The Quiet Place

I often complain about the persistent sleep deprivation that Lara and I face. Actually, it’s mostly me who does the complaining; as it turns out, it’s my superpower. Lara, to her credit, just takes the angst and uncertainty and channels that energy into study. For example, will Chamomile tea or castor oil will heal Jax’s ailment-of the week (no, and certainly no). While I have much of the overnight duty, which includes diaper doodie duty and Jax’s manacle breast milk guzzling by bottle, she must pump every three hours, each day, so she’s also up overnight. As she has explained it to me, if she does not pump or feed, her breasts will actually explode. Not my words.

In the most recent blog posts, I’ve discussed how Lara and I have been existing on mere seconds of total daily sleep. Some of you parents out there take a little pleasure in hearing this admission again because as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I woefully underestimated just how physically and psychologically demanding the care of infants can be. This is what we signed up for, right? No, we signed up for jovial television babies. You know them, they sleep throughout the night in SNOOs; need no supervision; have sweet, adorable, kitten meows for cries; and have scentless poop. That’s what WE signed up for. I place the blame for our current predicament squarely on those of you who didn’t forcibly smack the living daylights out of Lara and I when we suggested having a baby. We were such marks.

Jax is a premature birth. While he’s generally healthy as stated by pediatricians, parts of him are not completely developed. One of those things is his digestive system. Based on internet research conducted by Lara, her knowledge as a medical provider, and discussions with doctors, it appears that Jax is making a ton of gas and could have acid reflux. However, it could be something more common and well known to generations of parents as he has displayed intense crying, screaming or an expression of pain; facial discoloring, such as reddening of the face. These symptoms sound like colic but the duration isn’t quite right.

The reason why we are concerned is that cries a lot. Now, we know that this crying and carrying on thing is consistent with being a baby, but we weren’t sure because, again, we are accustomed to television babies. We track his sleep duration and its at the low end, about 12 hours a day and think that the reflux is making him uncomfortable, and he lets us know about it.

In prior posts, I talked about how his cries were so loud that it metaphorically made my ears bleed. Jax’s cries are so loud that I’ve legitimately starting wearing ear protection. Jaxon’s cry duration and volume have intensified in recent days, to the point where over the last few days he has lost his voice. He now sounds like a baby raptor with an injured paw looking for his mama while wondering aimlessly on a prehistoric savanna. You can hear and see this in the video below.

As a precaution, Lara and I met with a pediatrician the other day to see if what Jax was experiencing was serious. Turns out that what Jax is afflicted with being a baby.

His lost voice, while disconcerting, is common among preemies. His acid reflux is also common. To help reduce the gas, he was prescribed an infant version of Pepcid. The pediatrician mentioned that her children were also premature and had similar problems with their digestive system. She also suggested that we avoid some of the more wacky home remedies like gripe water, which is a mixture of water, various herbs, and unicorn horns. We also asked if the $1,500 SNOO could help. While she didn’t dismiss some of its benefits, she noted that it probably wouldn’t help much with his acid reflux. SNOO reviews seem to support that conclusion.

So while there are no quick fixes to his issues, we are now more confident that we didn’t break him. Again, he’s out of warranty and there are no returns. Confirming that we are doing a good job, the doctor’s office took his weight: he’s about 6 pounds, 10 ounces, a significant increase that puts him on target with the average weight for preemies at this point. He also has good musle tone, which I hope to show in a later post.

Now that everything is totally awesome, I want to give special thanks to those who supported Lara and I as we endure our time of trials and tribulations.

The Defazio family really helped us a couple of weeks ago by making chicken dinner for us and making the cutest stuffed animal for Jaxon made by daughters Oriana and Jane, respectively. Noel and Blaise had a space-themed backpack for Jax made for us based on our story of how Jax came to us, as detailed in an earlier post.

Kim Dalton, who was the first person we allowed to care for Jax by walking him God knows where, also made a chicken dinner that we quickly gobbled up.

Lara’s parents, Patrica and Bill, also stopped by the other day too see their smallest grandchild. I really appreciate the wisdom and advice that they offered, which was not just about taking care of a newborn. Lara’s parents represent a now uncommon, enduring sort of love that is expressed in every sentence they share. Even if they don’t agree on something, you learn that you mustn’t always be perfect, just loving and patient.

An old friend of mine, Leslie Suarez, stopped by to give us, I mean Lara, words of encouragement and advice. She also gave us two onesies that are large enough to put three Jaxons in them. I’m sure we’ll use them when he’s 3 years old.

Twitter – yes that Twitter. Occasionally, I say a thing about how incredibly naive I was about babies pre-baby and how overwhelmed I feel. Every reply, like button press, and retweet has helped me to feel less alone and less befuddled. Babies will befuddle you, regardless of your scholarly achievements, baby books read, or age.

I’ve been a father for six weeks. It is one of the most challenging experiences in my life. I don’t know how most parents do this, especially young ones, but I see how wrong I was about what it takes to keep it together.

— Randall M (@ranpuba) April 5, 2021

How does one co-work with a gassy, sleep deprived infant?

Wrong answers only. pic.twitter.com/656glsRAu9

— Randall M (@ranpuba) April 6, 2021

Lastly, I’d like thank the scores of you who read this long, run on sentence of a blog and show amazing support in the comments.

I now accept that one day, everything will be okay. That’s just not today or in the foreseeable future.

On other thing, Lara is working on sending out thank you and birth announcement cards. At the rate she’s writing them, expect to get your card sometime before Jaxon graduates preschool.

Again, many thanks.