SAHD

Welcome to the Pump House: Adventures in Fatherhood and Breast Milk Management

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A version of this post appeared on my blog years ago when London wasn’t even a year old. But I just tweaked it a bit, slimmed it down , and added here and there. I think it’s better now. Here it is…

Never in my wildest dreams, as I prepared for fatherhood, did I think I was going to spend so much time with lactation nurses, reviewing the intricacies of hand expressing (including motions), analyzing breast milk volumes, discussing engorgement, and just how much breast milk one could fit in a chest freezer.

A few hours prior to my meeting with lactation consultants, thinking there were three more months to learn these things, I didn’t even know lactation nurses existed. I knew that some babies were born prematurely, but I didn’t know my wife’s breast milk would still come in just as early as our daughter wanted out at 26 weeks gestation.

So it was that our 109-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) started with a crash course in breast milk. Within those first days of life for my daughter (London), my wife (Kate) and I spoke at great length with not just one lactation nurse, but several of them about breast milk and breasts, starting with a nurse asking my wife if she was going to pump breastmilk. Partly due to the trauma of the last 24 hours, and partly due to my complete lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, I had not thought a bit about breast milk or pumping. Kate was of a similar mindset at that particular moment, but we were both satisfied to know that there was a good chance Kate’s milk would come in. The early drops of colostrum, the nutrient-dense milk first released by the mammary glands, often come in shortly after the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, no matter the gestational age.

A couple of hours later a lactation nurse wheeled into our room something that looked like a medieval torture device. They were calling it the Symphony. They hooked Kate up to it and it hummed and sucked for 18 minutes. At the end of that first session, we could just barely make out two milliliters of colostrum. A few hours later Kate produced 2.6ml and then later that night 3.8ml. The next day, January 31, marked Kate’s first 24 hours of pumping. She produced 32.6ml that day, or 1.1 ounce. The lactation team handed us a log with the direction that we were to write down when Kate pumped, for how long, and the total volume.

We then received a DVD to watch, which would apparently help Kate get more milk by hand expressing and provide tips to alleviate the pain of engorgement. We were to watch it and return it to the NICU team afterwards. That same day, we popped the DVD into my laptop to watch some before going to bed. One minute into this educational video, the biggest breast and nipple either of us had seen appeared on screen. Kate laughed so hard she began to worry she might injure herself being only two days clear of a C-section. Everything hurt. If we continued watching, we put Kate’s health at risk. I slammed the laptop shut. Tears ran down our cheeks from laughing so hard.

Who knows who is responsible for making this particular lactation video, but may I make one small suggestion on behalf of my wife and all women who have recently had C-sections? Great. Do not make the first breasts on the video also be the largest breasts known to mankind. They should not be comically large, needing 3-4 hands to get them under control. In fact, this video is a danger to new mothers everywhere, they might literally bust open their gut laughing from it, like we almost did.

Thus, it fell on me to watch the lactation video alone, gleaning from it any helpful tips and then sharing them with Kate. She was impressed. It wasn’t like Kate’s breast milk volumes needed any help. Not long after London was born, I was spending part of everyday rearranging containers of breast milk in the chest freezer in the basement—the chest freezer we needed to buy solely to store breast milk. Kate and I would joke that I knew more about hand expressing breast milk than she did so I should print up some business cards and walk around the NICU offering my services to anyone who needed them. Hand Expressions by Bryce. Simple and to the point.

By day of life 57 for our little girl, Kate was producing 1,863ml a day, or 63oz of breast milk. To put that in perspective, London was fed a total of 800ml on day 57, the most she had ever consumed in one day. In fact, it took London a long time to drink as much milk in one day as Kate got from one 20-minute pump. A point was reached where no amount of rearranging the breast milk in the freezer would make room for more. I picked up a second chest freezer at Costco and Kate started to fill that, too.

For the months London was in the NICU we rented a Symphony pump, which at the time retailed for $1500-2500, and kept it in our bedroom. We started to call it the pump house. When at home, Kate disappeared every three to four hours to spend some quality time with the Symphony. As all moms know that schedule wreaks havoc on sleep and work responsibilities, but Kate did an excellent job. I did what I could by waking with her every time throughout the night, assisting in bottling of the milk, labeling and recording volumes, washing pump parts, and then delivering milk to the freezers in the basement. So, at our house, at least two times a night, Netflix and chill was swapped out for Netflix and pump.

As Kate tapered off the pump, we were just filling up the second chest freezer and the lactation nurses understood why Kate was putting an end to pumping. She had developed a reputation in the NICU as a super producer. At London’s discharge, on May 19th, 109 days after she was born, the NICU staff wrote messages to us. One of our favorites from the lactation team wrote, “Your mom was a rock star with pumping. She could have fed three babies in the NICU!”

Next week, London will be six-months-old and I can thaw breast milk from three months back. And right now it’s lunch time for the little girl, to the chest freezer I go.

Do You Love What You Do?

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This was a journal prompt I had almost four years ago. I answered it this way on February 21, 2021…

This is the question, isn’t it? It has been for quite some time, the question that gives me pause, makes me stop in my tracks, that question that forces me to take a good long look at what I do and, more importantly, am I any good at it? My answer for the majority of the time I have been an at-home dad has been, “Yes.”

