Mormon Mentality - Thoughts and Asides by Peculiar People » The Agonies of a First-time Parent: Do I Have to Go Through This Again?

By Orwell

Dec. 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

I am sitting in the hospital outside the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. My first child, a little girl, came seven weeks premature last Saturday. We have been very blessed — so far she is doing very well: no cardiovascular or respiratory problems, and she feeds from a bottle just fine. We hope to have her home for Christmas, though that is probably an extremely optimistic outlook right now.

I don’t know how things go for other first-time parents. Perhaps bringing home a baby turns your life upside down so much that you don’t have a lot of time to sit around and think about how it’s going to change — that is, you’re too busy dealing with the change to think about it. Yet, having never been in that situation, I really don’t know… I’m probably completely wrong.

I do know, however, that all the time I have spent waiting around in the hospital over the last nine days has given me plenty of time to worry about how well I am going to be able to raise her, teach her, take care of her, etc. For the first time that I can remember, I feel like my life is not completely my own. (Okay, maybe I felt this a little bit when I got married, but not nearly to this extent.) For the first time, I feel like my life choices profoundly affect someone else. For the first time, I feel like the small decisions I make every day to follow or not follow Christ are not just my own problem.

Unfortunately, along with this heightened sense of responsibility, I’ve also been struck with an acute awareness of my complete inability to give her everything she needs right now. I am sure that I would feel something similar no matter what, but having her in the NICU does rub it in a little. She is so tiny and helpless, and I have to step aside and watch others be her principal caregivers. I am experiencing for the first time what it feels like to pray and fast for your own child, to give her a father’s blessing, and leave everything in the Lord’s hands… it has all made me a little more emotionally unstable than I would ever let on.

So, while I am sure that these are feelings that will never go away, do they hit you quite so much with every subsequent child? Does the birth of every son or daughter always bring about a sense of spiritual revival? Do more children compound the sensation exponentially, or does spreading it out over more people mercifully dilute it a little bit?

1. JA Benson

Fri, Dec 12, 2008 @ 6:06pm

Congratulations Orwell. I hope that all goes well in the next few months. What a wonderful thing as a new baby for Christmas. For us the first child was the greater sense of shock because suddenly we were quite aware of just how clueless we were. Each new child has also brought those same thoughts and feelings back, just not with the shock and fear. I remembr with fondness DH Mike driving all the way home in the middle of the night in downtown Dallas at about 10-20mph. He was so afraid of damaging that baby. We were soo relieved when my mother showed up. Finally! Someone who knew what to do.

2. Dan Ellsworth

Fri, Dec 12, 2008 @ 6:37pm

Orwell,

I can kind of relate to your feelings about having a preemie; my baby came a month early last April, and I was on the North Slope of Alaska when my wife went into labor and delivered. I wasn’t able to make it home for a very long 36 hours.
The NICU was definitely an ordeal; little setbacks seemed like tragedies, and every bit of progress seemed like a huge miracle. It sounds like you’ll be living that roller-coaster longer than I did, so my heart goes out to you.

3. MCQ

Fri, Dec 12, 2008 @ 8:36pm

Congratulations and welcome to parenthood! Your life as you have known it is now over. That’s both good and bad. The good part is that your new life will be so much better than you have ever imagined. The bad part is that you now have much less time that you can truly call your own (but even that is a kind of blessing).

So, while I am sure that these are feelings that will never go away, do they hit you quite so much with every subsequent child?

Yes and no. You are calmer at the birth of subsequent children because it doesn’t seem quite so new and weird. The feelings are more familiar but, in my expreience, the feelings are still overwhelming each time.

Does the birth of every son or daughter always bring about a sense of spiritual revival?

Yes. And it should.

Do more children compound the sensation exponentially, or does spreading it out over more people mercifully dilute it a little bit?

Both, because your sense of having to be responsible for others increases with the number of children, but having been through it before, you are more confident (hopefully) in your ability to parent.

4. bfwebster

Sat, Dec 13, 2008 @ 12:15am

Congratulations! A few more observations:

– Children make you grow up. Your emotional maturity will be tested in ways that it has never been tested before. You do not know the true meaning of long-suffering until you are dealing with an infant who is screaming and continues to scream regardless of all your attempts to soothe and shush. There’s a reason why it’s good to have two parents and even better to have extended family around (assuming they’re all sane, loving, and relatively stable). I’m a firm believer in tag-team parenting.

– No two children are the same. What works with your first child will not necessarily work with your second and subsequent children. This is especially true with potty training. And they really do bring their own personalities with them; they are anything but tabulas rasas.

– At this point, the single most critical aspect of your marriage is: date night. Find someone to babysit once a week, and take you and your wife out of the house and away from the baby, even if it’s just for an hour (and preferably a few). Keep that up as long as you have children in the house.

– In addition to that, just be sure to take care of your wife. Walk the baby, change the baby, take your turns getting up in the middle of the night. Watch the baby while she gets out of the house by herself, again even if it’s just for an hour or so. Buy her flowers on a regular basis; you can get absolutely gorgeous bouquets at Costco for about $14. Tell her daily how much you love her, how beautiful she is, how much you appreciate all she does and all she has to deal with.

