In the ER it is always Hammer time!!!

We had a baby boy and everything was hunky dory for the first few days, but then Megan started to develop a bad pain in her back. The pain just kept getting worse and worse and then she started to get really nauseous. She took her Motrin and Tylenol to no avail. 

We called the nurse on the emergency line and she went through the symptoms with us. We first thought it was constipation and so a friend kindly bought us some and Megan drank a bunch warm which was awful. If you have never tried prune juice then imagine grape juice mixed with sour milk. I didn't try it myself because I didn't want any Hersheys syrup myself, but that is how I imagine it tasting after seeing Megan's face. She drank a whole cup of it like a champ. A little while later we found out that constipation wasn't the problem and so now we have a bottle of prune juice in our fridge that we wont drink. We called the nurse back and she thought it might be the epidural damage she had causing the pain or kidney junk. She told us to go to the ER. 

I hate the ER but we went and checked into the expensive "bed and no breakfast". We checked in at 12 and we were there till 3. In that time we had a bunch of test run on her. The ER doctor was a medium height male doctor with MC Hammer scrub pants and a doctors coat that would fit a 400 lbs man, and bright blue Adidas shoes that. He was the strangest doctor I may ever meet, but he told Megan that she had nothing life threatening and then wrote a prescription for some solid pain meds and anti-nausea medicine. They told her she probably just has muscular skeletal pain, which is a way of saying she has a sore back, which we both already diagnosed easily before going to the ER. 

We got home and for the next 2 days Megan was in tons of pain and feeling way sick. We talked to her pharmacist sister who helped give suggestions about how to tailor her medicine in a way that would help her with her migraines, pain, and stomach. Finally she is doing better thanks to the meds from Dr. Strange and the help of a smart sister. Megan is now healthy and back to normal.

On a happy note I thought i would share my MC Hammer pants story. So I was in elementary school when parachute pants were popular for the older kids. My mom upon my brother Adam's request had made him a pair of parachute pants. I always wanted to be like Adam and so my mom kindly made me some. I was so excited to go to school and be the coolest kid around. I think I imagined everyone coming up to me and wanting to be my friend, and then going home and buying some for themselves. So i put on my very very baggy MC Hammer pants with a crazy fabric choice and I went to school. I didn't get the reaction I had anticipated, and in fact no one really said anything about them till recess. At recess a kid I was good friends with came up to me with a concerned look on his face and asked me why I was wearing Aladdin pants. I found out that his interpretation of my apparel was shared with about everyone. I never wore the pants again in public and instead they became my pajamas. I learned that age does matter when it comes to the things we wear!

Postpartum Pains

So postpartum stands for post birth and is not some treaty signed after a war, unless you want to consider pregnancy a war and life after birth the treaty. After a baby is born you are stuck in a hospital for two days not sleeping and you are trying hard to figure out the parent thing. I learned how to not put on a diaper backward, how to clean up the black tar that babies first poop, how to help your wife breastfeed a wild flailing baby, and how to try and get a baby to not cry. All these things I halfway learned in to hospital when times were easy. P.S. that breastfeeding thing looks like the most difficult thing ever and I am so glad I don't have to have a kid bite on my nipples for hours everyday.
I give my wife the biggest props for sticking with it and never giving up. In the hospital we had lots of friends come visit and family. It was a terrific time! We also got a stake and shrimp meal as a reward for having a baby in the hospital and for paying them tons of money. The meal was delicious even hours later when we finally got to eat it because the baby wanted to eat first.

Eventually we got to leave the hospital and feel the sun on our faces again. The hospital is like being stuck in English class for days and then when you leave it is like going to recess finally. We dressed Grant up super cute so we could take a picture and so it we ran into someone in the parking lot that we knew then they could see how cuddly and cute our baby was. I figured out the car seat thing which was more difficult than it should have been and we were on our 2 mile drive home. I seriously drove like and 90 year old with a gimp leg and cataracts. In those 2 miles I finally came to understand the baby on board bumper sticker. The sticker is a way to say, "I am driving super slow because I don't know how to drive with a baby in my car and so please don't run me off the road for driving so bad." People probably thought I had installed a moped engine in my Camry because of how slow I accelerated and stopped. We did make it home without getting honked at or noticing anyone giving us the bird (calling it the bird makes it sound so harmless). We then set up out pack-n-play in our room for the baby to sleep in. I wish now that I had followed the instructions. We had our baby sleep in a part of the pack and play that seemed a bit odd and had a tilt, so the baby kept sliding to the bottom. I kept thinking how bad the design was for a baby to sleep in this little tilted trough. So I read the directions. After 7 days and finally reading the instructions I discovered that the changing table on the pack-n-play was not meant to be a very good bed, but the bassinet that was put together wrong would make a much better bed. So after 7 days at home, Grant finally got to sleep somewhere other then a changing table. Me and Megan are still laughing about that one.