But there are always buts. That’s the nature of the beast. The nature of any job you love. On a good day I love 80-90% of what I do. If the day is not going well, that number drops to 10-30%.

I consider being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD) a job. People who scoff at that and/or give me a weird look when I tell them this have never been a full-time at home parent with two kids and most domestic duties/responsibilities on their plate. It’s really not realistic to expect to do a lot more day to day, especially if you are also prioritizing time spent with a spouse and children, which, I know, I have the luxury of doing.

There was a time in 2019 to early 2020 that I drove for Lyft. The driving force, dad joke, for this was impending therapy bills for London that could amount to an extra $900 a month. They did for a while and driving for Lyft really helped ease the burden of all those $30 copays. Did I love Lyft though? No, but I do have some decent stories from the experience.

What I have loved more than anything else about being a SAHD is that I see nearly every moment of my kids’ young lives. I have been there for all the firsts. Now that London is at school M-F from 8:15 to 2:00, I have this weird feeling and it simply stems from someone else being in charge of her during those hours. It’s much more pronounced now that she is in FT school than it was at Montview where it was just a three-hour day or 5.5-hour days at kindergarten at Montview.

My three years with London before she went to Montview are years I absolutely loved. That’s not to say they were without struggle, but they were great. We had a lot of freedom. Now I have that opportunity with Camden. Of course, the pandemic has made the last year very difficult, but 2021 is going to be better. We have renewed memberships at the zoo and the DMNS and I hope to have more daytime adventures with Camden, more like the years I had with London, hopping from one museum to another with stops at the zoo and long lost parks in between.

For a long time now I have had this goal of being a SAHD until Camden goes to school either part-time or full-time. There is a possibility of him going to FT preschool [he did not]. If that works then my time as a FT SAHD is going to end I think. I have no idea what I will do next. Sometimes I think coaching swimming might be in my future once again. But collegiately speaking, there are not good options in Colorado. Perhaps something a little more low-key, but I don’t like the idea of that becoming a major chapter in my career arc.

I can predict the future though. Whatever I do next and until my life ends I will be grateful for these years. I will likely look back on them as the best of our lives. It hurts so much to know that they come to an end. I would choose to relive all of this again; all of the strife, the scary days, the difficult and dark days, and all of the loneliness that comes with being a SAHD, just so that I could have my loving 3-yr-old Camden and 7-yr-old London run into my arms again and again, without ever tiring of it. So, yeah, I do love what I do.

On My 10th Father’s Day

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This could be my last summer as a full-time stay-at-home dad. As much as I need and crave time away from my kids, after less than 96 hours without them, I miss them dearly. Their squeals, laughs, pitter patter of small feet, noises from the kitchen as I wonder what they’re helping themselves too. Even sometimes their cries, when the silence without them feels like a suffocating blanket of absence.

Being alone is very nice. More time to catch up on the projects you’ve been meaning to do. A lot more time to read that book catching dust wherever you last set it. And an abundance of time to binge the newest buzzy show. There is just a lot more time to busy yourself with work, entertainment, things. And you can do all of it with minimal interruptions or, if you prefer, in absolute silence.

But after a little bit, after you get a taste of all those things that you were missing and that you have now done, there’s something else. There are questions in the quiet. Is this all there is? If this was life all the time would I get sick of it? Would solitary pursuits give way to success, self-absorption, or both? Would I feel like I am missing out on something? Would I get lonely or would my spouse be enough? Would she get lonely? Even questions about my far flung end arise. Will we arrive graying and wrinkled at the end of our lives wondering what could have been? Who are we missing? Who could be by our side now as we live our last days? What being/s will we never know because we do not have a child? I feel like the what-ifs would continue stacking up and then it would be too late.

What I don’t spend time doing is wondering what I could give to the world or to society if I did not have kids. Sure, it could be something great, but would it be as awe-inspiring, humbling, and as terrifying as having created a life? No. As holding the smallest hand in the pad of your index finger? No. As head-spinning as bearing witness to how fast the early years of life fly by? No. As proud a moment when you see your child shed a bit of your imprint on them to become someone wholly new, someone independent from you, but still your heart? No. As terrifying as the moment you realize they will spend many, many years on this Earth without you and you won’t be able to rush to their side anymore at the first sound of trouble, pain, or loneliness? I mean, the sadness of that thought could be enough to drive you to never have a kid, but it’s only a thought that parents can truly understand. And, by then, it’s too late. That is the risk we take. And there are big risks, but I know the answers to the questions above. Sometimes they get a little hazy and I feel the what-ifs rush in, but then I get a few days away from all their smiles, noises, questions, innocence, and imaginative everythings and the answers crystallize again into a sharp relief against a life without them.

I know I could give nothing to the world more precious and more important than them. I know the questions in the quiet would eat me up, but I know the answers to them and, for that, I am grateful.

Happy Father’s Day.

Camden’s Birth

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Yesterday @ANNELAMOTT tweeted:

Okay everybody, it’s almost time to start writing. Main thing: put on some pants. Finish up your cup of coffee–no one here thinks you need more. You’re good. Now: butt in chair; deep breath; write something, badly.

Write something, badly. Too often I think I can’t write until I can sit down and write something, goodly. I have about four days a year, maybe, when I think that is a possibility. Thus, I don’t write that often. So, thank you, Anne, for tweeting this out like a punch to my gut. Here is something I will finish writing, badly. But I will not abandon the coffee. Not yet.

