Parent Thread

My wife and i tried to get pregnant for 3 years, we had pretty much given up and had the long terrible talk of "what now?" We decided not to go for IVF or adoption, it just wasn't meant to be and we would live our lives differently to just enjoy it. We both felt ok with it and moved on.

Around february of 2011 my wife got a bit of a belly and i joked "hey you might be pregnant" my wife gave me the "you're nuts" stare and we laughed and went to a party... Few days later my wife just out of curiosity decided to get a pregnancy test....positive.....panic.....call the gynocologist and made an appointment. Congratulations you 2, your wife is 14 weeks pregnant. Oh god.....positive thing, past the dreaded can't tell anyone first trimester....downside...only 6 months to get our shit together. Wtf my car didn't even have seatbelts.

Her pregnancy was awesome, she felt good, no sickness or back problems. I mostly felt fucking nervous, with my ex gf i had experienced 2 miscarriages so i was a nervous wreck the entire time. A week before due date, everything was ready, i was all set, bag in the hallway, full batteries in the camera everything was prepared. I get home from work at 5 pm and my wife tells me she has some weird feelings in her stomach, i started to time and yup, she was having contractions. Around 7 pm the gynocologist and midwife arrive, my wifes water hadn't broken yet. So they made it break(language barrier). 3 hours later, still not dilated enough. Off to the hospital. They told us they hooked up the monitor so we could hear the baby's heartbeat. Every time my wife had a contraction the baby's heartrate dropped. Wich scared the fuck out of me, i felt totally powerless and helpless. The call came in to get ready for a c section. My wife gets wheeled into the OR and i call both our parents with a status update, i get the soothing words from a assistent that everything is going to be just fine, just give the camera to one of the assistants and they will take pictures.

I sit at my wife's head, didn't really have to see her get cut open, already almost punched the anastegiologist when they gave her the epidermal, seeing someone cut open my wife would totally flip my lid. Anastegiologist was totally awesome, seeing my wife squint a bit from a sting and immediately upped the dosage keeping hercomfy. Out comes my baby boy, tiny little wrinkled thing, i immediately see it's a boy, i fall on my knees and cried like a little girl hugging my wife. I get to go to where they weigh my son, and pose for a picture where i cut the umbilical cord. When the assistant taking pictures says...what does it mean, no card? Oh god i forgot to put the sd card in the camera.....anastegiologist grabs his iphone and starts taking pictures. That guy saved the day really. 6:45 am my son was born. This is the first time i tell this story outside our family and it still draws a tear in my eye.

Etoille_sl said:

I am OBSESSED with phineas and ferb.

Ferb=the kid who played Liam Neeson's son in Love Actually, Doofenschmirz's daughter is the chick who sings all I want for Xmas is you at the end of Love Actually. They've actually written a lot of the songs. He will actually have a role on Game of Thrones this season.

I really wish someone would make me a perry the platypus animated avatar w/Doofenschmirz's daughter.

Target had an awesome agent P ornament this year - totally bought it.

Our friend has two kids and that's how my husband and I got hooked. If I find that its on (ESP a marathon) it goes right to the TV.

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"Oh look, a platypus. ...PERRY the platypus!"

Gets me every fucking time.

Just getting caught back up on the MN drama...I'm with hatorade in that, this was my favorite thread before the trolls.

I've got two myself. Son turns 3 in February, daughter just turned 1 Monday. I have to admit I'm addicted to their tv shows, but they're also shows I watched as a kid. My sonlovesThomas the Train, and my daughter is currently on a Blue's Clues fix. They also both enjoy The Backyardigans. Shit's catchy, yo.

Nice story, Sceleris. Congratulations. My ex-wife also delivered by C-section and I was quite happy to sit up by her head and talk to her during the delivery. I don't really get the whole Dad cutting the umbilical cord thing. What a completely meaningless gesture: "hey, here's something the guy can't fuck up." The nurse offered and I said no - I figured I'm better off supporting my wife, and the nurse appeared more than capable.

The doctor that delivered my second and third lets the dad be very hand on. Like, my husband delivered both of them! lol He did the whole cut the umbilical thing for the first and it had so little impact that he doesn't even remember it. Delivering the other two girls tho.... you'll remember that one forever.

Did anyone actually look at their wife's body during the c-section surgery? The table they took my son to to clean him, cut the cord, etc was past my wife's feet. Walking to it I saw a big metal basin full of blood drenched rags (or something) and that was MORE than enough for me and I actually had to kind of turn away as I walked past the surgery bed. They take the uterus out of the body during a c-section, and I just don't think I could handle seeing my wife's insides on the outside

Also didn't cut the cord. That (Carlin?) line was racing through my head - "14 doctors and assorted medical personnel in this room and I'm the most qualified here?" lol

Two kids. Son, he'll be 7 next month, and daughter, turned 5 this past summer. Son was a situation where we stopped not trying to have kids. Took about a year. Daughter was a complete accident, but a happy one to be sure. We were 13 weeks along before we found out. Both were c-sections, mostly as a result of the shape of my wife's pelvic bone. Just wrong for delivery, and compounded by the fact that she's only 5' tall.

