Hunting and Gathering

A lot of this fatherhood thing isn’t exactly what I’d expected.

I take comfort in this realization given that fatherhood probably hasn’t been what any Dad has ever expected since the very first time that one guy’s seed managed to find its way into that one girl’s ovum and then their magic mix managed to settle on a precarious perch deep within the…[er… not bowels… ummm] (aha!) cavern of her womanhood.

No, wait. Cavern is completely the wrong word. Niche? Crevasse?

Shit. Now I can’t even select appropriate verbiage. I’m doomed.

A couple weeks ago, a robin (the bird kind, not Batman’s honcho) showed up at our bedroom window. We wouldn’t have noticed if he’d just been standing on the fence (which he does a lot of the time) but for some reason, he’s been flying into the window. Not in through the window – against the window. Bonk bonk bonk. He does this until I get up out of bed (always makes me happy to do this before the sun is up) and show myself, then he realizes there’s a big animal right there and he returns to standing atop the fence a few feet away. As soon as I’m out of view, he returns to bonking against the window over and again. There’s no line of sight from there to anywhere, and he does this before we turn the lights on and we don’t have plants nor birdcages or any other thing that we think might be attractive to him in our room and we really can’t figure out why he’s kept on with this routine. It’s the avian equivalent of banging one’s head against a wall.

We closed the blinds but he kept bonking the window. What’s he trying to tell me?

Our little boy is now something like six weeks old and he’s doing pretty well. Logistics are my highest priority right now, with emotional things and mental things coming in tied for a close second. What I mean is that it’s more important to me that we make sure he gets enough to eat and isn’t too cold and has clean diapers than it is that I get whatever emotional feedback a son of this age might provide his Papi. I’d like that emotional feedback, but it’s not as important as making sure the mechanical side of things are in proper order. So I hope for positive emotional feedback from other sources, an approach that’s worked pretty well thus far. Sort of. I’ve noted that some of the feedback I get is about how things aren’t going well or how I don’t really know what I’m doing. Tell ya what, though: he’s fed and he’s clean and he’s warm. The rest of the world is secondary.

You’ll recall our adventurous hospital trip in which we learned that the mechanics were coming up short and that, though all indicators were positive, E was coming up short in the nutrition arena. We got right onto a new feeding program and turned all of that around and once things were back on the proper track, our lactation consultant started working us toward some changes that were going to make all of this ‘feeding the bambino’ stuff work even better. Cool.

I’ve noticed that everyone who works in the office where they have lactation consultants happens to be female and have wondered, occasionally, whether or not this is an industry unpopulated by men. I’d think there would be plenty of men eager to work in such a field, though I can certainly understand that a male lactation consultant might well find himself short on clients. This really does seem like the kind of thing that women would prefer to share with other women. Plus men don’t have breasts and are likely unable to offer relevant experience or insight. At least not from a primary source perspective.

Anyway, we got E back on track, went to the consultant, and learned that now that he was big and strong, he’d never let us underfeed him and that all we really had to do was make food available to him whenever he made it known that he was hungry. If the natural thing came up short, we’d supplement with formula (which we didn’t want to do initially, but we readily accepted when it came down to “this is necessary if you want to be sure he’s getting enough nutrition.”) Done. Bring on the formula.

… but before we use that formulaic stuff, we had to ask “What’s the very best formula on the market that doesn’t have weird ingredients nor BGH nor GMOs and isn’t made by the CIA, doesn’t call for fracking nor clearcutting and is exactly the stuff that Adam and Eve would have chosen if their own natural supply had been in question?”

We realize that Adam and Eve were receiving regular visits and consultations from a guy who could totally manipulate the system such that their natural supply would never be found lacking. We don’t live where they lived, though, so perhaps that’s why we don’t have the same benefactor standing at the ready.

We were told that the difference between all of the various formulas on the market is exactly the same as the difference between Coke and Pepsi. While I’m wondering if that’s the difference between aspartame and high fructose corn syrup, the lactation consultant fills me in: They’re all the same and they’re all fabulous and anyone with half a brain would happily provide this powdery mix to the single most important person in the history of everything. Oh. Simple.

With this in mind, my fabulous bride thought it’d be smart to have a look into the various formulae available for feeding our precious bambino. After all, there wouldn’t be so many from which to choose if there weren’t some differences that well informed people such as we’d like to think ourselves would want to know about. The first among the criteria was that we wanted something as close to organic as possible, so she looked at those brands thusly promoted. What she found didn’t exactly fill us with confidence.

And that robin keeps bonking against the window.