After a couple minutes of vigorous massage, Camden’s first cry pierced the atmosphere of the operating room. Life, new and loud, dirty and fragile, and a sweet, sweet noise, but what tugged at my heart was another noise I heard from elsewhere in the OR.

At 7am, that Saturday morning, we arrived at the hospital. Kate had gone into labor a couple of days before her scheduled C-section. Camden was breach, so as they would have done two days later, the doctors moved ahead with the operation, prepping Kate and handing me the biggest set of scrubs in the hospital.

Within an hour I was sitting outside the OR by myself as the anesthesiologist gave Kate a spinal block. The last time I was in this chair outside the OR, Kate was 26 weeks pregnant and we were having an emergency C-section. That time around I sat for two minutes as Kate’s spinal tap was administered, as doctors frantically scrubbed in, and as person after person filed past me through the double doors and into the OR. But this time I sat for 20 minutes as people casually prepared for another C-section, as I heard small talk and even laughter on the other side of those doors. The laid back, quiet atmosphere was surreal. The only thing familiar to me that Saturday morning was the chair, the door, and the closet-like feel to the space where spouses are made to wait until they are cleared to enter the OR. The expediency, the mood, the number of people in the OR, and the conversation were all different. All normal, I suppose. This is how C-sections at full-term proceed, we learned.

As I was allowed in, I started to take pictures. First of Kate on the operating table with a curtain rising up from her chest to shield our view and maintain a sterile environment. Then, a selfie of the two of us, five minutes before Camden arrived. From there, things moved quickly. The anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist stood by Kate, telling her when she might feel tugging or pressure. I readied myself to stand up and look over the curtains to glimpse my son for the first time.

By the time I was told to stand, Camden had already been placed on a warming bed, out of Kate’s sight. I leaned over and kissed Kate and then walked over to meet my son.

As I stood and watched a small team handle Camden during his first minutes of life, I knew something was not entirely okay. He was not making noise. His color was a little off, not pink yet. There were six hands on him, firmly massaging his whole body. One doctor was sucking a tremendous amount of fluid out of his mouth and nose.

I tried to keep things in perspective while I stood there. I had seen much worse. I had seen these docs with a much different demeanor. They were not there yet. They kept busily working on Camden, but did not appear worried. I kept reminding myself that this is a full-term baby. He will come around. He will come around.

First picture of Camden. 7 minutes old. 8:55am. 10/14/2017.

And then, he took a deep breath, and let out his long, first cry, which was answered by the sweet sound of Kate’s cry, the sweetest sound I heard that morning. For Kate, Camden had been out of sight since the doctors pulled him from her womb. She knew nothing of what was happening for that minute or two. The noise that came from her is truly a noise replicated at no other time than when a mother hears her baby for the first time. I could hear in it the anxiety washed away, the instantaneous connection of mother to son. Hearing it, I knew she loved him so much already, in a way only mothers can. To bear witness to that love is one of the single greatest blessings of fatherhood.

I Needed A Subject

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As a creative, there is nothing quite as painful as being told what you’re putting out there is not very unique. When I was told this, it basically boiled down to, and I’m paraphrasing here, “People have gone through much worse…There are lots of stay-at-home parents…What you are doing isn’t special.”

These words struck me in a part of my heart that the world had not calloused over, a part that my own cynicism had not hardened. Their aim was true, but the words were not. Nevertheless, they hurt at the moment and they still hurt. They made me second guess. But they’re not going to stop me. I hope other creatives don’t let the people who don’t understand their art destroy their drive to make it.

My drive was fully realized the moment London arrived in my life, as I expressed to a dear friend in an email on March 24, 2014, nearly two months after London was born:

For a long time I’ve questioned whether I will ever write for a career, as I’ve dreamed of most of my life. Besides getting rejected from MFA programs four years ago, I’ve also had my doubts that I had anything worth writing about. Clearer than ever, I have an answer to that now. I’m not sure what form that might take, but I have a story to tell from this whole experience. This also dawned on me within the first day or two after London’s birth. And in a way, it felt like God was saying, “This is it. This is what you’ll write about.” That has rattled me, probably because it is the truth. Pure, distilled truth.

Years later, I don’t know exactly what form that might take and I recognize the story is just starting. But I hear the still, small voice…This is it. This is what you’ll write about.

Just the Two of Us

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London and I sat in the sun on a warm February day. We took chalk and colored our_BKP8247 respective patches of concrete and bricks. There was no breeze, a few clouds, and a welcoming burst of warm Colorado air in the waning winter.

I colored stripes. London seemed more interested in collecting all the chalk and moving it from one location to another and then she would peel off to grab another rock to drop down the drain cover.

There wasn’t anything particularly extraordinary about our activity that morning, at least, that is what I thought at the time. But later that day I found out Kate was pregnant. A blessing, indeed, but I almost immediately recalled the simple morning I had with London, the hundreds of simple mornings. The two of us drawing with chalk, taking a break with her, and sitting on the brick wall at the end of the alley. Just the two of us. The  two of us.

