Tuesday, November 30, 2004
The clock has moved past midnight and I’m suppose I am technically no longer in my 20s. But, since I wasn’t born until sometime after seven in the morning, I’ll still consider myself 29 for the purposes of this.
Birthdays used to always be a big deal for me and I often utilized them to reflect back upon the year that had passed. Given my penchant for over thinking things, this predictably led to some deep and dark moments of introspection. The last few years have been different.
I always thought that turning 30 would be a combined huge occasion and crushing reality check for me. In some ways, I suppose that reality-check began a few years ago when I bought a house and the got married. Reality check is probably the wrong description; it’s been more like, dare I say, growing-up. Either way, the fact I am about to be a father at some point in the next couple of weeks has been the major distraction that has kept me from thinking about turning 30, until today at least.
Change has been something I have been good at and given the massive amount of change that is potentially about to happen in my life, it was only natural that turning 30 would start to sink in.
The baby aside, I have also been dealing with career issues and have been actively looking for another job. Not exactly the best timing to be starting a new job, but when have I ever not taken on huge changes at one time. Not to rehash, but in less than three years time, I have bought house, got married, been laid-off, gotten a new job and am now about to turn 30, become a Dad and potentially leave one job for another. Some people go their entire life without doing as much; but, enough with the self-glorification.
I had a dream last night where my old roommate Piper and I were back in the same dorm room we had junior year in college. In the dream, we were our current age, but we had come back for our senor year. The room was exactly how we left, except for the ton of trash and stuff we left behind in addition to none of the people we lived with being there anymore. I found the timing of the dream to be strangely coincidental.
So many of my past birthdays through my early- to mid- 20s were spent worrying about what I was going to do with my life. Thing is, I still worry about that, but unlike the true worries from the past, these are now unfounded. It’s hard to speculate about what you want to be when you grow-up when you are grown-up. And you know, it’s not a bad thing to have your shit together. It also doesn’t mean I can’t stop being hungry for what I want in life, and that remain to be a writer. But, it now includes being a great husband and an incredible father.
Father, it is still such a weird concept for me to think about; it has remained surreal through out all of this. You know, many jokes have flown form family members about the baby being born on my birthday. I’ve resisted it, but, in truth, I’d welcome it and my only birthday wish would be for the health and safety of both mom and baby.
So, goodbye my dear 20s, you treated me quite well but I’ve got no time for you anymore. We’ll always have the memories though, well, so long as all the partying I did with you didn’t steal too much of my memory.
Birthdays used to always be a big deal for me and I often utilized them to reflect back upon the year that had passed. Given my penchant for over thinking things, this predictably led to some deep and dark moments of introspection. The last few years have been different.
I always thought that turning 30 would be a combined huge occasion and crushing reality check for me. In some ways, I suppose that reality-check began a few years ago when I bought a house and the got married. Reality check is probably the wrong description; it’s been more like, dare I say, growing-up. Either way, the fact I am about to be a father at some point in the next couple of weeks has been the major distraction that has kept me from thinking about turning 30, until today at least.
Change has been something I have been good at and given the massive amount of change that is potentially about to happen in my life, it was only natural that turning 30 would start to sink in.
The baby aside, I have also been dealing with career issues and have been actively looking for another job. Not exactly the best timing to be starting a new job, but when have I ever not taken on huge changes at one time. Not to rehash, but in less than three years time, I have bought house, got married, been laid-off, gotten a new job and am now about to turn 30, become a Dad and potentially leave one job for another. Some people go their entire life without doing as much; but, enough with the self-glorification.
I had a dream last night where my old roommate Piper and I were back in the same dorm room we had junior year in college. In the dream, we were our current age, but we had come back for our senor year. The room was exactly how we left, except for the ton of trash and stuff we left behind in addition to none of the people we lived with being there anymore. I found the timing of the dream to be strangely coincidental.
So many of my past birthdays through my early- to mid- 20s were spent worrying about what I was going to do with my life. Thing is, I still worry about that, but unlike the true worries from the past, these are now unfounded. It’s hard to speculate about what you want to be when you grow-up when you are grown-up. And you know, it’s not a bad thing to have your shit together. It also doesn’t mean I can’t stop being hungry for what I want in life, and that remain to be a writer. But, it now includes being a great husband and an incredible father.
Father, it is still such a weird concept for me to think about; it has remained surreal through out all of this. You know, many jokes have flown form family members about the baby being born on my birthday. I’ve resisted it, but, in truth, I’d welcome it and my only birthday wish would be for the health and safety of both mom and baby.
So, goodbye my dear 20s, you treated me quite well but I’ve got no time for you anymore. We’ll always have the memories though, well, so long as all the partying I did with you didn’t steal too much of my memory.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
The reality of it has finally sunk in; this baby is on the way. Amazingly enough it wasn’t the construction we’ve done to build the baby’s room nor all the clothes, toys and stuff that made everything concrete for me. No, it was the all-day, rapid-fire birthing class we took last Saturday that did it.