That is, there are 3 major brands that make organic formula:

Nature's One - their formula has brown rice sugar as sweetener - research found that this organic mix contains measurable levels of arsenic in it. Remembering that arsenic has enjoyed popularity among those who wish to harm others by ensuring its ingestion, this seemed like a nasty thing to be giving our little one. To their credit, since the discovery, the company reworked their product to ‘address the arsenic concerns.’ However, in that announcement, the company stated that the changes made apply only to its formula with certain use-by-dates:

“When we tested the new versions of the two dairy formulas, the levels were either undetectable or nearly so. The company says its new formulation has use-by dates of January 2014 (Dairy with DHA & ARA), July 2015 (Dairy), or later.” (Emphasis added.)

So for us to use this one, we’ll need to keep track of what the use-by dates are so that we can avoid feeding this nasty arsenic stuff to E. My uninformed brain thinks it’d make sense to pull affected product from the market rather than just cycle it through the consumer base, but that’s why I’m not given the responsibility of making such decisions on behalf of delicate infants.

Similac enjoys a substantial share in the market, which makes it seem like it must be pretty good. Unfortunately (again, by my own feeble reasoning), this one’s sweetened with sucrose, which gives it a much sweeter taste than some of its competitors (and probably makes it a lot more popular with the kiddos). Sucrose is worse for tooth enamel than other sugars (not that E has any teeth yet) and the concern is that this extra sweetness will lead the kids who rely on it to spurn other, possibly less sweet, formulae. Some studies suggest that this might lead to overeating, which can lead to unduly rapid weight gain, which has reliably been a statistical predictor of childhood obesity. This doesn’t sound like the one we want, either.

Earth's Best. Now here’s a promising name for baby formula. Who wouldn’t want the very best thing available for their bundle of joy? This one, D found, uses some process known as “the hexane method” to extract DHA and ARA (these are good things that are found in breast milk) from algae and soil fungus. But hexane is a neurotoxin (uncool), a by-product of gasoline in petroleum and is considered a hazardous air pollutant by the EPA.

So among the readily available and highly touted “organic” baby formulas found on drugstore shelves, each appears to contain (or be influenced by) some really hideous thing that we’re quite certain comes up short in our standards for E. I might eat that stuff and not worry so much, but what’s good enough for me isn’t nearly good enough for the boy.

Bonk goes the robin. Bonk bonk.

Then D found another brand: Holle. Of course, this one’s made in Germany, which is the country that maintains the highest standards for food anywhere on Earth. If we were to buy this, it’d cost less than the stuff we can get at the corner pharmacy, even if you include the overseas postage. This is the obvious choice. As fate would have it, though, Holle isn’t approved by the US FDA (I wonder why that is…) and thus, is unavailable in the states. Not only that, but the smart Germans who sell the stuff have already gotten into trouble for sending it over to American parents who’d like to take advantage of Germany’s high standards for baby formula.

This means that unless you figure out a way to circumvent the rules that you can’t get it over here. You’d have to have some pretty sweet connections overseas to make this happen. Or you’d have to check out some of the online forums where other dedicated parents share information.

We shared this info with others who pay attention to things that babies are frequently exposed to here in the US and our friend Andy mentioned that he’d recently been researching HB3162 that has to do with toxic stuff and that he found that Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort Bath, Breck Kids 2-in-1 Shampoo, Disney Princess Bubble Bath, and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo all contain formaldehyde. Last I knew, this stuff had proven itself useful for preserving bodies which are no longer in use. We certainly want to keep the bambino around for as long as possible, but we weren’t thinking of making this happen through the use of preservatives and so we’ve added this items to the list of things we won’t be using.

Bonk.

Before he was born, we talked about what we were concerned about in terms of raising a child in the US. We’d be concerned about things no matter where we were raising a child, but we’re doing it here, so the conversation is really only relevant as it applies to the states. Don’t go thinking we’re picking on the US of A just for kicks – we’re looking into what’s relevant based on where and when we live. That’s all.

Right now there’s a big debate here in Portland about whether or not the city should add fluoride to its water supply. Those in favor assert that this will reduce what they’re calling an epidemic of bad teeth, especially for kids whose families might not be able to afford proper dental care. Aside from me thinking that if dental (and medical) care were available to everyone at no out of pocket cost, this would be less of a hot topic, I’m personally unswayed by the assertions that fluoride is good for everyone. I think it’s good for some of us but not for all of us. I’m not opening this for debate and I don’t need to know what you think about it – you won’t change my mind and I won’t change yours. It’s up for a vote. Cast your ballot and let’s be done with it.