I at once felt overjoyed at the thought of my family growing and mourned the days of London and I coming to an end. She is my life’s greatest work. My family is my greatest joy. If I don’t write about them, then why write about anything else? More to come…

Published

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What seems like two years ago, I submitted a short essay to the Denver Post. To my delight, I heard back from them. They wrote that my essay was being considered for online publication as a guest commentary. A couple months passed and I hadn’t heard anything from them so I emailed the Post again. They wrote back, saying that my essay was still in the queue and I would be notified if it was published. I maintained my optimism for about one more month and then, like all writers often do, I gave up all hope. I started wearing Crocs, drinking Folgers, and bought tighty whities in bulk at Costco.

Skip ahead to 2017 and I am half-heartedly looking for writing gigs when I do a quick self Google. I was curious if any of my writing was available on the web still. One of the top results was a Denver Post page titled, “Guest Commentary: Tiny hands change everything.” I clicked on the link. I confirmed that it was my work and noted the date. July 17, 2015. UPDATED April 24, 2016.

The photo with the commentary is of an adult hand, one finger of which is grasped by a tiny baby. This is not a photo of hands I know. I could have provided a better photo if they had told me I was going to be published.

Like this one…

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And then I read the words. Thoughtful, touching, but flawed. Like nearly everything I write, I only thought it was decent or, at best, good, at the time I wrote it. Now, almost two years later, it strikes me as insufficient, short, even a little cheesy. I would have been happier to link to it back in July of 2015. Linking to it now is anticlimactic. It feels like I am sharing a draft with you. Nonetheless, for it to appear on the Denver Post‘s website and for me to not share that on this blog does not feel right. Here is the article.

Have a great weekend.

 

Someone Else’s Hot Take

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I have not taken the time to sit down and write about the election results. I am still in the process of getting through the shock, absorbing the news, and watching Stephen Colbert’s Election Night special on Showtime. But there are quite a few politicians and journalists who have sat down in the aftermath to record their thoughts or to share a story and some advice. Today, I share with you one letter of note. “A Letter to Young Women: How We Will All Move Forward Together Now.”

So how do you cope with how you feel right now?

First, don’t be destructive: Don’t burn a flag, don’t be vitriolic. Anger will give you a worse hangover than cheap tequila.

Second, you are allowed wine—preferably to drink with friends because I know how lonely you are feeling.

Third, find your thing. Find your cause, and get back in the game. Be a mentor or volunteer. Remember every priority of Secretary Clinton’s and dive into one headfirst. Most importantly, bring your friends.

It’s our responsibility to form a tribe unlike anything that’s ever been seen before—one that is stronger, louder, and more ferocious than ever. The suffragettes didn’t win us the right to vote by walking down the street with headphones on, reading Twitter. We cannot let this happen again.

It’s a short, passionate letter. You can read the rest by Alyssa Mastromonaco at Broadly.

Put Down Your Phone

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It is such a joy to be able to read Andrew Sullivan again. Last week’s New York Magazine features a lengthy article about Sullivan’s rehab from blogging and his sustained connectivity to news, devices, and the internet. fullsizerender

I know from time to time I am on my phone way too much, especially in front of London, so reading this gave me several pangs of guilt, but it helped. Since I finished it I have been more aware of my screen time throughout the day and night. I have tried to cut back, but I also know that the lessons learned from reading Sullivan’s latest piece will likely fade. This should be on an annual required reading list.

The Body-Shaming Candidate

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During the last two presidential campaigns I wrote blogs primarily about politics.

So far, in 2016, I’ve stayed away from blogging political on here. But election day will be here very quickly and I need to say a few things about this election, specifically about one of the candidates. I’ll get around to posting my thoughts on Mr. Trump, but for now I wanted to share this one commercial with you. It is made by Donald Trump himself, but it is an ad paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump merely provided all the material.

As a father of a beloved, precious little girl, Secretary Clinton could not have produced a better commercial. When you’re running against a candidate who thinks of women “as a collection of sex toys” (Comedian Samantha Bee’s words) reminding all the fathers of little girls all over this great land of Trump’s distaste for women is the most powerful message you can send.

Stay-at-Home Dads and Depression

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I shared this article on Facebook a couple of days ago and I must share it here as well. It really is one of the most honest articles I have ever read about the stay-at-home dad life.

The reality of being a stay-at-home dad is that strangers are suspicious, our friends are patronizing, and stay-at-home moms—the one group you might actually expect to have your back—often won’t let you into their club.

Bradley Egel, who has been a stay-at-home dad for the last decade, told me when he first started taking his son to the park, he felt ostracized by the other moms.

“There was this group of moms who were extraordinarily cold to me. Sometimes to the point where they would just leave [when I arrived],” he said. “Then, after a year, this one woman—I guess she was like queen bee—walks over and says, ‘We’ve been noticing that you come to the same park all the time. What’s your deal?’ I was like, ‘I’m here with my kid. The same as you.'”

Read the rest of the article, “Why So Many Stay-at-Home Dads Are Depressed.”

Drinking on Monday Starts at 8…am

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For the last ten weeks I have been training for the Bolder Boulder.

This running thing is pretty new to me. I competed in my first 10k on Thanksgiving day last year. Since then, I’ve tried two 5k races and another 10k.

Before those races, I ran in one 5k at the Milwaukee Zoo in 2008. That race doesn’t really count. Between 2008 and the turkey trot in 2015, running was not a hobby. I still hit the pavement every once in a while, but it was merely for cardio.

