Buckle Head

There we were, winding our way along circuitous routes through the maternity ward at the hospital, trying our darndest to walk a baby out of My Lovely Wife.

They say walking is good for a thing like that. I think they're liars.

I think the only reason they tell moaning mothers-to-be to get up and walk around is because they're tired of listening to them. They shoo her out the door and head her down the hallway to be somebody else's problem for the next ten minutes. If they're lucky, maybe she'll toss the baby halfway to Ortho. Knees and hips, feh! Let's see if those joint doctors know what to do with a placenta or two.

Anyway, Our Daughter was stubbornly clinging to the womb interior, refusing to answer the call of life's great eviction notice. Contractions were ratcheting down with ever-increasing rapidity and, by the look on My Lovely Wife's face, were no picnic.

The most amazing thing to me was how sincerely apologetic she would get after every contraction. I'm sitting there on a cushioned chair sipping a diet soda and making small talk while she reenacts the John Hurt scene from Alien, but when the pain passes she apologizes to me. Where is that kind of emotional misdirection when I forget to go the bank?

Oh, there's another contraction, and this one looks like a doozy! Eyes are squeezed tight, her fingers are gripping mine, and everything we learned about the therapeutic value of regulated breathing flies straight out the window. She sits in a chair and pushes her head into me until the severe cramping subsides. When she looks up to tell me how sorry she is for being in pain, all I can see is the imprint of my belt buckle across her forehead.

You know those times you aren't supposed to laugh? That was one of those times.

And it was one of the very few of those times in which I actually had enough sense to stifle it. It got slightly more difficult to hold in the laughter the second and third times she sat back with the deep red grooves in her forehead displaying a detailed relief of my buckle, but I managed. Not longer after, following the administration of some very effective pain medications that left her smiling contentedly through contractions that could squeeze coal into diamonds, My Lovely Wife gave birth to Our seven-pound eleven-ounce Daughter.

Three-and-a-half years later, when it was time for twelve pounds of twins to join our family, we had a pretty good idea what we were in for at the hospital that morning. And I made sure to leave the belt at home.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Prettiest Puke Ever

Fourteen years ago, during the first thirty days of her pregnancy, my Lovely Wife had reason to believe she might be in for a smooth ride. She woke in the morning feeling well and maintained a normal appetite throughout each day.

It would seem Our Daughter's prenatal interests did not include instilling the kind of nausea, hunger, hot sweats, chills, mood swings and homicidal tendencies we'd been warned were the potential side effects of the typical, healthy pregnancy.

Then, at the end of that first month, the turkey incident unfolded.

The turkey breast, rubbed down liberally with our signature combination of herbs and spices, went into the oven while my Lovely Wife rested in the bedroom. Our house at the time being relatively small, it wasn't long before the gamey aroma of roasting fowl hung heavy in every room. I opened the oven door to baste the half-baked bird when I heard a weak voice calling me.

The overwhelming smell of the turkey had somehow jump-started the morning sickness my Lovely Wife had so far been able to avoid. With a skin tone matching that of the uncooked bird, she informed me of the need to remove both the turkey and its scent from the house with an urgent alacrity. I must confess, I momentarily struggled with the idea of chucking a perfectly good meal in the trash, but I quickly came to my senses.

Within minutes, the roasting pan was sitting out on the back porch and every window in the house was opened, ceiling fans drawing in the fresh, frigid winter air. I tried spraying Lysol to help cover the offending odor, but it only added to the nauseating mixture. The upchuck bucket -- a small, spare plastic trash can -- made it's debut that evening. It didn't leave our presence for four solid months.

It took us a few weeks to settle into a mealtime routine. Dinner options were limitless, providing dinner had no detectable aroma. All meals were eaten at home, since eating out would mean being within unreasonable proximity of a functioning kitchen in which heat was being applied to one ingredient or another.

We eventually found the one meal her stomach and nasal passages could handle: chicken tenders and French fries from Golden Corral, both smothered in the melted cheese from the potato bar. The checkout girl at our local Golden Corral could spot me from a mile away. Before I could open my mouth, she had my take-out order rung up. As a show of moral support, my staple meal became steak & fried shrimp with French fries. I even applied a generous covering of the melted cheese sauce to prove how much I loved her.

Just because we'd discovered an acceptable staple meal, however, did not mean my Lovely Wife's stomach suddenly stabilized. If Tums antacid tablets were habit forming, then my Lovely Wife would have been a hardcore addict. Deposits in the upchuck bucket were as prolific as they were predictable. I consider my time spent cleaning that bucket amazingly appropriate preparation for the diaper changing that would come.

But one day -- when the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week morning sickness had an exceptionally tight grip on her -- my Lovely Wife handed over the upchuck bucket and I recoiled in shock. There, in the bucket, was an assortment of pastel colors, each color separated from the others like some delicate frothy pousse cafe. In retrospect, it really was exceptionally pretty, as upchuck goes.

Unnerved and confused, I searched for just the right words to express my loving concern.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

After a few minutes, we realized the picturesque layers in the bucket were caused by the various colors of the Tums tablets she had taken leading up to her latest deposit. We laughed until it was time for her to throw up yet again.