Most of you with are no doubt familiar with Lamaze and the breathing exercises it teaches you, but unless you’ve had a baby or have one of the way, you probably don’t know what these classes are like. For starters, the Lamaze classes are a bit of the past. The latest craze involves a combination of breathing techniques and labor education. And what education it is. But we’ll get to the scary part of the birthing class in a bit.
My wife and I were both very hesitant to attend any birthing class, even more so when we began looking at the options and duration of some of these classes. The recommendations in many of the books we read said to start looking into birthing classes by the five month of the pregnancy. There were many options and when we finally settled on the one we felt was right for us, Isis, we were then surprised at the duration of these classes. Given our rather urgent need coupled with the fact we had no desire to commit to a half dozen sessions at three hours a clip, we opted for the seven-hour cram session.
So we settled into to our all-day Saturday class a mere six weeks out from our due date. Needless to say we were worried that we would be far and away the furthest along in the class. So, we were pleasantly surprised to find the 11 other couples in our class to all be around the 35 week mark.
The class was as advertised, a cram-session. We spent the early part of the class going over what to expect as we approached labor. The first funny moment came when we hit the relaxation and breathing portion of the program.
The instructor, who was great no doubt because she had six kids of her own, instructed us to grab floor mats and all lay down next to our partners. It was the ultimate icebreaker as trying to fit 24 people on the floor lying down had as al in cramped quarters. I was just thankful nobody had gas, a substantial concern in a room full of pregnant ladies. She shut the lights off and ran as through the typical picture yourself floating on a raft in the ocean type exercise. And it was very relaxing, so much so that I feel asleep. Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.
This all led to her demonstrating a babies birth using a creepy doll for the newborn, a knitted uterus that could have doubled a winter hat and some nylon thing for the placenta. It was a good presentation of the steps, albeit, a rose-colored presentation of the real thing. It was all leading up to the great finale, the video.
Yes, we had the pleasure of ending the day by viewing the video of three different women giving birth. It didn’t pull any punches and was certainly pretty graphic, blood, pain, guts and all. I was fascinated by it more than anything and it served to really get me more excited about the birth of the child. This wasn’t the case for everyone.
I made it a point to see how some of the other couples were reacting to the video and I was surprised to see a couple of moms-to-be actually covering their eyes for the most reveling parts of the births. Made me wonder how they were going to get through he real thing.
I guess my only complaint was, not to be too shallow, I wish they could have found some more attractive couples for the video. But as I overheard one couple saying, would you agree to appear in the video if they asked you? The response: not for a million dollars. Makes sense to me.
Most of you with are no doubt familiar with Lamaze and the breathing exercises it teaches you, but unless you’ve had a baby or have one of the way, you probably don’t know what these classes are like. For starters, the Lamaze classes are a bit of the past. The latest craze involves a combination of breathing techniques and labor education. And what education it is. But we’ll get to the scary part of the birthing class in a bit.
My wife and I were both very hesitant to attend any birthing class, even more so when we began looking at the options and duration of some of these classes. The recommendations in many of the books we read said to start looking into birthing classes by the five month of the pregnancy. There were many options and when we finally settled on the one we felt was right for us, Isis, we were then surprised at the duration of these classes. Given our rather urgent need coupled with the fact we had no desire to commit to a half dozen sessions at three hours a clip, we opted for the seven-hour cram session.
So we settled into to our all-day Saturday class a mere six weeks out from our due date. Needless to say we were worried that we would be far and away the furthest along in the class. So, we were pleasantly surprised to find the 11 other couples in our class to all be around the 35 week mark.
The class was as advertised, a cram-session. We spent the early part of the class going over what to expect as we approached labor. The first funny moment came when we hit the relaxation and breathing portion of the program.
The instructor, who was great no doubt because she had six kids of her own, instructed us to grab floor mats and all lay down next to our partners. It was the ultimate icebreaker as trying to fit 24 people on the floor lying down had as al in cramped quarters. I was just thankful nobody had gas, a substantial concern in a room full of pregnant ladies. She shut the lights off and ran as through the typical picture yourself floating on a raft in the ocean type exercise. And it was very relaxing, so much so that I feel asleep. Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.
This all led to her demonstrating a babies birth using a creepy doll for the newborn, a knitted uterus that could have doubled a winter hat and some nylon thing for the placenta. It was a good presentation of the steps, albeit, a rose-colored presentation of the real thing. It was all leading up to the great finale, the video.
Yes, we had the pleasure of ending the day by viewing the video of three different women giving birth. It didn’t pull any punches and was certainly pretty graphic, blood, pain, guts and all. I was fascinated by it more than anything and it served to really get me more excited about the birth of the child. This wasn’t the case for everyone.
I made it a point to see how some of the other couples were reacting to the video and I was surprised to see a couple of moms-to-be actually covering their eyes for the most reveling parts of the births. Made me wonder how they were going to get through he real thing.
I guess my only complaint was, not to be too shallow, I wish they could have found some more attractive couples for the video. But as I overheard one couple saying, would you agree to appear in the video if they asked you? The response: not for a million dollars. Makes sense to me.