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The start of the A Wave at the Bolder Boulder. Just looking at this gets my heart racing.

Part of the reason I have kept on competing since the turkey trot is because the racing conditions were so horrible then. It was 32 and raining and the trail was 2-6 inch thick mud. My time was awful. The last three miles of the race were run in 7:50, 9:53, and 7:24. Can you tell which mile I fell twice on, nearly impaling my hand on a very narrow tree stump?

I think it was soon after that race I decided I needed another shot at a 10k and I instantly thought of the Bolder Boulder. For much of my life I’ve lived within a 45 minute drive of Boulder and have never thought about entering the race.

The race is five days out and today I realized I haven’t trained this hard for a competition since training for my last swim meet as a collegiate swimmer in 2005. I am actually tapering off of what was, for me at least, a tough training schedule. I’ve even shunned a daily beer or beers for all of May, which has been almost as hard for me to do as the running. I think I have had two drinks since the start of May. That Oskar Blues beer after I finish my race at Folsom Field is going to taste so good.

For many of my training runs I had to literally push my training partner. For London, it has been an easy training schedule. She gets a cushy ride in the Mountain Buggy, sips away at her water cup, throws it from the stroller when she decides it’s cramping her style, and kicks off her shoes whenever desired. Her stroller ain’t light and neither is she, weighing in at 35 pounds, but I was thankful to be pushing just one kid over the last ten weeks.

On Monday morning, London will just be having her breakfast when my wave (AA) goes off at 6:56. I get so anxious just thinking about it. I’m not sure what I will think of the crowd. I am hoping to just lock onto a group running my pace and zone out for four, maybe even five miles before I think about the rest of the ground to be covered.

My goal is to come home on Monday with one extra t-shirt, one that says Sub 40 Club on it. With luck, it’ll fit me.

Back from the Basement

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I’m back from the dead, I mean, the basement. For four months we endured one of the slowest basement finish projects ever taken on by man. It must be said that the aforementioned man and his pals worked maybe three days a week and a workday consisted of showing up at 10am and leaving by 3:30. Things got to a point where I did not want the man and his pals to work on anything else in the basement because every time they fixed something they broke or maimed some other fixture in the basement. The short list of fixes would grow from 5 to 40 in a week. I happily gave the man the check labeled, “Full & Final Payment,” knowing I was going to finish the rest of this basement myself.

Since then, I have spent every minute I had away from London in the basement. Even when she was awake I occasionally brought her down to the basement, installed her in the high chair, and queued up Sesame Street. I’d even push it to see if I could get her to watch two episodes in a row. I got pretty damn close a few times all without coating her with drywall dust, paint, caulking, and spackle. Success.

I had told the man that I could handle the painting of the walls,

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Kate enjoying an almost finished basement.

but somewhere along the way he thought that meant I was painting all the baseboard, trim, and doors. Rookie mistake on not clarifying that. However, after seeing how the man painted the ceiling, I felt quite confident I did not want him painting anything else in the basement. So, I took care of those things myself. The doors were easy, just time consuming if you want them to look good and show no roller or brush marks. The baseboard was a different story. I did not have the opportunity to paint it before it was flush with the hardwood floors downstairs. Painting already installed baseboard takes ten times as long as painting pieces of baseboard fresh from the hardware store. This is what really took up the majority of my work.

Other things we had to take care of ourselves: cleaning off the adhesive on the window frames left by this crazy,. strong, fireproof tape used to install insulation in the basement, installation of speakers in walls, caulking all trim/baseboard joints, filling nail holes, mounting doors, installing hardware, painting shelves, ceiling paint touchup, replacing a light switch, installing blinds, painting quarter-round trim, and finally, assembling Ikea furniture, which actually was given the final touch last night. All is not done. I have yet to paint a couple closet doors, paint the stairwell, install carpet on lower half of stairs, and paint an exposed I-beam. Kate and I agreed that when all that is done we will feel as though we finished a quarter of the basement ourselves.

Throughout this process I have been aware that we saved a substantial amount of money by using the people we used. We had expressed an interest in using the same people to finish the bathroom in the basement, but we will now be doing that ourselves. That will, undoubtedly, turn into a bigger project than it is in my mind and it will mean I may have to take another long break from writing, but this break may have been for the better too.

I’ve missed writing. Writing helps me destress. When I don’t have the opportunity to do it I have this horrible nagging sensation that if I were writing right now I would be writing some of my best stuff. Of course, this is not true, but it’s hard to ignore this voice, which always creeps into my life at the precise moment that sitting down for a couple hours to write something is an impossibility.

I promise no regular blogging at this point. I can’t even say for sure when I will write again. Like I wrote above, there are still significant projects to be completed before I can sit in front of a computer to write for even 30 minutes, but that time is closer now than it has been for months. I like that.

Prayers & the People

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While London was in the NICU, I listened to Coldplay’s Ghost Stories religiously. I spent a lot of time meditating on one refrain in a particular song called “Magic.” The lyrics read:

And if you were to ask me
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in magic?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

Although when I thought about the lyrics, I would replace the word “magic” with the word “prayer.” And I would ask myself over and over again, “Still believe in prayer?” With all my heart I wanted to answer with an earnest, “Yes,” and for a while I did not have an answer.

