Jared K Lewis
Jared Lewis. And Family
My World Is Pink
The most beautiful girl in the world, Madison Jean Lewis, aka MJ, aka Maddie aka my daughter:
Madison Jean Lewis. Born on April 27th, 2008 at 0423 AM. Let me tell you a little story about my first daughter's birth.
On Saturday, April 26th, my wife and I went to regularly scheduled doctor's appointment to check on the health and progression of the baby - she was due 5.1.08. We went in, the doctor ran his test (well the nurse anyways) and they detected anomalies with the baby's heart beat. Not panicking or anything, but what the freak does anomaly mean, and how the freak can the doctor/nurse NOT expect some level of panic from the expecting parents? Anywhoo, he doc comes and says "DO you want to have the baby today?" with exactly the same tone and genuflection as your best friend saying "Want to go grab some lunch later?". I key on this because, the way the doctor said it, it seemed he was saying this "Do you want to have the baby today? Just be advised, it might throw your lunch plans off by an hour or two." Right. I had no idea that having a mother be induced and a baby that doesn't want out yet forced out of the womb is not exactly a quick process. It's not even long. It's protracted, painful and not at all what I expected.
Well, at about 10AM on that fateful Saturday, my lovely wife Melissa was admitted to the hospital. Again, I am expecting this to take a couple of hours. I ran some errands, went home to get Melissa's "pregnant bag" and went back to the hospital. It is now early afternoon, and there is zero progress on the baby. In fact, if it were possible, she (Madison) would have gone further back in her arrival time to the hospital. I am going to skip ahead about 6 hours into the future, because I am sure you do not need to read 5 paragraphs of me describing how patently boring hospitals are, and 6 paragraphs about how I couldn't find ESPN on any TV ANYWHERE in that effing place. No ESPN. I hate managed care.
By 9:00 PM, there is still very little news on Madison's arrival, and I am getting PISSED. That doctor told me to MY FACE that it was going to mess up our lunch plans. Now this is screwing up our DINNER plans. What a dick. He does this for a living and can't even get the timing down for something like this. My whole daily work life is surrounded by extremely tight time lines - if I was off by this many hours, I could lose my job. This guy is just looking at me like I am nuts - "Babies come when they want to" he says. Why the **** have we been here for 13 hours then Doc? You just said she would let us know. I am missing "The Ultimate Fighter" right now and I didn't record it! What an ass.
Skipping ahead another SEVERAL hours, to 2:00AM, still very little to report. They have been pumping Melissa with enough Oxytocin (I kept asking the nurse to give her more Oxycontin, I now understand why I got such weird looks) to cause a blue whale to go into labor and still NOTHING! I started to question them as to whether or not they know what the Hell they were doing. And I was given a resounding "Anytime!" I hated them all.
3:00AM. Things are starting to happen. Melissa is beginning to dilate and efface(If you don't know what that means, don't look it up and live the rest of your life happy)in what I can only describe as a racing uterus. 0-100 MPH in .2 seconds. Wow. And Melissa had an epidural, which was administered by an dyspeptic anesthesiologist. But that is another story.
4:00AM. LOTS of activity now. Fully effaced and dilated, Melissa was pushing like a champ to get that baby out. And amazingly, no swearing. I was slightly disappointed. The thing that amazed me the most was the amount of people that just walked in. There is my wife, sweating, naked from the waist down, legs all akimbo, and any manner of person could just walk in and say "What's up?" and walk back out. Oh, the nurses and the doctor said they all WORKED there, but come on. Were cameras really part of the required medical gear?
4:23AM, April 27th, 2008. Madison is here and screaming her head off. Probably the sweetest sound I had heard in my life up to that point. A new life had begun, for both Madison and me. And life was grand. Until of course, I had to clean that first poo diaper. Good Lord. It was black, sticky, and had the consistency of really thick peanut butter, and people were telling me it only gets WORSE??? How could it get WORSE?? I'll tell you how. Formula. The most expensive smelly schiza maker in the world.
Well, that's the story of the 20+ hour marathon for Madison to be born. I am writing this down so when she asks to borrow the car or go dating, I can tell her "No." and not feel too bad about it.
Jared Lewis
On Saturday, April 26th, my wife and I went to regularly scheduled doctor's appointment to check on the health and progression of the baby - she was due 5.1.08. We went in, the doctor ran his test (well the nurse anyways) and they detected anomalies with the baby's heart beat. Not panicking or anything, but what the freak does anomaly mean, and how the freak can the doctor/nurse NOT expect some level of panic from the expecting parents? Anywhoo, he doc comes and says "DO you want to have the baby today?" with exactly the same tone and genuflection as your best friend saying "Want to go grab some lunch later?". I key on this because, the way the doctor said it, it seemed he was saying this "Do you want to have the baby today? Just be advised, it might throw your lunch plans off by an hour or two." Right. I had no idea that having a mother be induced and a baby that doesn't want out yet forced out of the womb is not exactly a quick process. It's not even long. It's protracted, painful and not at all what I expected.
