People often ask me about the big age gap between my second and third child. The five-and-a-half-year difference makes people wonder why we began our journey through babyhood once again. When asked, I usually smile and say simply, “The timing was right.”

The truth is there wasn’t supposed to be such a big gap. Several miscarriages lead to the huge age difference.

How it started

One morning, the rain poured outside as I walked down the stairs into the basement. A good foot of water welcomed me. As I stepped into it, I realized it wasn’t just water. Our sewer line had backed up into the basement. Our upstairs neighbor called a plumber, but they couldn’t come until late that evening. So from 9 a.m. until then, I carried buckets of sewage out our backdoor and dumped it into our backyard. I yelled and even cried with exhaustion as I fought a losing battle with the rising water.

Then my wife walked into the basement. She hugged my sweaty, tired body, and said, “We’re going to have another baby.”

Suddenly, I didn’t care about the basement anymore; I just wanted to hug my wife. We smiled and kissed. She asked if I was happy and, with raw sewage dripping from my pants and shoes, I said I was. Very happy.

Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to meet the source of the happiness. We had a miscarriage. It turned out to be the first of several.

‘The silence was backbreaking‘

My wife told me she was miscarrying as she laid on our bed. My stomach dropped. I felt like thousands of pounds were upon my back. It was still morning, so I got the kids dressed, fed, and off to school. I returned to my wife, who was still in the same position. I didn’t say anything and neither did she. We just occupied the same room for a little while. She didn’t want to talk and I’m not sure if I wanted her to. But the silence was backbreaking.

I think I muttered a few words. She may have muttered something back. Nothing real was said. Just murmurings. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t.

Deep inside, I wanted to be comforted, too. But I couldn’t be and I couldn’t ask anyone to. She took a little nap and I left the room. I sat down on the couch with my hands covering my face and wept.

In the days and weeks that followed, we didn’t talk that much about it.

I think we both wanted to forget and, by not talking about it, we thought we could. We hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy yet so nobody knew. There was nobody to give that sympathetic look. There was nobody for us to talk to. We were alone in our sorrow and we weren’t necessarily talking about it together. So I stuffed it into that place in a man’s soul where things are stored and never let out again.

My wife told me a few months later that she was pregnant again. But, only a few weeks later, that too ended in miscarriage. Two miscarriages in less than six months.

Putting up my guard

When my wife told me that we were expecting once again, I put up a guard. As the baby grew inside my wife, I refused to let myself get too attached. I didn’t want the ultimate disappointment to happen again. I’d go along with my wife for check-ups and ultrasounds, but I continued to wait for and expect bad news. When she was pregnant with our other children, I would stare at the ultrasound pictures and dream of their future in wonder. This time, I barely looked. Every day I battled to put on the face of the supportive husband, but inside I just couldn’t let myself get close.

When our baby entered the world, I finally exhaled. Everything that built up inside of me over the years had been released. There was a beautiful and perfect little boy in my arms and I once again felt joy. The barrier of speaking to my wife about the past miscarriages was gone. And we finally felt like we could talk about the experience with other people.

There are days though that I still can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have four or five children, instead of three. I always wanted a lot of kids and dreamed of a house filled with beautiful family chaos. Time has not been kind to my body and the days of hoisting babies into the air are coming to an end. To say that I’m completely over the miscarriages would be very wrong. I’m not over it and probably never will be.

I’ve talked to a few guys since then and it seems that we all feel the same way. We want to be there for the women in our lives and give encouragement and comfort. To try and make our partners feel better. But inside, we’re breaking.

I’ve also seen what miscarriages can do to women. Not only my wife but other women I’ve known. It’s terrible and difficult to talk about. My heart goes out to any woman who suffers through one. And my heart goes out to their men who aren’t sure how to talk about it, aren’t sure how to relate the feelings of great loss when they barely had anything to begin with.