I've cleaned up my share of bodily fluids since then, but never anything quite so artistically expressive.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Happy Mother's Day!

Almost 14 years ago, when my poor Lovely Wife's belly appeared unable to expand any farther, she gave birth to our first child.

She desperately hoped for a daughter and the ultrasounds told us she would get what she wanted. I got quite good at recognizing the tell-tale embryonic gender indicators during those visits. It helped that our unborn baby girl did not mind gracing us with the ocasional explicit angle -- a habit that doesn't seem to end until they reach 10 or 11 years of age.

Ever the impatient woman, my Lovely Wife employed certain tactics to encourage the birthing process. She had read the act of walking would help move the baby along down the birth canal, so it was not an uncommon sight during those final weeks of her pregnancy to see her circling our small living room with a very confused Dalmation sniffing at her heels as she went round and round the coffee table. She even walked the running track at our local high school during the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life the day before checking in to the hospital. That's what I call determination.

Once we had her settled in the birthing suite, labor pains escalated as the laughably mild contractions of the day before were replaced by the real thing. The pains came and went all through that Saturday night.

And what was the expert advice we received to help move the process along? Walk.

So, I played the part of Dalmatian as we walked circles around the corridors, repeatedly stopping as the next wave of contractions gripped my Lovely Wife. If a chair were handy, she would sit and press her head into my stomach as she concentrated on controling her breathing. I learned then that it's extremely difficult to maintain the appropriate serious composure when your wife looks up at you with a belt buckle impression in the middle of her forehead.

Eventually, the epidural was administered. We are not the all natural, new age, unconventional, statement-making kind of people. Drugs exist for specific purposes, and this was one of them. I kept watching the monitor showing the onsloaught of massive contractions and eying the mother-to-be to make sure the medications were doing their job, but I had nothing to fear.

"Everyone should have an epidural," she sighed, oblivious to the internal struggles.

Our Darling Daughter presented herself after only three rounds of pushing and deep breathing. I cut the cord, she cried, we cried, they cleaned her up, and we took turns holding her. Family members came and went, oohing and aahing over the scrunched up, swaddled bundle that was our new baby girl.

A day later she was home with us, and our lives were forever changed. Now, if someone can help us get through the teenage dating years, we might survive to grandparenthood.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers out there. Thank you for the blessings you've brought to our lives.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

God Got It Wrong

Some things are beyond our control.

The clothing styles of the 1970s are a perfect example. One day, bellbottoms don't exist. The next day, we're all wearing flared jeans. One day, shirt collars are starched and understated. The next day, I'm wearing floppy butterfly collars so wide a strong breeze could carry me out over Long Island Sound.

Family planning is like that, too. When we had one child, the world seemed perfect. We were able to give her all our attention and make certain she had everything she needed to be happy and healthy. Our plan was to wait four or five years to give her a sibling, preferably a sister if my Lovely Wife had any say in the matter.

As it turns out, she didn't.

For starters, waiting four or five years would have taken greater planning skills and restraint than we apparently possess. It also doesn't help that we, as a couple, are uber-fertile. I'm pretty sure just being in the same room and thinking about having sex back then would have resulted in either one of us getting pregnant.

Only two years into our first child, we found out another baby was on the way. When we told our Daughter she would be a big sister, she innocently referred to the impending bundle as "babies."

"No, sweetie," my Lovely Wife would tell her, "only one baby."

"No, Mommy, two ones," our Daughter would respond. You can imagine our newfound respect for -- and fear of -- our Daughter when the first ultrasound revealed we were, indeed, expecting twins.

Already perturbed by the fact of the pregnancy not fitting into the timeframe of her plan, my Lovely Wife began crying once the doctor said "Now let's take a look at the other one" and she didn't stop for several days. She gradually came to terms with the idea of multiples and consoled herself by wishing for two more daughters, or at least one girl and one boy.

For my money, I didn't care what they were. Even during our first pregnancy I didn't have a preference. When my Lovely Wife asked whether I wanted a boy or a girl I would smile and say I just wanted a healthy baby. She found this an unreasonable and irritating stance to take.

"Everybody wants a healthy baby," she would say. "Do you want a boy or a girl?!"

When the time came to find out what the twins would be, you can imagine the quantity of tears that flowed when the ultrasound clearly displayed evidence of the Y chromosone at work. The oft-repeated lament over the next few months from my Lovely Wife was: "I can't believe I'm having two freaking boys!"

Even our Daughter, with her fledgling supernatural powers, was disappointed. We explained to her that God must have wanted her to be the big sister of two baby brothers.

"Well, God got it wrong," she said.

Of course, all reservations melted away once the boys made their big debut. Their mother and big sister fell in love with the little ham hocks, as did I, and life hasn't been the same since.

After the boys were born, people asked if we planned to have any more. Yeah, right. Once they start coming out in pairs, you've got to put some serious thought to the potential ramifications of your actions. Let's just say, one of the first calls we made after getting them home from the hospital was to the urologist.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler