Evan wins round one

“We’ll be fine. We’ve got the hang of this,” I told my wife Kara on the way to the hospital last week, as we prepared to spend our first night in the same room with our three-week-old son Evan, born two months premature. Up to then, we had been merely dabbling in parenthood, stopping by the hospital twice a day to change his diapers, feed him and make him the most photographed baby not sired by Tom Cruise.

The hospital had arranged this night as our dress rehearsal for parenthood as our baby neared his discharge date. Evan would be wheeled into a bedroom with all of his sensors attached, and the nurses would be right down the hall as our backup. Otherwise, Kara and I were to act like we were spending the night at home with our new baby, doing our best to trick him into thinking he still had competent caregivers.

After a brief pep talk, the nurse wheeled Evan and his electronic entourage into the room between the two double beds. The TV monitor above his bassinette beeped and flashed red. It was the kind of warning that, in a medical TV show, would send nurses scurrying around the room, preparing crash carts while the doctor rubbed two paddles together. Three weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) had taught us to ignore all the beeping and lights, only paying attention to the ones that made the nurses look up.

In a few moments, our small family was alone for the first time.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Diaper change?” Kara suggested.

“It would be much easier to change a baby that doesn’t need to be plugged in,” I said as I untangled the wires from the sensors on Evan’s feet and chest as his legs flailed about.

“BEEP!” said the monitor, and we both jumped.

Looking back at Evan, I learned my first lesson in “I just took my eyes off him for a second.”

“I think he peed on himself,” I said. He had actually launched most of the pee over his shoulder, soaking all three layers of the bedding by his head. This was Evan’s first commentary on my fumbling attempts to change him. He was used to the NICU nurses, who know their way around babies much like the Harlem Globetrotters know their way around basketballs. The head NICU nurse usually changes diapers with one hand, using the other to keep the two babies on the toes of her Crocs spinning.

Kara and I spent the majority of our first slumber-free party with Evan exploring the vast chasm between being responsible for your baby twice a day and being responsible for him all of the time. We found that to be a new parent is to discover new depths of insecurity.

“He never cried like this when the nurses were taking care of him,” I said. “I have no idea what we’re doing wrong.”

“BEEP!” said the monitor.

“I think this might be what a nervous breakdown feels like,” Kara said.

We had slept for about two hours during the night, broken up into three or four fitful chunks. By the time the nurse came to check on us in the morning, Evan was resting soundly for the first time, worn out from peeing on his old man all night.

“You guys did great,” the nurse said. “I’m going to take him back to the NICU now. He should be ready to come home very soon.”

And with that, we were part-time parents again. Kara and I sat on the edge of her bed, shell-shocked, amazed at how much we didn’t know. But perhaps more importantly, we started to feel like maybe, just maybe, we were starting to get the hang of it. Not really, but it makes me feel better to type that out.

You can burp Mike Todd at mikectodd@gmail.com.