Collective bonking. We're all bonking the window now.

The Portland fluoride thing doesn’t really matter in our household, because the water that comes through the pipes in our house isn’t from Portland. It’s from the Tualatin Valley Water District, and they’ve been adding fluoride to the stuff for a while now. This means that, because we don’t want E to drink fluoridated water (he doesn’t have any teeth anyway), we have to buy bottled water… which is a concept we despise in the first place.

In the baby aisle at the store, next to the organic formulas containing arsenic or potentially addictive sweeteners, and those processed by hexane are nice big jugs of water specifically intended for use in making baby formula. Bravo! Someone’s taking initiative. But wait.

I pick up a jug and have a quick look at the label, thinking it ought to say something like “completely pure unadulterated water from a really clean source carefully distilled in a sterile environment by people who believe in health first and profits second” but instead find that they’ve added minerals to it. Maybe that’s okay. Then I notice that they’ve added stuff to improve the flavor of the water. Because, apparently, the sweeteners in the formula we’re supposed to add to this water don’t make the flavor yummy enough.

Now, this is absurd. I can assure you [and the makers of flavor enhanced water and formula that contains weird sweeteners or is processed with weird stuff or has the potential to be essentially addictive and lead to an increased likelihood of obesity] that our little boy doesn’t need any of that to be motivated to eat when he’s hungry.

What he needs is pure water and formula that’s made by people whose standards are guided by the notion that people – especially those unable to make good choices for themselves – deserve access to nourishment that doesn’t include toxins.

This seems really simple. Obvious.

My primary concern about raising this boy remains related to the quality of what we loosely refer to as “food” in this country. And given how complex it’s been to secure only two items – water and baby formula – that we can feel good about providing our little one, I’m not filled with confidence when I think about how we’ll go about introducing him to things like fruit and vegetables.

Something tells me this is going to become harder instead of easier.

Bonk. And bonk.

I’d never have guessed that I might consider moving to another country solely based on food quality. But here I am.

Cameron

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Mire

It’s been a while since our last blog session, and as you already know that’s because we’ve become a family of three since the last time I had any time to type anything at all. If D and I had expanded our family through the route of bigamy, I’m sure there’d be a whole lot of new things to try to figure out and a long list of family dynamics in need of reworking or reinventing or creating from scratch, which is kind of what we're doing anyway. We’re not bigamists, though (fine with us if you are, so don’t get your boxers in a bunch) and so our approach to expanding the family unit was – by some very good fortune and a terrific vacation in Mexico – by virtue of conception. I’m certain that there’s a correlation between having found a healthy scorpion in our hotel bathroom and D becoming pregnant. We’d been hoping [and actually doing a fair amount more than simply hoping] for conception for the last few years. But it took the magic spell of a creepy yet doomed poisonous critter who met his end at the heel of a frantically wielded shoe for pregnancy to befall us. That wasn't all it took, but it was a key component.

Fast forward through that nasty separated disk and some sciatic nerve pinching and a good lesson in the relative values of Eastern and Western medicine (the former proving itself far more affordable and far more effective than the latter), a visit from the Mom-In-Law for the holidays, and a boring list of normal life stuff and we find ourselves looking at the calendar about a month ago, well into a healthy pregnancy that included a lot of tests and inspections and stuff like that, every one of which gave positive indicators as to the relative health of baby and momma. So as of a month ago, D and I had been to lots of appointments at the Women’s Health Center near our home in fabulous Portland, Oregon and during the final several visits, the doc and the midwife and the assistant and the ultrasound tech had all been saying things like “it doesn’t hurt to pack your hospital bag early” and “don’t be upset if he’s born before your sister arrives.”

I was immediately suspicious. I'm often immediately suspicious of things people say, but I was more immediate and more suspicious this time around than most. They wouldn’t say things like that if they thought D was going to go full term. My razor sharp brains elicited the obvious message: We medical professionals all think your baby will come early. This was fine by me – I was pretty excited to meet the little guy and see what he looked like out here in the atmosphere instead of the ultrasound images we’d been getting every couple weeks. Young parents don’t get so many ultrasounds, but D qualifies as “AMA,” which means “Advanced Maternal Age,” which really means “Old.” So we saw lots of pictures of the kiddo but we were getting impatient and wanted the tactile experience. And though we knew we'd be really busy once he was born, D was really very uncomfortable almost all the time and we thought it'd be nice to bring that discomfort to a close.