Why couldn’t I find that earnest “Yes”? I thought about that every day while London was in the hospital and nearly every day since. After all that thinking, I am able to point to a number of reasons.

I have written on here before that not all NICU stories have happy endings. It may come as no surprise, but while we were in the NICU we were witnesses to some sad stories. Within two weeks of London’s birth, the baby in the next pod over died. I remember hearing some of the father’s last words to his daughter and then needing to step behind our curtain because I couldn’t hold back tears.

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Praying over London. What else?

Throughout London’s NICU experience we had a tremendous number of people praying for her. We were praying for her. And when we would receive good news concerning London’s health, people would be quick to thank Jesus.

I know there were people praying for that baby next-door. But when she died, I don’t know if people were talking about how much they prayed for her. When prayers are answered, people are quick to heap praise on God, but all too often God doesn’t enter the conversation when prayers aren’t answered. There is just a deep sense of loss (in the case mentioned above, loss of a child) and betrayal.

It is the absence of God in conversation following something like a loss of a child, whose survival was clearly being prayed for, that really grates across my soul. And as I let it grate more and more on me, doubt about the fate of my own child crept into my thoughts. Doubt about the ability of prayer to reduce swelling in London’s brain. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make one medication work better than the next. Doubt about the ability of prayer to make London’s lungs flourish.

Yet, I prayed, even though what I had seen in the NICU was doing its best to give me a cynical attitude toward God’s ability to give my daughter a fighting chance. But as I stood next to Kate and watched London seize up, turn blue from head to toe, and watched a team of doctors rush over to her bedside, prayer was the only thing I could hold onto despite clinging to Kate. I desperately prayed over and over, “Don’t let my daughter die.”

Again and again, I was exposed to suffering. Much of the time it was parental suffering, the kind you would expect parents to go through when their baby weighs two pounds. And, at times, it was the raw exposure to parents suffering the death of a newborn, as mentioned above.

In a new way, I was becoming aware of the fragility of my own faith. I had reached the bottom of my soul and I had expected to bounce back and come out better than ever, but I had gone crashing through it, revealing new limits to understanding and faith. This surprised me because I had not lost anyone. Many people endure far worse before they reach the point I reached. However we get there though, we often discover the same thing:

…Suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can control and cannot control. When people are thrust down into these deeper zones, they are forced to confront the fact they can’t determine what goes on there.

Lack of control. I had felt it before in my life, but not to this degree so it was easy to say, well, if I don’t have control, and the nurses don’t have control, and the doctors with all their tricks and knowledge don’t have control, then nothing can have control over this.

But doubt is a two-way street. As I doubted in prayer’s ability to heal every last weak and broken thing in my daughter’s body, I also doubted my newfound doubt. I didn’t know for sure that prayer didn’t work. I have prayed all my life for all sorts of things. Some prayers were answered. Some were not. A voice in my head kept saying, why stop now? Because I was afraid, afraid of not having this prayer answered exactly the way I wanted it to be answered. That felt really selfish. It is selfish. But I had prayed this long, I wasn’t going to stop when it came to praying for my daughter’s health.

I guess what tragedy does to you, or, in our case, what a really long stay in the NICU can do to you, is to remind you, just in case you have forgotten, that you are not in control. You never were, despite how good things were going for you. And, you never will be. I felt like this left me with two options. One, surrender to God and put my faith in him because I have discovered how little control (read none) all of us have. Or two, abandon the idea of a God who hears our prayers and can intervene to answer them.

Days, weeks, months, and eventually a year passed, during which God eliminated option two. I had just kept praying. I would often express to God that I really don’t know if you (God) can help with this, because there are many more people in this world that need more help than my daughter does, but somewhere along the way, can you do this one thing for my daughter? Again and again, the answer has been yes. I don’t know why, exactly, my prayers have been answered while the prayers of others had clearly not been. That’s part of the mystery. Part of the faith. I don’t have the answers. But for me, one answer had changed.

It was over a year after London came home from the hospital when I was again listening to Coldplay’s “Magic” and thinking about it all–faith, mysterious, confusing faith, love, my daughter, who I know is a miracle, and my little family–when I finally could sing the end of the song and mean it.
After all that we’ve been through
“Still believe in prayer?”
Well yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Oh yes, I do
Of course I do

*Block quote about suffering is from David Brooks’ column in the NY Times, “What Suffering Does.”

12 Classics in 2015 (2016 version): The Executioner’s Song

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I set out to read 12 classics in 2015. Technically, I finished seven in 2015 before I, quite optimistically, took on The Executioner’s Song, the 1109 page Norman Mailer book about Gary Gilmore. The plan was to finish this book in 2015 and then sprinkle the remaining days of 2015 with four slim classics. I didn’t get there. I finished the last page of ES last Monday.

Having never read a book over 1,000 pages before, I was fooled by Dave Egger’s quote on the back of Mailer’s book. “…It’s the fastest 1,000 pages you will ever know.” Well, it is the fastest I’ve ever read a book of this length, but certainly not the shortest amount of time I have taken to cover 1,000 pages of prose.

