Round 1
It's Monday. We have gone to the hospital to check on our first child because Sam hasn't felt her move in a while. The doctors have no idea what's going on. They know the baby is okay in there, but have no idea how much longer that will be true for. The due date isn't for 3 weeks, but they want to get her out of there now. This was obviously a bit of a shock. Sam had just finished her last day of work, I had a couple classes left before winter break, and we had kind of assumed we would have some time together to relax before our daughter was born. Nope.
They start the induction process. Nothing really happens that day, but we get excited that night because Sam thinks she felt the first contraction (Don't worry, it loses its novelty). Doctors are checking in on us every couple of hours, and I don't really have anywhere to sleep. That's alright. Nothing we can't handle.
Tuesday is more of the same. Just slowly escalating the medicine, trying to see if we can't make something happen. Slowly but surely contractions start happening. That night is more of the same. Constant check ins, not a lot of sleep, but nothing too intense yet.
Wednesday morning. The doctor is not happy with how slowly things are happening. He breaks Sam's water. This is when things get crazy. The contractions become insanely painful for Sam. Painful in a way I will never truly understand. I found myself freaking out because it honestly feels like my wife is being torn apart. At this point I'm doing things to support her. Telling her it's going to be okay, pushing on her back seems to help the pain, although most of the time I just feel like I'm in the way (especially when Sam accidentally hit me in the head and then told me not to have my head there). I vaguely remember sneaking in to the bathroom at some point to cry. Sam ends up agreeing to get an epidural, which is worrisome to me because that wasn't part of our plan (plans, cute right?). I make sure to check with her that she's okay with that decision, to which I got an emphatic yes. Now, the epidural did help, but watching it happen was insane. Picture it, you have a doctor sticking a giant needle into your wife's spine, but he has to stop every once and a while to make sure she doesn't shake while she's having a contraction. I just have to keep reminding myself that these people know what they're doing, and despite what it looks like, my wife and unborn child will survive this. Anyway, once the epidural takes effect there's a bit of a role reversal, and Sam starts telling me everything's going to be okay, and checking to make sure I'm not freaking out (I was). She then tells me to go get lunch, because I haven't eaten in who knows how long.
Heading down to the hospital cafeteria was a nice break from insanity, but it was also scary because I wanted to know everything was okay. I buy my lunch, sit down, and feel my phone buzz. "Come back" is all it says. I don't think I've ever moved that quickly in my life. I get back in the room and find out that they're preparing for a c-section, because the baby just isn't fitting. I'm going to be a dad very very soon. I soon find myself sitting on a chair outside of the operating room, waiting to be called in. I think I played angry birds for 20 minutes, because how else was I supposed to keep myself sane? They call me in, I stand by Sam's side, and shortly after, a screaming baby comes into this world. I can't describe the feeling that came next, but it was a combination of joy, relief, awe, and terror. Let's call it "Jorelaworror"... or we can just stick with "an indescribable feeling". Because Sam had to go into recovery, I got to spend the next hour with Grace by myself. That was one of the best hours of my life. This person was in my arms who was discovering everything for the first time. She was my daughter. I loved her instantly and insanely. I watched her every movement. I learned how to be a new dad. There were important new dad questions to answer like "How do I pick her up without breaking her?" and "What do I do if she poops?" and "What do I do?" That was a special time for me, but at the same time, I couldn't wait to get back to Sam, and share the moment with her, and also make sure she was okay because I had spent the whole day watching her in agony that under any other circumstance would make me think she was dying.
We spent the next two days at the hospital. The days, we took everything in, it was wonderful. The nights though, you know they'll be hard, but nobody tells you they'll be "you're so tired you lose track of where you are right now" tired. I barely slept our first night with Grace, which if you're keeping track would be the third straight night of barely sleeping. I discovered levels of exhaustion I did not know existed. At one point I came to with Grace in my arms and Sam asking me if I was okay. That wasn't fun. But it's weird how no matter how hard the nights were, the day would come around and I'd be okay and in love again. Friday afternoon we were sharing a room with three other mothers and were ready to leave, luckily the hospital staff had mercy and let us go home. This was exciting, but also terrifying (bit of a theme?) because we would no longer have anyone to ask for help, or to make sure things are normal. Babies do lots of things that don't seem normal, like rolling their eyes in the back of their heads, or having really erratic breathing patterns. Being a first time parent makes you assume all of these things mean imminent death. We have a healthy two year old girl now, so obviously things turned out okay.
Round 2.
Wednesday morning, we head in to the hospital knowing that in a couple of hours we will have our second child. We know this because the doctors agreed that since Grace wouldn't fit, it would be best to plan a c-section this time around. It's a weird feeling, knowing exactly when your baby is arriving. We show up to the hospital, and everything is going according to plan. Unlike Kelowna, Langley only has private rooms, which is a huge improvement. We settle in and wait to be called. Our room is right next to the OR, so the chair I have to sit on is right outside our door. When I get called in, everything feels very familiar. Our son, Isaac, eventually comes screaming in to this world much like his sister did. It didn't feel real until about 3 seconds after it happened, it just suddenly hit me "Hey, that's my boy!". I got hit by that indescribable feeling all at once. Shortly after that we're in recovery, this time we're all together. Things very shortly feel normal, and I begin to wonder when I'll get to take this boy home.
A weird thing happened while we were in the hospital. The emotions weren't the same. Don't get me wrong, I was excited to have Isaac here, but something felt different. Everything was more moderate. I wasn't as scared, or as tired, or as over joyed. Part of me began to worry that it was because I didn't love Isaac enough, was I a bad dad? Once we got home I began to realize that once things were normal I felt the same about both my kids, but the problem was I kept comparing two incomparable experiences. I was never scared for anyone's life when Isaac was born. I hadn't spent the last 3 days not sleeping and watching my wife go through indescribable pain. I wasn't worried that I didn't know how to hold my own child. I had a general understanding of how things would work, what to expect, and how Isaac would act. It's not that my love was less for him. It's that the emotion all around was less extreme. It was no longer uncharted territories, Grace had already blazed those trails.
Which got me thinking, Grace will always be our little trailblazer. She will have taken the first first steps and spoken the first first words. We won't be completely clueless when it comes to potty training Isaac, when he has his first day at school we'd have already gone through that with Grace, same with things like sleep overs, being left home alone, summer camp, high school, graduation. It will be an entirely different kind of experience with Grace than it will with Isaac. The challenge will be trying to make sure that that doesn't make these moments less special. It's being able to take in those small moments when he's a newborn, and just wants to cuddle, without thinking about how it would be nice if both were potty trained. It's appreciating all the small things when his sister can do much bigger things. The challenge is recognizing that my two kids will have unique, and separate lives that can't and don't need to be compared.
I think I'm up for the challenge.
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