– Having your own children can give you a profound and renewed appreciation for your own parents. A month after my first daughter was born, I called my mom — who had four children her first four years of marriage, with my dad gone much of the time (he was in the Navy), and while she was attending nursing school — and asked, “How the heck did you do it?” (Her answer: “You just do what you have to.”) Right after my son was born, I called my dad and told him it was a boy and we were naming him Jon Anderson Webster (my father’s name was John Arthur Webster). In that call, I felt a bond with and a love for my father greater than anything I had ever felt before.

Again, congratulations and best of luck. ..bruce..

5. Paroled from the Primary Presidency

Sat, Dec 13, 2008 @ 4:47pm

Congratulations to you and Mrs. Orwell! I’m sure it’s been a traumatic experience thus far though also one that causes you to pause and reconsider so much in your life you thought you were positive about.

We are currently awaiting the arrival of our second child so I can’t say much about how things go after #1 but I can tell you that you will eventually learn to sleep through the night (as will your daughter) and that your experiences, even with the premature arrival, are not entirely unique. Our first child came via a very unplanned c-section which was very traumatic for me (I had laminated my birth plan) and we did have problems even though our son didn’t arrive early. Though when I did go into premature labor at 30 weeks all I could thing about was how his little lungs just weren’t ready. Thank goodness Heavenly Father saw fit to spare us that particular trial. But becoming a parent can be traumatic regardless of how it happens.

I echo Bruce’s advice though don’t be surprised if neither of you want to leave your darling daughter for more than 10 minutes at a time to begin with. This may be easier for the father but I’m sure your wife will find it difficult to get out of the house without looking at her watch every 5 seconds and without calling to check on her every 10 minutes. It’s normal and will pass. We can now walk out of Grandma & Grandpa’s house prepared to be gone for 3-5 hours without looking back but it took a solid year to get to that place. So be patient with yourself and your (possibly) emotionally-dependent-on-a-child wife. Cherish each moment and enjoy even the hard days.

6. DKL

Sat, Dec 13, 2008 @ 11:46pm

The first thing that I learned first-hand about parenting is that children/babies/infants have their own agenda from the start. They’ve got their own life, and all one can do is try to help — as though being a father in the delivery room hadn’t already made me feel totally useless.

Babies turn your life upside-down because they turn you upside down. Before I had children, I would have rather drank motor oil than do most of the things I do routinely for my own kids. Once the kids come, priorities change in an instant — like the way a beer drinking frat-boy who is sporting a decent buzz can instantly sober up if the occasion calls for it.

The idea of having kids is strange. In some sense, society assumes that you’re supposed to have them. Some people can’t have them, and people talk about whether that’s fair. Some parents suffer unspeakably tragedy because of their kids, but I think most people would say they’re still better off for having the kids. Childbirth complications are common enough that they don’t make the news, but that’s also what makes them a real possibility, and therefore a fear and an anxiety for all but the most optimistic parents..

I don’t know what it’s like to be where you’re at right now with your daughter in the NICU, but I do anxiously hope that everything works out well, and your family will be in my prayers.

On a lighter note: My older brother has 7 kids, and the only parenting advice that he’s ever given me is this: When mothers change diapers, they coo and sing and talk baby-talk to keep the baby happy and satisfied. When you change the diapers, make sudden movements and loud noises. You’ll change fewer diapers.

7. Brian Duffin

Mon, Dec 15, 2008 @ 3:39pm

Congratulations, Orwell. DKL’s advice as it relates to changing diapers is sound and worthy of following. I have changed far fewer diapers since following this method. That, and my 2-year old will soon be out of diapers.

8. Orwell

Tue, Dec 16, 2008 @ 12:07am

Thank you all for your kind words and advice. Unfortunately I can’t put DKL’s diaper-changing technique into practice yet because there are too many nurses around to punish me. I’ll give that a try later.

Dan Ellsworth, I really get what you said about the NICU… that’s totally the way it feels.

JA Benson, there are so many potholes between my house and the hospital that I am sure my child will get “shaken baby syndrome” before she ever gets home. 10 mph is the way to go.

PPP, perhaps we’ll be better at leaving her because we’re getting so much practice now… or maybe the opposite will turn out to be true.

bfwebster, I am in no hurry to find out how much my second child is different from my first!

MCQ, I beg to differ, my life as I know it has just begun!

9. ESO

Tue, Dec 16, 2008 @ 1:51pm

I am certain premies bring on a very special feeling of overwhelming helplesness. I was really caught off guard by the birth of my first baby (I thought parenting would be so easy and come naturally)–it seemed so hard and totally joyless in the beginning because I felt that I wasn’t any good at it. I remember asking my parents (who had 10) why anyone would ever do that AGAIN. But I got over that. As the babies get bigger, there is much more joy and much less worry and eventually you will get to a point where you want to do it again (probably).

10. Proud Daughter of Eve

Wed, Dec 17, 2008 @ 10:33pm

I don’t have any kids yet, Orwell, so I don’t have any advice to share. But you, your wife and baby will be in my prayers tonight! I can’t imagine how tough it must be to have your baby kept away from you like that, even when it’s for the best. I hope you will all be together soon!