What is obvious in my completion of this book is that it was good. I would not have continued past page 300 if it was poor. I knew nothing about Gilmore going into the book. I’m not sure I had ever heard of him. This, Eggers wrote in the introduction, is one of the best scenarios for reading ES. In fact, Eggers urges Gilmore-clueless people to stop reading the introduction at this point and skip to the boIMG_8500ok. That’s what I did and I am ever thankful for it, for if I knew Gilmore’s fate there would be no suspense to carry me through to the last page.

I can’t believe someone would undertake such a vast project to tell Gilmore’s story, but Mailer somehow did it and painted a thorough picture of all the primary actors in Gilmore’s life (and there were a lot), giving the reader a complex cast of characters, matched only by the complexity of Gilmore.

Knowing what we know about Gilmore, that he killed two people, you want to dismiss him as a sick, bad person. But it’s amazing the people he wins over from the time he is arrested to the time he is executed. People poised to make a lot of money off of Gilmore’s death decide in the end that they can’t do it. They respect, even love, Gilmore too much to do that to him. This was the most surprising part about the book. There was this side to Gilmore that was very intellectual, caring, and even nice. Although his temper could flare up in the briefest of exchanges.

I enjoyed The Executioner’s Song. The book was worthy of derailing my original plan of reading 12 classics in 2015, for by finishing this book alone I feel like I accomplished something significant. That said, I am quite relieved to know that I can move on to the books that have been stacking up while I made my way through The Executioner’s Song.

Friday Humor

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I’m at home still waiting for a drywall inspector to show up and look at my basement. The inspector was supposed to be here between 9:30 and 11:30. It’s past 1 pm now and nothing. London is asleep. I’m not going to start in on writing something knowing that I’ll likely be interrupted by the inspector, so I’ll share someone else’s writing for now.

It’s a funny piece, titled, “Dumb-Ass Stuff We Need To Stop Saying To Dads,” found on the Huffington Post, which apparently limits their paragraph length to three short sentences. Three is to give the HuffPo too much credit. Most of the time it’s one sentence and done for a paragraph.

I hope you enjoy the read.

Play Dates & Guns

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My lovely sister-in-law sent me an article today. It’s not new, but becoming more relevant for this little family as London nears the age where somewhat unsupervised play dates will occur.

As soon as I saw part of the title: “The question I asked before any play date,” I knew it was going to be about guns. Sure enough, “Do you keep guns in the house?”

I am not going to pull quotes from the article, because you should read the whole thing. It’s short and sweet. 

My take: if you have guns, I want to see the safe they’re in before I’m hanging out in your house and especially before my daughter has a play date with your kid.

Hiding your gun isn’t enough. Okay, I’ll paraphrase one stat from the article, that 8 out of 10 first graders (first graders, people) know where their parents hide the guns.

Well done, America.

Emails and Poetry

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I rely on my parents to send me inspirational emails every so often. Yesterday, on my 33rd birthday, I received such an email. My mom encouraged me to go to a blog she regularly reads, to read a specific poem, and to listen to a hymn.

The blog is Barnstorming.

The poem found in this post is “Sure On This Shining Night” by James Agee

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground. 
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth. 
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
 ~James Agee
The hymn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wio1hcuAAAk
I found the poem and the hymn deeply moving. I wrote my mom back and thought I’d share that note on here:

 

Truly loved that poem, but especially the song. It reminds me of the Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity album from the Cambridge Singers. I found the song on iTunes and bought it already.

It made me think of the the 29th of January two years ago. As Kate and I went to bed on the 29th just a few days ago we quietly talked to each other about how London’s birthday celebration will always start on the night of the 29th because that’s when our miracle started. That night is so fresh and raw. Anytime I dwell on it I immediately start weeping, for several reasons, but maybe most of all because of what we have now, a boundless, healthy 2-year-old, which seemed to be outside the realm of possibility on that night two years ago and for many months afterward.
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
Love you,
Bryce

How to Help a NICU Parent

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A friend recently asked me for some advice. She knows someone who just IMG_3089_127883had a preemie at or around 26 weeks gestation and wanted to know how she could help them out, what to say, what not to say, etc. She gave me permission to post my response to her. It follows:

I am happy to share my advice. Some of it will be based on the assumption that you are in the same town as your brother and Erin and their new daughter, Harper.

Well, having a kid in the NICU is the most exhausting thing Kate and I have ever been through. Very important question: is this their first kid? If not, well, it’ll be even more exhausting than our journey. Anyway, exhausting, so the last thing I ever wanted to do when getting home from the hospital every day was cook. It’s sort of become a cliche, but cooking for them would probably be a huge help. I don’t think Kate and I went to the grocery store for 3 weeks after London was born. Without all the meals we received, we couldn’t give London as much attention as we did. We had one less thing to worry about and that was huge because having a 26-weeker is an all-consuming worry.

The first few days of NICU care are possibly the worst. Once the baby makes it a week, things can start to get a little easier. So now could be the most terrifying of days for your brother and his wife. It all sort of depends on Harper’s situation. Was this an emergency c-section? Did they have 24 hour notice so they could get some steroids to Harper before she was born? London did not have the benefit of steroids before she was born, which really set her back for some time. She was on the ventilator for nearly three weeks, if I’m remembering correctly. I’m not sure what I’m getting at here, but maybe it’s just that I know I was very open about London’s health and situation throughout her NICU stay. I sent out near-daily email updates to a large group of people. I would have never been able to tell all those people independently. So if your brother is open to the idea, I’d recommend that. Or if someone in the family wants to keep other family members and friends dialed into the situation by doing email updates then that would be a big help too.