My daughter is "normal", insomuch as you can quantify the term. Loves the new Friends LEGO sets, Dora EVERYTHING, and her current favorite show is Fresh Beat Band. She's having a blast in Kindergarten and is fucking smart for a five year old, at least academically. Like, waaaay ahead of where they would expect a "baseline" Kindergartner to be in both reading and math.

My son... Last year my wife and I had some reservations about how he was progressing socially and academically. We had him assessed by a child psychologist when he turned 6. Initial evaluation came back with ADD tendencies and a recommendation for the school to perform a full spectrum analysis for possible autism. The school did it and he does indeed fall on the spectrum and as an added bonus he has a speech deficiency, which we pretty much figured to begin with. Now, it's not "60 minute special" level autism, in fact if you just met him randomly chances are you'd never know and just think he was shy, but it affects him in noticeable ways. He has major problems with transitions, doesn't like any sort of break in his routine, and will shut down at the drop of a hat. He has no concept of consequences. If you tell him he can't go outside to play because he didn't do his homework, all he recognizes is that he can't go outside and play and can't connect that with the reason why. Now, things are better since the diagnosis since we've been able to adjust how we approach things to make sure we don't flip one of his triggers but it's been extremely difficult since we just moved halfway across the country and a couple of weeks ago we had to pull him out of the school he started the year in to go into another school that's in the district we've moved into (we were staying with relatives in another district). However, it was meant to be because the new school is better set up to work with our son. Just had a CSE meeting the other day with the new school and I came away impressed at how dedicated they are at making sure our son has a good academic experience. He's behind in quite a few categories but we'll get caught up to speed now that things have settled down.

That said, he loves LEGOs, watching the Clone Wars cartoon series, and for some reason he really enjoys watching Plants vs. Zombies videos on YouTube.

I love the hell out of both of them. Best things I've ever done in my life.

moon - reminds me of this thing I read yesterday at work - totally made me cry. I'm trying to find the one with the video of the kid actually opening the box....

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/lifestyl...eam-come-true/

OneofOne_sl said:

Did anyone actually look at their wife's body during the c-section surgery? The table they took my son to to clean him, cut the cord, etc was past my wife's feet. Walking to it I saw a big metal basin full of blood drenched rags (or something) and that was MORE than enough for me and I actually had to kind of turn away as I walked past the surgery bed. They take the uterus out of the body during a c-section, and I just don't think I could handle seeing my wife's insides on the outside

Also didn't cut the cord. That (Carlin?) line was racing through my head - "14 doctors and assorted medical personnel in this room and I'm the most qualified here?" lol

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I didn't look either. I just keep my eyes focused on my wife and then the next thing you know you heard a little cry and one of the greatest emotions in the world washes over you. What's funny is before that we had to wait for the doctor to show up to do the c-section and I had to put on these scrubs (although I don't know if they were actually that) and then I'm standing outside the OR in this blue scrub getup for what feels like forever and he comes the doctor come jogging in and smiling like he's running a mini marathon and I'm there standing nervous as hell. Soon they called me in though and it was great after that.

After initially crying my daughter just kinda laid there, looking around and checking things out. I thought it was so great.

Hatorade_sl said:

This was my favorite thread before it all went to hell on morenetz.
When my daughter was learning to talk at one point she ran at me yelling THUNDERCATS! HOOOOOOOOO! Proud moment, but now that she is almost 6 it is my little pony on netflix all the time(ugh).

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I know, right? Both of my kids (7 and 2) do that. I feel like we bond watching 80's cartoons, and I've emulated all of the old games. They play Ms. Pac Man like it's brand new!

The 8yr old and I just finished Halo 4 on heroic. He is better than I am. Won't let him play on Xbox live unless I am there and am damn sure the mics are muted.

The woman does not like him playing shooters at all, and I somewhat agree and don't let him play CoD series and some of the more hardcore ones. Problem is, I know he plays them at a few of his friends houses and I know he's going to play it somehow so I just make a point to make sure he knows it is just a game.

Any of dads thoughts on the more graphic games and kids?

I have a 3.5 year old son and a daughter that just turned a year old. I'm trying to figure out Christmas gifts for them. My daughter is pretty easy to shop for at her age, but I'm drawing a blank when it comes to my son. I'm trying to get something both fun and developmental. Any ideas? He loves electronics, so he has a Leap Pad. Any other insight would be appreciated.

Deathwing_sl said:

Overall, not that bad, but I didn't come out of it with the feeling"yeah, let's do that 24/7 for a long time".

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Because they aren't your kids, when it's your own you will understand.