I just had a baby!

[reds4ever]

Jeez!!! I leave you unsupervised for 5 minutes Pekka and this happens!!!

Congratulations.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Supercitizen, jr!!

Congrats buddy! God bless you and your family!

[Hauldren Collider]

Congratulations!

[ricketyclik]

Congratulations Pekka

I second the sentiments about real men and daughters, although my father put it as "A man isn't fully a man until he has a daughter". He had his first daughter a couple of years before I had mine

[Sava]

Did it hurt?

How did they get it out? P-hole?

[Barnabas]

I didnt know you were pregnant

Congrats!

[Bosh]

Babies don't cry too much for the first few days, mine didn't really until day four. But when it starts, damn, you just got to remember that every month gets easier. Mine slept through a direct hit from a typhoon a few weeks ago

[Pekka]

Still haven't had time to read all the messages, but I've skimmed them through and thank you all for your greetings

I'll post pictures soon. I've got many

I've learned few things. Not all of it is about babies. I've learned that women can take huge amounts of pain. Like I probably should not share this with you but I find it so amazing that I'll just share it anyway. My SO had super weak contractions when she was fully dilated, and had to push the baby out herself. The midwives were like "We're sorry but your contractions are almost non-existent". Probably because once they started, she went form starting of the labor into the whole "PUSH PUSH PUSH!" stage in 4 hours or so. Meaning that her body worked very hard and was taking a rest, but that was when the baby was coming out and the contractions got very weak, and it was not a place to take a breather anymore. So they pumped some more oxytocin and said "OK let's give it a try!". Regardless, very weak contractions, no help from the body at all.

So I held her hand and she looked like she was about to pop a vain in her head, and like... NGGGHHHHH so freaking hard you can't believe it. Then the baby finally was coming out, I could see her head, and again, stuck a bit, so this was a very painful stage to push and take a breather. She had to push push push push push, breath as to not pass out, push push push.... it was amazing. It was like watching something happen from above.

But fortunately everything went well. It's difficult to watch though, not because of potential gross nature of it, but because your loved one is in pain. There's levels of pain. There's pain, then there's lots of pain, then there's the labor pain when they are hurting, asking for medicine, squeezing your hand, then there's passing out for a minute in between and shaking pain, then there's the "I can't take it anymore, don't touch me, please" sort of pain. I the two last ones are ones people experience in torture. Except this one goes on for hours and you have no information to give.

Then afterwards she stayed awake like almost 5 days, slept perhaps 10 hours altogether during that time. Just crazy. I know it's the special hormones that come out during this time but still it's amazing. It is a life changing experience but in a good way. Yes, our baby makes a lot of noise, yes, she poops a lot and almost pooped on me today, yes she pees and cries and eats and that's just about all she does for now but she's still the love of my life

[DaShi]

So childbirth makes for good interrogation. Good to know. Oh and congrats on the child thing.

[Pekka]

Arrian, Awww, what a cutie Thanks for sharing!!

Maybe I should make a blog for new dads, so they will get to know stuff they just can't read from anywhere until they become dads. It's like umhh... everything changes. There's people who say "well we'll still live our lives, we just have to take care of a baby as well". I call BS. You get a baby, YOU will adapt to it, it does not adapt to you. Some babies (like ours) live in 2 hour cycles first. You learn how to live in 2 hour cycles. If you can get them to sleep, you count "OK, now I have probably 90 minutes of time to" a) do the dishes, b) do some house cleaning, c) do laundry, d) go buy some more diapers, e) go to the drug store to get something for the baby, etc. Do you have an xbox360? It's useless now, you have no time for it. Plan to play it when everyone else is sleeping? Doesn't work like that, remember the 2 hour cycle? And that's IF they sleep at all.

Forget about sex. When a girl becomes a woman, their places hurt. Or they say they still hurt, who knows, but it's over. Not like you had any time anyway. Or if you did, you'd be too tired to even think about sex. Everything is about hte baby, there is no you. There's the baby, you adapt, go and make the money and come back and spend it around the baby somehow. That's what you do now. But it's OK, sometimes you get tired but at the end of the day, one smile (or facial reaction that looks like a smile), it's all worth it. You can't measure all the effort and money, compare it to what you have in a baby.

There are ways to know that a person is not a dad: they think the difficult part is changing the diapers. Baby crap doesn't smell until they start to eat meat and stuff like that. It's odorless, you just take it off, wash their butt and/or sweep it and that's it, bing bang and boom it's done. You know dads when they do and know weird stuff, like how to endlessly walk with the baby strollers in a busy grocery store and not wake the baby up (so it won't cry and scream). You know the importance of avoiding those bright lights in some sections of stores as well, or how baby temperature works indoors and outdoors. Most importantly, you know you are responsible, a role model and a care taker. As an individual, to yourself, you are not important anymore. You are just a human suit, doing things, earning a living. But as a father, you are the only father and the other "most important person in the world" to that little one, and therefore you are the most meaningless being and the most important person in the world at the same time.

But anyway, here's a picture of the baby. She doesn't have a name yet. In this one, she is under one week old.
[IMG]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

[Jon Miller]

I was reading a month or two ago that upon birth the father's brain chemistry changes.

JM

[Pekka]

JM, could be. I know my brain has been enduring a lot of changes this year Hopefully this will be the last change. Then again I think chemical and structural changes are a different thing. I opt for more chemical changes.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with that subject but I notice a difference in some things, like for example I have different nightmares now. They are all about the baby. Something happens to the baby etc... or that I get into trouble and can't provide for her. Now those are some real nightmares... far from being in they playboy mansion only to notice you have no penis. That's not a nightmare, that's just a tease.

Also, my previous post could be interpreted as complaining, in a negative tone. It's not true, I'm very happy! I'm tired, yes, but also happy. I do not regret a thing. It's real work, and by now I reallllly understand it doesn't stop or give you a breather in between, but there are no regrets. I don't even know how much I love that little thing, because it's such a huge thing that I'm still in a shell shock. You become very protective, and you start to think of your companion also as the mother of your child, so she falls under the "to be protected" as well, even though that was the case before as well. Now it's just more real. You become proud, happy, tired, scared, meaningless being, the most important person in the world at the same time. You forget about yourself. You know how some philosophies and religions stress the importance of getting passed your own ego? Well, in fatherhood, you think differently of yourself now. Not in the way those philosophies or religions wanted perhaps, the egoless thing, but you still know you're not the most important person in the world and that's OK. Not all of your personal dreams are going to become true, but that's OK too. You have fulfilled something primitive and fundamental.

Some things become black and white issues, safety for example. Safety is number one. Your own safety as well, you're a provider now. There's a collective, the not so secret movement of parents. And yes, most of them will stick together in those issues, enforcing black and white world view. It has to be safe, period. Crime? Crimes involving children, are you kidding me? There's not a hole deep or dark enough that could be dug for criminals.