Well, at about 10AM on that fateful Saturday, my lovely wife Melissa was admitted to the hospital. Again, I am expecting this to take a couple of hours. I ran some errands, went home to get Melissa's "pregnant bag" and went back to the hospital. It is now early afternoon, and there is zero progress on the baby. In fact, if it were possible, she (Madison) would have gone further back in her arrival time to the hospital. I am going to skip ahead about 6 hours into the future, because I am sure you do not need to read 5 paragraphs of me describing how patently boring hospitals are, and 6 paragraphs about how I couldn't find ESPN on any TV ANYWHERE in that effing place. No ESPN. I hate managed care.
By 9:00 PM, there is still very little news on Madison's arrival, and I am getting PISSED. That doctor told me to MY FACE that it was going to mess up our lunch plans. Now this is screwing up our DINNER plans. What a dick. He does this for a living and can't even get the timing down for something like this. My whole daily work life is surrounded by extremely tight time lines - if I was off by this many hours, I could lose my job. This guy is just looking at me like I am nuts - "Babies come when they want to" he says. Why the **** have we been here for 13 hours then Doc? You just said she would let us know. I am missing "The Ultimate Fighter" right now and I didn't record it! What an ass.
Skipping ahead another SEVERAL hours, to 2:00AM, still very little to report. They have been pumping Melissa with enough Oxytocin (I kept asking the nurse to give her more Oxycontin, I now understand why I got such weird looks) to cause a blue whale to go into labor and still NOTHING! I started to question them as to whether or not they know what the Hell they were doing. And I was given a resounding "Anytime!" I hated them all.
3:00AM. Things are starting to happen. Melissa is beginning to dilate and efface(If you don't know what that means, don't look it up and live the rest of your life happy)in what I can only describe as a racing uterus. 0-100 MPH in .2 seconds. Wow. And Melissa had an epidural, which was administered by an dyspeptic anesthesiologist. But that is another story.
4:00AM. LOTS of activity now. Fully effaced and dilated, Melissa was pushing like a champ to get that baby out. And amazingly, no swearing. I was slightly disappointed. The thing that amazed me the most was the amount of people that just walked in. There is my wife, sweating, naked from the waist down, legs all akimbo, and any manner of person could just walk in and say "What's up?" and walk back out. Oh, the nurses and the doctor said they all WORKED there, but come on. Were cameras really part of the required medical gear?
4:23AM, April 27th, 2008. Madison is here and screaming her head off. Probably the sweetest sound I had heard in my life up to that point. A new life had begun, for both Madison and me. And life was grand. Until of course, I had to clean that first poo diaper. Good Lord. It was black, sticky, and had the consistency of really thick peanut butter, and people were telling me it only gets WORSE??? How could it get WORSE?? I'll tell you how. Formula. The most expensive smelly schiza maker in the world.
Well, that's the story of the 20+ hour marathon for Madison to be born. I am writing this down so when she asks to borrow the car or go dating, I can tell her "No." and not feel too bad about it.
Jared Lewis
My daughter. Madison. It's a new thing for me to have a daughter. Weird even. My daughter is probably one of the prettiest babies you will ever see. I don't say this to be arrogant, nor do I say it to brag - I say this as point of fact. She is beautiful. You all may look at me and think I am nuts. Or you may think I am taking the proud papa role. Well, you are both right. I am so effing pleased to have a daughter that gets the kind of attention that Madison does, but then again.....What happens when she is thirteen and thinking about boys? Or 16? For the love of Pete. I have seen these shows on MTV and I see how 16 year old girls talk and act. I see it in the stores when I am out shopping. I have two words for you, and they are "Hell" and "No". Since when did it become OK for girls under the age of 18 to dress like strippers? I have been to some strip clubs in my day, and I will tell you this - I have seen strippers come out on stage with MORE clothing on than some of the little girls I saw at "Target" the other day. My thinking is that Madison, being the beautiful baby she is will grow up into being a beautiful and gorgeous young woman. And she will be wearing oversized flannel and baggy denim until after I die.
And by the way, my favorite color is black. Always has been. Even after moving to the desert southwest and being in 118 degree heat, my favorite color for clothing is black as well. So how do you think I feel when I open my closet door and walk into a freaking Pepto Bismol bottle? Geez, pink everywhere. But I promise, it won't affect me. It wont. I still hate the color pink. Except when my daughter is wearing it.