand grenade pin. You have approximately 8 seconds to return to the maternity ward or your wristband will detonate with the power of 2 bricks of C4 dynamite. (Now I know what you are thinking....how does the baby survive the blast? Thats the amazing part! The fluids and whatnot from the delivery actually act as a solvent that turn the fiery blast into a whisk of lavender and lilac scents that carry the baby gently to the ground. I didnt believe it either until I saw some overly excited father bringing his newborn out to the family car. Poor sap, didnt even know what hit him.) But seriously, the people there are very protective of parents walking near doorways. Skipping ahead for just a moment....Crystal had to have a test done that next Tuesday while in the post labor room so I thought instead of kicking all of the people out of the room to wait, I would bring Noah into the hallway. There was a posse of 6 of us standing around me holding him just outside our door. A little 4 foot tall nurse comes scampering over freaking out that I didnt have him in his crib.
"I dont mind holding him." I said.
"Well, Delnor doesnt allow newborns to carried outside of the room for fear that someone could come up, grab them and run off." (THIS IS COMPLETELY SERIOUS! ASK MY DAD)
"And you think it would be easier for that person to do so if the babies father is holding him surrounded by a group of people?"
"It isnt permitted. If you want to walk the halls, he will have to be in a crib."
Well excuse the heck out of me. I would think that crib theivery would be easier than getting in a fist fight with me and 6 other family members. Anyway, lets move on.

My cell phone clock says 1:02 am, Crystal and I are pretending to be asleep in hopes of fooling our brains that we actually got some rest. The nurse comes in again wheeling Noah back to us just to say that our credit card had been declined and that we would have to leave the room. I start hauling all of our stuff into our few bags and grab Noah's crib cart to wheel him out into the hallway. (I learned my lesson from the troll nurse) They decided we would like the view better at the front of the maternity ward to recoup from the long day. The receiving room was similar to the delivery room except it was a little longer, less doo dadds to play around with and sadly....no mirror. I asked our nurse if we could get one *clicked to our tab and she obviously didnt either understand the joke or think that I was even a little funny. So she stays just long enough to say, "the equation's solution to the polynomial can be found by getting the sum of the squares of both sides." Then she leaves. Why they felt that we should move to recoup at 1 in the morning beats me, I would have preferred to just sleep where I was without the interruptions.

So anyway, we get our stuff laid out for 3 seconds, climb into bed, kiss the midget goodnight and turn off the lights when another nurse slides in to ask Crystal what her level of pain is. I dont remember what exactly Crystal said to the nurse but I do remember watching the EMT's come in to escort the body of the beaten nurse to the O.R. (We just wanted to sleep!) The nursery had to come in and pull Noah out again to verify his x-ray vision and super sonic hearing. He passed with flying colors and they speculated that he would gain his super human strength sometime in his pre-pubescent years.

Crys and I slept for an hour or 2 and they wheeled him back in for a feeding. It was awkward to watch another man kiss on my wife like that but Crystal assured me that it was simply an innocent fling and that it wouldnt happen again. I fell back asleep and woke up again to the whine cry of Mr. Magoo (Crystal's nickname for him). We tried to employ some of the "Baby-Wise" book and let him release the energy to pass out again but I guess he was still hungry. He stole my wife again.

The nurse came in around 7 am to take Noah to get circumcised. I wasnt exactly giddy about the pain he would go through but I figured he would thank me one day. Mom was tearful for her baby boy so we just sat together and I held her. He came back in about 20 minutes later and was passed out. I joked with Crystal that the nurse told me he broke the knife but the timing wasnt right. (She laughs about it now)

The next day was similar to the previous except that the kid was out. People came in to visit, leave gifts, flowers, cards, all that hoopla. I tried telling Noah not to accept anything because these were all belated birthday gifts and that he should act angry and hold it over their heads for a REALLY GOOD GIFT but he seemed content with all the attention. The nurse popped her head back in, "Jewel Osco'd " some pills for the wife and tried to make more small talk. Papa jumped online and checked Rosie's blog and saw that she had ALREADY put up pictures from the previous night. Rosie, I hope you got a fat check from my family members to get those pics up that fast because that is just ridiculous. (Very much appreciated, but ridiculous) I went about emailing friends and family giving the scoop and then chilled out and read a book.

Crys and I slept intermittently throughout the day when we got a chance and weren't interrupted. The day didnt bring us anything too over the top, we just enjoyed the visits and rested up. Papa made a "special request" to the cafeteria for their "homemade milkshake" and was sadly disappointed. There was very little milk, even less shake and after killing off half of it, a light went on in my brain saying....."hmmmmm......you know what Jordan......this doesnt taste like a milkshake." I popped the cap on it and look down into a cup full of......pudding. Crystal enjoyed her grilled cheese, Noah got a good fill of milk and papa sat back and waited for his mama to bring some homemade mostacholi.

That night it snowed something fierce. We got something like 5 inches. They kept us overnight again and did the most wonderful thing in the world. The offered a "nursery night" for the kid wherein he got to be babysat all evening so Mama and Papa could get some sleep. Woot! We missed the kid by 6 a.m. so we got him back. That morning the nurse helped us scoot along and pack up to leave the hospital. Papa went outside in his slippers (cause he is a dork) and got the car seat into place, scraped ice off the windows and warmed up the car. The actual leaving wasnt anything too terribly special. I was actually expecting a little more. A small musical number with a parade of babies doing synchronized swimming movement in their cribs. We just got his jaws of death clamp removed from his foot, said "piece out" to the receptionist up front and got into the car to go home. You'll be glad to know that the wristbands that we were wearing as we left didnt explode but simply left a faint hint of urine and poopy butt......or maybe it was just the midget in the back seat.