When dealing with tragedies in life, most of us try to find some closure. When someone near to us dies, we talk about the life they lived and what they meant to us. The moment is heartbreaking and we never fully get over the loss. With miscarriages, closure is hard to find. A beautiful promise was there and now it isn’t. Your hopes were high and then … nothing. For the man, we can only observe the physical and emotional pains of the loss of the woman. Helplessly watch.

I’m not sure what my point in writing this piece was. Maybe I wrote this for my cathartic process. Or maybe I was hoping to have men start a dialogue about this issue. Maybe it was to let others know that nobody is alone when it comes to a miscarriage and there is no shame in it. It isn’t anyone’s fault and a miscarriage is just one of life’s many tragedies.

A version of this was first published here and on One Good Dad in 2013, and has since been updated. Photo by MART PRODUCTION via Pexels.

It all starts with the crusted ravioli. Is there cheese inside or meat? Since this is a fancy party, maybe it’s something I haven’t imagined yet. Perhaps a jelly of some type infused with gold leaf foil. That would be fancy as fuck and this is a fancy fucking place.

I take a bite. Fried goodness crunches in my mouth. I contemplate the ravioli instead of paying attention to the conversation my wife is having.

This is a party for my wife’s boss and his new bride, a celebration of the nuptials. They are mingling while we hang with another couple on the couch. They seem very nice. The couch couple tells pretty good jokes and has no obvious evil intentions. I have to be on the lookout to survive any of my wife’s work social functions or parties. As an at-home dad, I have been out of the office politics game for a pretty long time. The only ulterior motives I usually run into involve scamming another cupcake or juice box. 

On a side note, there are cupcakes here. I’ll get to them in a bit.

Advantages of being the ‘plus one’

Around us are the work people and various family members of the newlyweds. Everyone seems nice. I just have absolutely no connection to any of them. I am the “plus 1” — the rando guy who shows up just to judge you on the quality of your food and if there is free alcohol. I give this party a “plus 10.” There is free whiskey, pizza, and these ravioli things.

I go to these parties every year with my wife. During that time, I have become a master at blending in and small talk. I find it easy. There is no pressure here on me at all. My wife has to say all the right things, talk to the right people and basically not make a fool of herself. But me, I’m different. I have no one to impress. No one even knows who I am and my wife can safely distance herself from me at any moment.

I’m two glasses of whiskey in as I study the ravioli. It’s definitely got cheese in there.

Always be busy

My wife usually does a terrible job with me at these things. I don’t mean she embarrasses herself. I mean she forgets to introduce me. At the beginning of this party, she left me hanging, talking to some guy about hair dryers and steak. I love steak so it was all good. Hair dryers, not so much. My wife is in advertising so you would be surprised at the conversations that get linked together. Such as the meat hair dyers –both clients her company represents.

I have learned it is better to roam around and just introduce myself, networking for no other reason than practice. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Once you learn there are no real consequences for what you say, because these people will never see you again, I can crack jokes left and right all night. No accountability — that is how you survive a work party that’s not your own.

My wife is talking to the husband of a work friend about advertising. They are deep into shop talk since he also works in advertising. I nod at the appropriate places, maybe tell a joke somewhere, then get back to my happy place — the crusted ravioli. Now I think there is some meat in there. I should see if anyone has a hair dryer handy so I can use it to figure this ravioli out.

That’s the next thing I learned about how to survive my wife’s work parties: always appear busy. No one wants to be the odd duck sitting next to the wall appearing to do nothing, looking longingly at people having fun. So I usually find something to keep myself busy — like a mysterious fried ravioli. So many questions, so many things to discover. 

Size up the so-called competition

I met my wife’s boss at the beginning. Seems like a nice guy. Tall as a pine tree in rural Arkansas. A friendly smile, a manly handshake, and easily sized up. This is my next trick in how to survive work parties that are not yours — determining who I could take in a fight. I’m not a violent person, not at all. I just like the mental exercise of it. It keeps me busy while everyone else discusses whatever advertising deck they are preparing. Her boss is a tall guy so he probably has a pretty good reach. So I would have to close that distance and get to his legs. Once he is subdued, I can get to the ravioli.  Advertising people don’t look very tough, so throughout the years, I’ve decided that I could take most of them. Maybe not the meat hair dryer guy though. He looks serious.