All our friends and relatives wanted to meet him too, and as you read in my last entry we’d asserted that everyone would have to get a pertussis booster. The problem that assertion led to was that I didn’t specify that anyone already current on their vaccine wouldn’t need the booster and the only people that had to get it were those whose shots were outdated, or those who didn’t remember whether or not their shots were outdated. One result of this was that a close relative who doesn’t think vaccines are a good idea in the first place agreed to wait until the kiddo is older to meet him in person (even though he recently had surgery and very likely received a booster without even knowing it). Another result is that a whole bunch of people we care about are now current on their pertussis (and diphtheria and tetanus, each of which are nasty things we're sure no one wants to suffer). There were other results, too, but those aren’t any fun to think about and I can’t come up with a way to present them that includes any levity.

And this was our first real venture into the realm of parenthood. The most common piece of advice we’ve received from other parents is to remember that we have the final say in everything even if we’re wrong about it, and that people will be offended along the way. Sometimes it’ll be us offended, sometimes it’ll be others. We won’t be keeping score.

There was a betting pool about when our son would actually be born. His due date was March 19 but after all the smart medical people started saying the things about not being surprised if he’s early, we all started picking dates. I picked March 10, D picked the 11^th (11 is her favorite number) and a few other people picked other dates. Very early in the morning of the 10^th it became apparent that the process had begun, so we called the doc. The doc told us to go to the hospital and that he reckoned that we’d have a baby today. We went to the hospital where they ran a couple tests and sent us to an enormous room called a “birthing suite,” telling us that today was the day. Birthing suites are really nice. There's a bed for mom and a long couch for dad, a private bathroom, a rocking chair, another chair, two sinks, a television (which we don't need or want in our lives but it adds to the fancy factor), extra bedding and a closet.

I won’t go into too much detail, because there’s no need and because the details of all this stuff are already known in a general sense and it’s really nobody else’s business anyway but suffice it to say that although he arrived several days early, the process of his arrival wasn’t as quick and easy as we might have hoped. Demonstrating that he loves his Mama more than his Papi, he chose to slow things down in order that he’d be born well after March 10 as I’d guessed, and instead made his debut at 1:43pm on March 11. As our friend Chad pointed out, E was born on the only palindrome date of the year: 31113. Obviously, this is extremely cool even if it does demonstrate that he loves his mom more than his dad.

Our own Moms had come to the hospital on the 10^th, as we’d told them it was “any time now.” After continuing to tell them this all day and well into the night, we then told them to go back to our house and get some rest, which neither of them wanted to at all. But they did so anyway. On the morning of the 11^th, I called and said something like “any time now – come on down!” and they instantly appeared in the waiting room down the hall, which is as close as anyone who isn't the dad is allowed to come. The docs and everyone were talking like we were an hour or two away. The moms waited.

And the docs kept talking like that for another 8 or 9 hours. Until, at last, our family of two instantly became a family of three. As anyone else who’s been down this path will attest, this was the most amazing moment in either D's or my own lives. We were spellbound. For the next twenty minutes or so we huddled together in the middle of the flurry that was a dozen hospital professionals, each of whom was quickly taking care of a specific and important task. We were the calm in the middle of the storm. Eye of the hurricane.

Then she fainted, which makes sense after more than thirty hours without being allowed to eat anything other than lollipops and popsicles.

I finally had a chance to collect the new Grandmas, which was an enormous relief for each of them after having waited for many hours beyond the the ‘any minute now’ they’d most recently heard. It doesn’t help that they can’t talk to one another. They sat and grew increasingly concerned. They called the nurse's station and were told that the nurses aren't allowed to tell anyone anything. Sorry Moms. We did our best.

For the next couple days, we were visited by lots of other medical people who checked things and told us things they thought we needed to know. We were pretty grateful for all of this. And finally, they sent us home. A friend of mine told me about the time he left the hospital with his first child and said something about walking out the door feeling almost bewildered, thinking “Really? They’re  just going to let me leave with this new baby?” We didn’t have the same sense of disbelief when we finally made our exit but what we did notice was that every single thing in the whole world had made a fundamental change while we were sequestered within the hospital.

I suppose part of it is that I now feel that, for the first time, I might believe myself qualified to be called a Man. Up til now I’ve wondered how it’s possible that I’ve been able to keep everyone fooled.

The first day we were home, we spent our time marveling at this amazing new thing, trying to not be overwhelmed with the knowledge that no matter how difficult this might get that we simply cannot quit and absolutely must not fail, and feeding him and changing him and watching him sleep.

We'd been told, by the nice lady who taught the “you’re going to have a baby” class as well as the lactation consultant and the nurse and some other person wearing blue scrubs and all of the books we'd read that the way to know that the bambino is getting properly fed is:

1)     feed him until he stops feeding
2)     watch his eyes roll back into his head as he enjoys feeling sated
3)     burp him and have fun watching him spit up a few times onto your clean shirt
4)     let him gently drift off to sleep until he wakes again and demands food
5)     repeat.

What nobody told us is that this is exactly the same routine a newborn will practice when they’re not getting enough to eat and are becoming exhausted and dehydrated. On our second day home, E (our son’s name starts with E) turned yellow and was, quite suddenly, inconsolable. We checked his log (we keep a “eat pee poop” log for the tyke) and realized he hadn’t peed in far too long. I can go that long without peeing and so can you, but little boys who tip the scale at a whopping five-and-a-half pounds are supposed to pee a lot more often than the rest of us.

Anyway, I called the doctor’s office at about 1 am and talked to their person on call, who asserted that the right thing to do was load E into the car and make our way to the Emergency Room at the Children’s Hospital here in Portland. We’re glad to have one of these in our hometown, though we weren’t glad to have need for it in the moment. Clearly, this was a time to move with purpose.

Usually when I'm on the phone for our collective benefit, D asks questions like "what did they say" and "what do they think?" She wants all the details, which is the smart way to do things when you’re going to be making decisions. But this time, when I replied with only "they said to bring him to the emergency room right now," instead of asking questions, she sprang into action, was dressed, had her 76 year old mother dressed (we told her to stay home but she adamantly refused), got E dressed and into his car seat and we were out the door in moments.

Some might think poorly of a new father who exceeds the posted speed limits with a brand new baby and mother in law in the car. But at 2am, we found it a clear and dry night without any traffic and the Subaru has nice new tires, and I did qualify for a competition driving license a few years ago, and we were all wound up about E who was now in and out of consciousness and wasn't always responding to D. I will make no apology to anyone that E's second ride in a car attained speeds that may have included triple digits. And should something like this happen to us again, I won't hesitate to do exactly the same thing.

We made it to the hospital, parked illegally, ran past a fellow who was smoking a joint next to the "No Smoking" sign and checked E in. The three of us spent the next three days there, with E getting IV fluids, Mama's milk and milk bank milk, and blood draws about twice a day until his bilirubin level dropped and his sodium went back to normal and a host of other important things went from marginal-at-best to better-than-average. There's nothing like watching an IV attempt go south and seeing your four day old baby bleeding out of his head. The only thing that's worse is seeing his mother when she catches a glimpse even though you're holding her hands and trying to block her view and reminding her that you're in the right place and that very good people you don't even know are focusing all of their attention, love and expertise on your child.

Most of our friends who are parents have expressed their support and concern when we’ve told this tale. Most of them. This was really scary – I mean THE most scary thing I have ever experienced – but it wasn't so far outside the norm that we can count on someday having this be our only ‘taking the kiddo to the hospital’ story. It means we might do things like this again. If E is anything like his father, we should be on a first name basis with the ER staff in the next few years. I have a new appreciation for what I put my own parents through. And I might secretly be hoping he gets his "Hey, look what I can do!" genes from the other side of the family.

Since we came back home, everything has been going very well. He's gaining weight faster than expected, he poops and pees as often as he should, eats lots and lots, and does all the things babies his age are supposed to do. It took us an extra week or so to find our new normal than we expected but we’re happily settling in as best we can. It’s tricky to do this with D’s sister, brother in law, niece, nephew and mother all here at the same time but it’s been really nice to have their support.

It does seem a little funny to me that D’s Mom so quickly responds when E starts crying, swooping him up and into her arms and then coddling and cooing him until he calms down (she’s very, very good at this) and that when she’s not doing that, she’s telling us that we’re teaching him that crying is the best way to get immediate attention.  She does this thing more than anyone, then tells us we’re doing this thing too much already. There have been a lot of little ironies along the way, each made unusually complex given the different views on everything even remotely related to child rearing. I can assure you: having been raised by a rather liberated woman for a mom myself, my views on how much and in what ways I ought to participate in this baby raising gig are quite different than my Mom-In-Law’s views. She lived through World War II, then raised two daughters in a culture and at a time that didn’t make a lot of room for Dads when it came to changing diapers. We’ve got cultural differences at work that are, I believe, unlike those enjoyed (?) by most other families.

And that’s exactly what D and I signed on for when we got hitched three years ago. Neither of us would change a single thing.

All best,

E and Co.