See if you can spot the changing table!!!

So Megan and I started the difficult journey of taking care of a newborn baby with jaundice. It has been the most tiring and yet rewarding experience of my life. I tried to help Megan as much as I could at night, but sometimes she was unable to wake me. We employed the help of Megan's mom during the day to wash all the bottles, breast pump parts, and soiled clothing. She worked so hard and we would be in a home similar to some hoarders houses if she hadn't helped. I tried to help when I could, and I was able to help a lot, but if i sat down I would fall asleep. I fell asleep countless times with the baby in my arms bottle feeding or while helping Megan. I didn't feel to bad about it though, because Megan would also fall asleep breast feeding and eating. It was the hardest time of my life, but thanks to Megan being so amazing, we made it. So now we are caring for Grant solo now and we are doing great minus the 3 times a day when he starts crying and we can't diagnose the cause. I do want to say that being a dad is the best thing in the world as long as you have an amazing wife at your side to do it with. #Ilovemylife

I am a Baby Dada!!!

So I am now a dad!!! On July 26th, 2015 my wife with my help had a baby boy at 7:15pm. He came into the world as purple as a Umpa Lumpa and pretty cute for having just been squeezed like a Go-gurt for 4 hours or something. However his body quickly changed into the cutest boy ever (take that Prince George of Cambridge) and it he doesn't even require suspenders to be as cute as he is (take that Prince George of Cambridge). I may be developing as of late a weird sense of competition with that prince kid.
My kid came into the world weighing 8lbs 15oz and measuring 22" long. Before I had a baby I had no clue what the significance was, but I hear that means that I have a really long and large child. He also has giant hands and giant feet which are already playing in his favor as a bball pro. He has a 6'5" father and a 6' mother and so I think he will be a pretty tall chap. If you want to begin sponsorship now then I will be much obliged and then you will be doctored in as a sponsor early.

just an example pee stick

So the whole baby thing started when my wife texted me a picture of a pee stick. I wanted to tell her not to take those out of the trash, but I had an incline that she had peed on it. Turn out she had peed on it and then I had to go research to learn the difference between a line and a plus. Turns out that a plus sign means you are a baby dada. So the journey along my wife and her fun pregnancy adventures began. She loved corn dogs during her pregnancy and I was totally ok eating a breaded pig on a stick. She had a good pregnancy minus a stomach flu that we both got. I think it turned us both inside out a few times when we were throwing up, but luckily that passed. As her due date approached and then passed, we began to discuss means of trying to induce pregnancy by 4-wheeling, jumping on a tramp, running, belly flops off the dock, and many more. Grant Tell decided he wanted to come sunday the 26th and so poked my wife's bubble so hard that it popped and all this "water" came out. He popped the "balloon" around 2:00 am and it took us till 2:30 to wrap our heads around the fact that after 9 months the baby was coming. So we went to the hospital and checked in.

Now we will fast forward like 10 min to when Megan was in her breezy hospital gown that should have moons printed on it so that it distracts from the full moon in the back. As a side note, some weird guy who had no tailoring skills designed those dumb things. Anyways so Megan is on the bed and she is barely dilated and so the nurses start her on protosin, which is one of the few drugs that causes more pain rather than less pain. So her contractions get amped up by this crazy drug and now she is in tons of pain. So for those of you who don't know my wife, she really likes being tough and so she decides to play a game where she sees how long she can stand the pain before getting an epidural. She waited a good little while, but after getting that tube inserted into her spine with the special juice, she was so relieved. I got really worried she would fall in love with the nurse who gave her the epidural, because she thought he saved her life. She just kept telling me how awesome it was and how she couldn't feel anything. I watched as he installed the tube using a sophisticated capri sun straw and a little tube. After that we sat there most the day waiting for progress and it came in tiny tiny amounts. When she got fully dilated they started the pushing. If you want details on the next part you can watch a youtube video, or ask me about it in a room with no windows. It was a neat experience and watching my baby emerge was an unforgettable experience. I got to cut the cord, which is more of a gnawing through thing then a quick snip. Then Grant was in my wife's arms. We haven't stopped staring at him since. We had lots of visitors who were so kind and generous even if they all pointed out his big hands and feet. I had big ears though and I grew into them as far as I can tell in the mirror and so he should be fine. He is seriously the cutest and most adorable kid. I love him so much already. It is now 11 days later and we are still exhausted. I want to keep this to a short story and not make it into a novel and so goodbye.