I’ve completely forgot to mention that it’s so great they named her. I know that naming her is a commitment of the heart and soul that you resist when you see such a small and fragile human being. But it’s a big step and it might bring them some hope. I remember when London was just ten minutes old and being transferred from the OR to the NICU while Kate was still on the operating table, the doctor asked me what her name was, and I was just put on the spot and had to say it loudly enough that everyone in the OR could hear it. I didn’t know it then, but in hindsight, that was a pivotal moment of accepting as truth something I still couldn’t believe was happening.

In terms of what not to say, that’s always tough to answer. You know? It depends on the person’s tolerance of the cliche, like, “Everything’s going to be alright.” We heard that a few times and I may have even said it later on in London’s NICU stay, like in month 2 and 3, but I did not like hearing it in the first few days or couple of weeks even. I just wanted to know the specifics of London’s situation and all I wanted to share were the specifics. I didn’t want to speculate with family members and friends. I just tried to avoid the “what ifs”, so maybe help them do that.

I’ll stop writing after this next point. At three months early, Harper is going to be in the NICU for a long time. It’s important for your brother and Erin to get time away from the NICU. That won’t be right now, obviously, but later on it will be. As a NICU parent you feel the urge to be at the NICU as much as possible, but it is essential to get away from time to time. We wanted our health and our sanity while London was in the hospital and I think we may have lost both if we stayed there round the clock for the first month. Our NICU nurses were exceptional in that they all encouraged us to take breaks from being at London’s bedside. Clearly, we still went to the hospital every day for 109 days, but the time away from the hospital was almost as important as the time there. We needed a chance at rest and revival before facing the NICU’s minute by minute ups and downs. So, when it’s time, encourage your brother and Erin to get away, even if it takes you spending some hours by Harper’s side. Perhaps they will be uncomfortable with it at first, but they will appreciate it.

How’s that for a disjointed email? I mean, there are so many things that come to mind. Please, let me know if you have other questions. Sorry they are going through this. I hope Harper is doing well.

*All names in this post have been changed. 

Pictures of Christmas Past

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Today, I decided to take a look back at Christmas photos since Kate and I were married in 2007, and after looking through them all I had to pick out a few to share on the blog. It’s amazing what can happen over the span of just nine Christmas holidays together as a married couple. I’m feeling very grateful for all the great people we have been able to celebrate Christmas with over the years and in all the beautiful places those celebrations have happened in.

2007

Just a couple of spring chickens here. 24-years-old. In Milwaukee for our first Christmas. Kate’s family drove out from Wyoming to join us. Very memorable. It was MKE’s snowiest winter ever recorded. Thanks for that welcome, Wisconsin.

2008

At the end of 2008, a very tumultuous year politically-speaking, I laid out a year of Newsweeks on the floor of our apartment and stood on top of our coffee table and took several pictures of them. My camera was actually on the fritz this year, so I don’t have that many in focus pictures, this one among them, but I still enjoy these photos, even though Palin can be seen off to the right.

Again in 2008, the Bradleys drove all the way from Wyoming (with the dogs) to have Christmas in Wisconsin. Here, Kate cuddles up with Molly and Max.

2009

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Christmas in Farmington, NM. However, this picture was taken in Durango the day we flew back to Milwaukee. This was my parents’ first Christmas in New Mexico. It was very special to be with them for that, as it had been an especially hard couple of years for them with unforeseeable and massive changes in their lives. Missionaries.

2010

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The first Colorado Christmas as a married couple. Here, we have some of Kate’s family celebrating the New Year at our high-rise apartment in Denver. Kate and I were actually alone on Christmas Day this year. We went for a walk at Wash Park because it was 60 degrees out. The day before we drove up to RMNP because we could.

2011

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All I can say is, it must have been a very good year because we ordered 25 lbs of Wisconsin cheese to be shipped to our Colorado address. ‘Twas a bit excessive, but we loved every bite and we gave away at least 10 lbs of it.

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I am incredibly blessed to have spent many Christmases with my grandparents as well. This Christmas dinner I was in charge of cooking the prime rib. I followed my mother-in-law’s standby recipe and things went perfectly. But then I goofed up and made a rum cake with Bacardi 151. It came out a little stronger than normal. Instead of a nice hint of rum taste with your cake, rum taste was all you got.

2012

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Kate’s family in town for this Christmas. This was also the only time I’ll sit in Row 1 for a Denver Broncos game. ‘Twas sweet.

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Per the usual, at a Bradley Christmas there were so many appetizers that I was left asking myself and others, “Why are we cooking dinner?”

2013

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Back in Farmington, NM we were for Christmas 2013. It had been a very long time since my dad and I had been photographed right after a Christmas Eve service so we took care of that and what a sweet picture it is.

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This is such a unique Christmas in my mind. We had just bought our first house. I had still somewhat recently graduated from DU and was looking for work in Denver. And we thought our first baby was five months away. London arrived just one month after this photo was taken.

2014

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For 2014, Kate’s family was in Denver again. We exchanged gifts. I got some great stuff, but the only thing I needed was London by our side, healthy, and off oxygen. That is exactly what we got and it was the best gift I have ever received.

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My beauties on Christmas morning.