One Step Closer

About two weeks ago, we interviewed a pediatrician in town in our quest to find a caregiver for the boy. We have strong, but not strident, views on how we want to treat our boy, and it was important for us to find someone who shared our views. But we also wanted very much for it to be a conversation with possible doctors, and not a list of demands.

The doc we saw two weeks ago started off this part of the conversation on the right foot. She said, "Now, I meet parents sometimes who tell me they don't want their child immunized. And I make it very clear to those parents that perhaps they should find another provider because this isn't the right practice for them."

That alone made us more comfortable discussing other areas of concern: nursing (yes--and the practice has a lactation consultant on staff) and circumcision (nope, not for our kid, and maybe I'll write about that separately) chief among them. The doctor supported our decisions in both cases. She said in the United States today, circumcision is a cultural choice instead of a medical one. In agreeing with her, I unfortunately started to become the lectury parent neither of us wanted to be, but once I realized what I was doing, I piped down and let her change the subject.

Finally, there was something about her demeanor that we found very comforting. She reminded us both, in fact, of my mom who, I should add, was a medical professional herself for decades.

So, that's one gigantic decision out of the way: the boy has a doctor we're comfortable with. I spent time this morning finding out our next steps, such as how do we let the HMO know about the pediatrician, when should we tell the OB-GYN (at Jen's next appt, preferably), and how billing works between the time he's born and the time the HMO has official record of his provider's name and info.

It's funny, but in these moments of minutiae and nitty-gritty detail, I really feel like I'm doing something concrete to care for our son, even though he's not even here yet.

The Scary Hospital Tour

Sunday morning, Jen and I went to Women & Infants for the Grand Tour class the hospital offers expectant parents. Five other couples were present, each woman in varying degrees of pregnancy. Four of the six couples were in their first pregnancies, and although it's hard to guess what strangers are feeling, I think the other newbies were, like us, a little nervous.

Now, this wasn't a full-fledged childbirth class. It was simply an overview of the facilities that parents-to-be might expect to see: triage and admitting, labor-and-delivery rooms, C-section ORs (we didn't tour those, of course--they're sterile environments--but we were shown where they are), postpartum rooms, and so on.

And we got to see the newborn nursery, which I think for many of us was the highlight of the tour. When the curtain opened and we could see the wee little babies, every face lit up in smiles and goofy grins. There may have even been some weeping.

We haven't taken any other classes, including childbirth classes--although we do plan to take infant CPR at some point soon. We have a number of reasons for not taking the other classes, and at some point I might run through those. But this one came highly recommended by Jen's nurse-midwife, and I'm glad we did it.

I pretty much hate hospitals, having buried a father and four grandparents, and having spent more than a month in one as a teenager after I broke my leg. I associate them strongly with pain and death, not life and hope.

I was relieved to find that W&I doesn't remind me much of the hospitals I remember, at least not in the L&D and postpartum rooms. I mean, it's not a boutique hotel, don't get me wrong. But there's at least an effort at minimizing the hospital feel of those rooms and making them less threatening and more relaxing. That alone was a relief.

Am I ready for my son to enter the world? No, of course not. But I definitely feel somewhat farther down that road.

Introduction

Hey, I'm Dietsch. My wife (Jen) and I have a baby due in a few weeks. His due date is September 15, but who knows when he'll actually emerge into the light.

We live in Providence, RI, the biggest city of the smallest state. Jen works in Boston, supervising and training legal assistants in the patent department of a law firm. I work from home, trying to make a go of the starving-writer lifestyle.

We both agree that it makes sense for me to take on the majority of daytime child-care duties, after our son is born. Which of course means you can call me a stay-at-home dad (SAHD). I'm not terribly crazy about the SAHD acronym, but it's widely accepted, so why fight it.

This blog will feature my attempts to come to terms with first-time fatherhood, and not to mention middle-aged first-time fatherhood (I'm 42), plus the challenges and rewards of being a SAHD.

I don't really know what I expect to be writing about here since it's all so new to me. I do hope to avoid navel-gazing, though.