I’ve eaten about eight of the ravioli things so far. My stomach feels full but I’m going to keep eating. I imagined a whole fake fight just to get to this point, so I better keep eating. Definitely meat and cheese in here.

My wife and her friends have started to discuss which companies are on the downswing. They are bringing up names of people I don’t know, doing jobs I had no idea existed. I wonder how much they bullshit each other at these things? Probably a lot. It’s sad that they don’t get a chance to truly taste the delicious ravioli.

Go out with a bang

Then I spy the cupcakes in the corner.

They are fancy too. Not normal cupcakes bought from the grocery store. These have been catered. They have only a wisp of frosting on the top. I think I see a red velvet one in there. I call dibs. I eat four of them before my wife announces it is time to go. I say goodbye to my ravioli and the experience that we shared. 

This is my last lesson on how to survive the spouse’s work parties. When it’s time to go, go out with a bang. Shake the hands, smile, and leave a lasting impression.

We say goodbye to our couple of friends. My wife says something in advertising or Klingon, I’m not sure which, and we head to the door. The bride is there! I haven’t met the bride yet. As usual, my wife doesn’t introduce us. So yeah, do my thing.

“Hi! Great party! Really lovely time. Congratulations.”

“Thank you!” she says. She really does look wonderful. Pure happiness on her face. But she also looks a bit confused. Who the hell is this guy with ravioli crumbs in his beard?  “I don’t think we’ve had a chance to meet yet.”

“Nope. I’m a plus one. We should hang out next time. I’m very fun.”

As I leave, I hear one of the other guests start laughing asking, “Who was that?”

I’m basically a +1 ninja.

A version of this first appeared on Hossman At-Home. Survive work parties photo: ©Scott Griessel / Adobe Stock.

“Push on my belly.”

It seemed like such a simple request from my wife. Once I complied with it, I’d never seen her in so much pain, and I had previously witnessed her giving birth to our two children.

After a little more pushing and prodding, it was clear something needed to be done. Was all the pain and nausea simply symptoms of her first trimester of pregnancy? Could it be something more serious, like appendicitis? A doctor needed to access the situation.

We hopped in the car and drove 20 bumpy and agonizing minutes to the hospital. We arrived, checked in, and were sent to triage.

After receiving a CT scan, it was time to sit … and wait. There was not much else to do while the doctors checked the results. Over the course of the next few hours, we flipped through several TV channels and finally landed on the movie Fight Club. It had been well over a decade since I’d last seen this movie. I’d passed it up while flipping through channels many times before, but for some reason that night I was drawn to it. I clearly remember one scene where Brad Pitt’s character (Tyler Durdin) holds a gun to the back of a guy’s head and threatens to shoot him. After a few minutes, Tyler lets the man go. He then goes on to talk about the new appreciation that the man will have for his life:

“Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.” 

This struck me as a deranged but somewhat understandable comment. 

Answers and more worries

Three hours later, the answer was clear. My wife had appendicitis. An appendectomy is a relatively simple procedure (at least that is what I was told) but everything becomes a little more complicated when your wife is 14 weeks pregnant. And things become a lot more complicated when the part of the body where the surgery will be taking place is essentially right next to an unborn child. As scary and dangerous as the possibilities were, the surgery was necessary. An untreated and ruptured appendix would certainly mean the loss of a baby and potentially terrible consequences for my wife as well.

At 1 in the morning, she was wheeled away for surgery.

She returned to the room at 4 a.m. She was not doing well coming off the anesthesia. My wife began alternating between thinking she was the doctor and giving orders to the nurses about her care, dropping F-bombs about the entire situation, and vomiting into a bucket next to her in the hospital bed. Finally, things calmed down. Off to sleep she and I went.

After a few hours of sleep, the next day was quickly upon us. It was time to see what type of stress the surgery had put on the baby and check the baby’s heartbeat. Our doctor that morning was someone that had our complete trust. Just a year earlier he’d delivered our second child and once someone delivers your baby, there is a lifelong bond you carry with that person. Our doctor arrived in the room wheeling in a Doppler machine. He pressed the microphone to my wife’s belly, no sounds were heard.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” was all I could say to myself, over and over.

I gauged our obstetrician’s behavior to help me know how to react. He was calm, so I stayed calm. Maybe there was something wrong with the machine. In came the ultrasound machine. After a minute of fumbling around to get it set up, we could see the baby.

The baby was not moving and no heartbeat could be seen or heard. Panic began.

Waiting on a sign of life

So many thoughts raced around in my head. “Calm down, be strong for your wife,” I told myself. “Stay calm, stay calm.”

Again, I looked at the doctor to help measure my own reaction, this time I could see the fear and sadness in his eyes. I gripped my wife’s hand even tighter. What happened next was the saddest moment of my life. The doctor removed his hands from the machine, looked into our tired eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”   

There was nothing left to do but cry.

While this was going on, another doctor, a close friend of my wife’s, ran to grab a different type of ultrasound probe. They decided to try a different probe, hoping for different results. Through the tears in our eyes and pain in our hearts, we barely even paid attention to what she was doing.

Then, suddenly, the ultrasound showed MOVEMENT!  

Wonderful, beautiful movement!

Our little baby was fine and kicking away. I have never felt a greater range of emotions than I felt that morning. From the deepest darkest place I didn’t even know existed to a mountaintop high feeling of pure joy. Amazing! Unbelievable! Miraculous! 

We continued to cry, but now it was for different reasons. Once the doctor left the room, we spent a great deal of time trying to come to grips with all that had happened in the last 24 hours. One thing that kept flashing back in my mind was the scene from the movie Fight Club we’d watched the night before. 

Tyler Durden made a good point. Never in my life have I appreciated the joy that is watching a baby move inside my wife’s belly quite like I experienced that morning. And even though it was a stale bagel with a plastic tub of peanut butter smeared on it, Tyler got it right … my breakfast tasted better than any meal I have ever tasted.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Photo: © serhiibobyk / Adobe Stock.

September is National Infant Mortality Awareness Month. It focuses on children who lose their lives before their first birthday and the causes of those deaths. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the infant mortality rate in the United States is 5.4 deaths per every 1,000 live births. In 2020, that amounted to just under 20,000 infant deaths.

Twenty thousand.

Twenty thousand who will never speak their first words, walk their first steps or make their first friends. Children who will never go to school, form families of their own, work, play or experience the trials and joys that make up our world.

Here are some more startling facts:

• The U.S. infant mortality rate ranks among the worst among wealthy nations.
• Maternal mortality rates in the United States, defined as the death of a mother during pregnancy, delivery, or the first 42 days following delivery/termination, are also among the worst globally.
• Black women in the United States are three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women. 

In simple terms, it’s more dangerous to give birth in the United States than in many other nations. It’s also more dangerous to be a baby. And it’s even more dangerous to be a mother or child if you’re a person of color.

But what can dads do about it?

On a broad level, it starts with policies.

Paid family leave helps babies, parents, families

One major reason behind these sobering statistics is the lack of paid leave for working parents. America lags behind just about every other nation in terms of paid family and medical leave. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health note: “Mothers’ and fathers’ leave-taking may improve child health by decreasing postpartum depression among mothers, improving maternal mental health, increasing the time spent with a child, and increasing the likelihood of child medical checkup.”

Paid family leave gives parents time to bond as a family as well as care for an infant and each other during those intense, early times. When I became a first-time father, my teaching job offered just three days of paid leave. That wasn’t nearly enough time to help my new son or my wife or to become a family. It’s a big reason I chose to become an at-home dad. Some states have started implementing paid leave policies, but we have a long way to go. Advocating for paid leave policies is a big first step.

And perhaps paid family leave should start before birth. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, an interesting thing happened globally. Premature births, the second leading cause of infant mortality in the United States, declined dramatically. Is it possible that being home before birth helped lower stress and create healthier births? Research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that paid leave before birth may decrease the number of premature births in women.

Paid leave is a no-brainer. It is a significant step forward to decrease infant mortality and maternal mortality, not to mention a step toward economic, racial, and gender justice.

Support new mothers from the start

However, dads can do more than just advocating for leave, or take all the leave available to them. Supporting mothers during those early weeks and months is vital.

For example, breastfeeding is one of the best ways to increase a child’s health. However, it isn’t easy for many mothers and isn’t possible for some. Do you know how to make a good oatmeal that supports breastfeeding? I do. I made it for my wife almost every morning after she gave birth to our son.

However, being there for mothers is about more than just physically being around. Take time to listen to your partner. Know how her postpartum healing is supposed to progress and help monitor it. Learn the warning signs of postpartum depression. Check in with your partner often about how they’re feeling and if something seems off, make sure they get to a doctor.

Thousands of babies and mothers are dying. We need to do better for them.

We need policies in America to change this situation.

And we need dads to support and nurture their partners and families.

Yes, being a dad is a life-saving activity.

And a life-altering one.

And still the best job there is.

Infant mortality photo: © Prostock-studio / Adobe Stock.

The best thing my wife ever did for me after my son was born was nothing.

Let me explain.

Babies were a mystery to me when my son was born. Lamaze classes are great, but once you’re holding that squirming and peeing baby, everything goes out the window. The only thing I was confident doing when my son was born was changing diapers. I used to work with developmentally disabled adults and had changed thousands of diapers, so I had diapering down.

Everything else? Clueless.

Clueless, but fearless. I was completely confident that I was going to “get it.” And I was determined to do so.

My wife was equally confident I would be able to understand how to go about taking care of a baby. She would leave me alone with our new baby without worry.

Within days of our baby’s birth, I was alone with a crying little guy who I had no idea how to quiet. I walked around, danced, bobbed, did everything I could to help calm him, but time and again I failed. I tried to give him a bottle, but that also didn’t work. He was unhappy and I didn’t know how to hold him.

So there we were: two guys who didn’t know one another.

But my wife left us alone, and we figured it out.

My wife never yanked him from my arms and said, “Hold him this way.”

She never yelled, “You’re doing it wrong!”

She let me figure it out on my own.

My wife understands how I learn things. I’m like a lot of guys, I learn from being in the moment. I learn by doing things with my hands. Looking back, it must have been frustrating for her to watch the two of us struggle, but those struggles were important so that we could understand one another.

All too often I hear from new dads whose wives make them feel incompetent. This makes them not want to bond with the baby, let alone be unable to bond. Constantly fearing you’re doing it wrong and you’ll be scolded for doing so is not the way to start a parenting partnership. I don’t know if my wife consciously did this for me or if it was simply the result of being exhausted from delivering and breastfeeding.

Whatever the reason was, what she did was good for me.

A version of this first appeared on One Good Dad. Photo: Contributed by Greene Family.

While it is easy to be romantic on Valentine’s Day, it can be more challenging for moms and dads to stay intimate the other 360-something days of the year.

Face it, most of us became parents by enjoying the process of making babies, right? Now that the fun part is well behind us and we are left diapering, educating, shuttling and financing the results of that hard work (snicker), it’s sometimes difficult to find that loving feeling again.

So here’s four ways to stay intimate with your partner after all the chocolates in that heart-shaped box are gone today:

Start with having ‘The Talk‘

No, not that one with the kids. The one with your partner.

If sex is important to you in your relationship, then tell your partner. Find out where they stand on the subject. Learn what turns your partner on and, in return, they should know what turns you on. Discuss the obstacles — work, stress, exhaustion from kid care, a changing libido — that may be preventing each of you from finding the loving feeling more often. Understanding and respecting the needs, wants and desires of your partner is how everything should start and continue long after.

Keep romance alive with flirting

Once you have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t work you can start making things happen. A little flirting with your partner lets them know you are interested. Send them a text message, write a note on the bathroom mirror, or give the gentle touch on the arm or neck as you walk by – much easier in these days of working from home. It will make them feel wanted. It will remind them of how attracted they were to you early in your relationship, you know — before kid.

Find the time and schedule it

We’re all busy these days. Between work, shuttling the kids to their activities, and the few social things we still have going on, spontaneity is not as easy as it was when we were younger and had far fewer commitments. If you truly want to stay intimate with your partner, look at your schedules and block some time out just for the two of you. Then set yourself up for success. Remove all those obstacles to intimacy that you two have talked about — the kids’ presence, obviously; household tasks; your various screens, etc. This way, when the time comes you can give your partner all your focus.

Stay intimate without sex

When we start dating, intimacy was not sex. It was holding hands, cuddling, hugging, kissing, maybe giving your partner a foot rub or shoulder massage. While you may not always have the opportunity, let alone the time, for sex, you can work many of these other intimate times into your schedule, such as when you are sitting on the couch watching TV … even when the kids are present. Taking advantage of these opportunities helps prime the pump for more intimate adventures you might get caught up in later.

Stay intimate photo: ©Jirus / Adobe Stock.

The pandemic introduced a wide range of never-before-encountered issues for stay-at-home parents, but none so important — if not widely talked about — as adjusting to your partner or spouse working remotely alongside you from home.

Here are three tips I’ve pieced together from personal experience over the past 16 months:

1. Share your schedules

My now work-at-home wife frequently has high-level meetings with clients, and the last thing she needs is the loud sound of kids playing in the background. To prevent this, each morning we take time to discuss her schedule for that day so I can plan activities outdoors or away from the house during those sensitive work times. This is extra helpful when the weather forecast isn’t cooperative, such as during rainstorms, or in the winter, and simply playing in the yard isn’t an option.

2. Plan weekend activities in advance

The key here is to plan activities, not chores. We like to fill our weekends with parks, swimming or other outdoor adventures. Planning gives us both something to look forward to, especially during the long weeks of childcare and work. I do my best to take care of things like laundry and cleaning during the week so that we can both enjoy the weekends as family time.

3. Save store trips for evenings/weekends when possible

Before the pandemic, my wife had close to an hour’s drive, round trip, to work. Once she began working from home, it was common for her to go two to three days straight without leaving our property. By holding off shopping at the grocery store or a big box store until she was done with work, it gave her a much-needed break from the four walls of our home along with some family time. If she was in the mood to go alone on these shopping runs, it gave her a bonus — quiet time alone.

4) BONUS TIP: ‘Alone time’ is not a bad thing

It’s natural to feel guilty about wanting a bit of time to yourself, especially when most days are spent in the same house as your children and spouse. We make sure to communicate to each other our needs and desires for time by ourselves. Although they don’t happen too often, we both know it’s something that’s extremely important.

If you are a stay-at-home parent with a partner or spouse working remotely, none of these tips by themselves are perfect. Even used in combination, they don’t entirely relieve all the stress of these difficult times. If you’re a stay-at-home parent that’s struggling during this time, I hope they can offer a starting point for you and your family.

Spouse working remotely photo: © David Pereiras / Adobe Stock.

Dear Dads-To-Be,

Being with your significant other when she delivers your baby is a slippery slope. It’s an incredible experience but, at the same time, being in the delivery room during the birth offers many opportunities for a dad-to-be to make a fool of himself.

Don’t be that dad.

Before the big day, you need to understand some unwritten rules, a protocol of sorts, for delivery room dads. While a few may be common sense, most I had to learn the hard way. As a three-time father, I’m here to help. Follow these Do’s and Don’ts for Delivery Room Dads and you will be well on your way to Super Dad status.

Before Labor

Do bring an extra layer of clothes. If your wife wants the delivery room thermostat set at 58 degrees, guess what? The room will be 58 degrees. So bundle up.

Don’t ask for anything for yourself. Nurses are there to take care of your wife, not get you a blanket.

Do have your own bag packed ahead of time (your wife likely packed hers a month ago).

Don’t wait until your wife is laboring at home to ask her advice on what you should pack for the hospital.

Do have a car seat ready and properly installed for your baby before you even get to the hospital.

Don’t walk around the halls of the hospital with it still in the box.

Do practice changing a diaper ahead of time (on a doll … with the help of YouTube or a New Dad Boot Camp class, if necessary).

Don’t think you’re less of a man for doing so.

Do bring snacks.

Don’t think the hospital’s “nourishment room” is going to be stocked with all sorts of deliciousness. We’re talking peanut butter or crackers. Both if you’re lucky.

During Labor

Do remain calm.

Don’t say things like, “That’s so gross!” Think it all you want, just DON’T SAY IT ALOUD!

Do bring a camera and politely ask a nurse to take some pictures if that’s what your wife wants.

Don’t take a selfie while your wife is laboring in the background and post it to social media. That’s grounds for removal from the room or the family depending on how lenient your wife is.

Do hold your wife’s hand … BUT ONLY IF SHE ASKS YOU TO!

Don’t rub your wife’s legs and feet if she’s had an epidural … remember she’s numb down there, dummy.

Do be empathetic. Gents, I’m pretty sure it’s a pain we can’t comprehend.

Don’t compare your wife’s labor pain to one you’ve previously experienced like that time you hit your finger with a hammer. And don’t make a sex joke of any kind – remember that’s how you got her into this situation in the first place.

Do stand off to the side of the room and slowly slide down a wall if you’re feeling faint.

Don’t ignore it and pass out in the middle of the delivery room floor. (Delivery room dads — think: Do you really want medical treatment from an OB/GYN?)

Do be in the room the entire time.

Don’t wander. Side note: I almost missed the delivery of our third baby while I was in the waiting room telling my mom to go home because I didn’t think my wife was going to have a baby that night. I am not an expert in labor time management and neither are you.

During and After Delivery

Do participate in the delivery.

Don’t mistake the umbilical cord for “other” anatomy and shout, “IT’S A BOY!”

Do cut the cord if you’re asked.

Don’t be gentle with the scissors. You’ve gotta squeeze those things hard – that cord is like a garden hose.

Do offer to wash the baby when the time comes.

Don’t be afraid of the meconium – it won’t last forever. If you don’t know what meconium is, Google it. But not at mealtime.

Oh, and I almost forgot one final thing … Do cry your eyes out. The day your child is born is the most amazing day of your life.

A version of Delivery Room Dads first appeared in Indy’s Child. Photo: © Gorodenkoff / Adobe Stock.

EDITOR’S NOTE: City Dads Group is working with longtime partner Dove Men+Care to create “how to” videos for the grooming products company’s “Dads Care” campaign. We will be featuring the videos and scripts our members appear in. This one features Flor Mercado of our Orlando Dads Group, with a little help from his daughter talking about co-parenting while social distancing during the pandemic.

Co-parenting can be a struggle sometimes and, let’s be honest, adding social distancing to it can bring up even greater challenges. For those unfamiliar with co-parenting, it is when a mom and a dad live in two different households and still do everything possible to take care of their child.

Take care errands when your child is away

When my daughter is with me for the week, her mom takes care of all her grocery shopping, any post office runs, doctor visits — anything that would involve her leaving the home and coming in contact with others. That way it keeps all of us safe and her out of harm’s way. Next week, I will basically do the same on my end.

Keep others away

Another precaution we take is to eliminate visits from family and friends. Although we love them and we want to see them every day and as much as possible, we have put that on pause for now. We instead utilize video calls, sometimes multiple times a day. This, again, is keep both households and ourselves as safe as possible and away from any potential threats or viruses that we may encounter.

Quarantine when necessary

Sometimes life happens and we may have to come in contact with others. In that case we do quarantine ourselves for 14 days. Even though this is outside of our routine schedule, sometimes it has to be done to ensure the safety not just of our daughter but also for us, her parents. We don’t want to be transferring things from one house to the other so a 14-day quarantine is something that we do for ourselves just to make sure.

Photo: © Satjawat / Adobe Stock.

As an at-home-dad for more than a decade, I pride myself on the ability to read and understand ancient languages. I am the Rosetta Stone of baby talk. Toddler got a problem but has the vocabulary lower than the dog? I’m your guy. A teenager that has invented a new system of language based on memes and TikTok? I can write the dictionary and teach it at the next convention.

But the Post-it Notes my wife leaves around the house? Well, not all codes were meant to be broken.

The Post-it Notes are based on a language I can only assume take its inspiration from fairy dust and abstract art. I run across these colorful cryptic message many times throughout the day. Sometimes I can make progress, such as “Surely, that is a word that starts with an X!” Then I realize that it’s not an X, but a sign invented for deaf musical geniuses … and how can I not understand that?

Let’s take the above Post-it Note as a typical example. I found out many years later that this was meant to be a grocery list and not a communication from a new alien civilization asking me for help. Using my highly developed reading and writing skills, I determined that the first word on the note is “juice.” We are off to a good start.

The second word, now that is a P followed by butterfly wings. I consulted my Egyptian Hieroglyphics urban dictionary. I concluded that I was supposed to let the pee fly at the grocery store. Then I realized that if I squinted, it’s could be a B. Which would be PB, shorthand for “peanut butter and jelly,” two separate items that aren’t one product. I deduced that my wife wanted a sandwich and then she would pee in an airplane. This is going smoothly, no?

After I got the P and B, she wants “banditos.” An interesting request as I would have to travel all the way back to 1865 Mexico, but I could probably do that. I’ll get the alien civilization to help.

After that, “lunch meet” is up, which again, a bit weird. But I love meeting lunch, so I’ll do that after the banditos. We’ll catch up on the kids and family.

So far, I find that this is going well and much easier than one would expect given my wife’s inability to write on Post-it Notes in any way that a normal person could understand. Once she left me a note to “Make sure you flap the flog” which is not the sexual reference/kink talk I was expecting. Instead, it meant fix the toilet. She’s also terrible at sexting.

After lunch meet is where I get stuck. We need “dimes by Sunday.” Clear as day, that is what the Post-it Note says. I don’t know what is going on during Sunday, but apparently, this is very important to get at the grocery store.

Or — hold-up — what if I’m reading it wrong?

It might say “Dinos on Sunday.”  That’s a bit of an emergency because I’m not planning on making enough tacos Sunday night to feed a group of prehistoric creatures.  Maybe that’s why we need the dimes? That makes sense.

Then the list tells me to get the “Ranch at the Coffee,” but I think that is a harmless typo. What she means is to go to the ranch and get coffee. Like, the cowboy kind that’s served as dark as night and with a little trail dust on the rim. Everyone takes it differently and whatever she needs to make it through the day, I’m here for her. And I’ll be sure to pick up the “reamer” that is next on her list. I can only assume this is cowboy lingo for sugar.

I’m pretty sure that the next item on this Shakespearean manuscript is “mouse traps,” but I’m making the allowance that it could also be “moose traps.” You can never be too careful with moose as they eat all your cheese, the greedy bastards.

I’m having a problem with the next two. It’s either “Twit Fly stuff” or “Twit Fly Traps Stuff.? Writing in straight lines is sometimes a challenge for her.  And I’m not sure what a “Swahes” is either. Using my brain powers again I can make two conclusions.

Option 1: Twits are a type of space pirate flying around our galaxy, and we need to trap them before they swish their hips in an inappropriate manner. I believe Elvis was a Twit Pirate when he was starting out.

Option 2: I have a hell of an infestation in my house with the mouse, the moose, the twits, and the fruit flies, and if I’m not careful, they too will soon read my wife’s Post-it Notes and then wonder why they get yelled at when they return from the store with only Flying Pee and Dimes.

Photo: © OliverFoerstner / Adobe Stock.