Our Road to Building a Family - Our First Visit to the ER

It's been roughly a month since the situation I'm going to recount in this blog entry took place, and to be 100% honest with you we've been on a bit of a roller coaster ever since then regarding matters relating to the Duke's health. I don't want that to alarm anyone because he's really fine, it's just that we've had an interesting few weeks and it all began the morning of Wednesday, January 28.

Our routine is such that every weekday morning my wife & I get up between 6-6:15 AM to begin our day. My wife will get her shower and get dressed whereas I'll do what's necessary to prep Duke for his day. This always involves changing his diaper into a fresh Pampers Swaddler (they come with a Sesame Street character on them; I've grown fond of talking to the character, and I end the conversation with "I'm sorry but you're about to have a very bad day..."), sometimes a fresh outfit (depending on whether or not we re-dressed him the night before), and maybe a bottle if he's feeling hungry. Pretty standard stuff in the way of infant maintenance, and his attitude is such that he's very cheerful throughout whatever processes we're involved with. He's really quite remarkable in that regard.

The morning in question, though, Duke was not his normal self. He was fussy to the point of seeming agitated. Duke is a very warm-natured lad, much like myself, but I knew as soon as I touched his forehead that he was much warmer than what he should've been. We checked his temperature (in the most invasive manner possible - sorry, son, but it had to be done) and that verified what we both feared. He had a fever in the area of 102 at that moment. We checked it again a few minutes later and it had risen to 103.

That being the case, my wife & I - being the first time parents that we are - did what first time parents are bound to do when their baby is sick, that being to completely freak out in regard to what needs to be done next.

We threw on some clothes (I think I might have been wearing jogging pants, an old t-shirt I normally do yard work in, my cold-weather vest, a baseball cap, and a pair of Crocs - hey, at least I wasn't wearing socks with the Crocs), gathered up a few supplies for Duke in one of his travel bags, bundled him up in his car seat and drove as quickly as we could to the emergency room at the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Why? Because that's what we had been told to do if he ever had any kind of urgent need, medically speaking.

My wife is somewhat familiar with the ER at RMC seeing as how she & I had been there several years prior when she thought she'd been bitten by a particularly nasty spider - turned out she had an infected hair follicle. (I will never let her live that down, ever.) When we got to the ER on this occasion we were somewhat haphazardly checked in by the staff at the admissions desk. (FYI: Patient identification wristbands that are sized for an adult DO NOT fit an infant.) We didn't have to wait long before we were taken into the triage area where Duke's vitals were taken. We then progressed on to an examination room where Duke was given a battery of tests to try and determine what was going on with him.

This experience made me realize that even though doctors and nurses can do amazing things these days thanks to medical science, the techniques they have for harvesting data from someone like Duke are rather infuriating to witness as a parent. At one point we waited outside the examination room while two nurses tried to get a blood and urine sample from him. Suffice to say when you hear your child screaming like he was then your instinct is to run to them, but we couldn't - we'd have only been in their way. I was able to get in on the act myself later on, though, as I was tasked with holding him in place while he was given a chest x-ray. As an aside to the unpleasantness we were all a part of then, I did get a kick out of hearing the imaging technician said "We're going to need a big one..." to his nurse when they tried to put a protective vest on me.

I'm going to fast forward through some things here, mainly because of the fact most of it involves the three of us sitting in an examination room that was the size of a jail cell while people in all manner of disarray wandered by the door (that part just about made me lose my mind - you know you've had an interesting day when one of your memories from it is the sight of a guy in a hospital gown carrying what could have been either a container of his own sick or possibly some kind of sample). What it all boils down to is that after having his blood drawn, urine collected, nose swabbed (to check for RSV and flu), chest x-rayed, and probably a few other things I've put out of my mind, we were told Duke likely has "something viral" and that we should give him some Child's Tylenol to help sooth the fever.

We were there from 7:30 AM until 1:30 PM, and "something viral" is the best they could tell us. That and a prescription for an antibiotic were our only genuine takeaways from the experience. (Apparently there's someone else in Walgreen's accounting system with the same name as the one Duke's biological mother gave him; hopefully that fellow understands why his insurance has been billed for a prescription of apple-flavored amoxicillin.) In the days following our little day trip to the ER, we learned from other parents that "something viral" is a common explanation for a lot of things when it comes to diagnoses that are given to children. I believe this is why doctors are said to be medical practitioners - they're still practicing because they haven't gotten it right yet.

Even though "something viral" is the only cause that could be determined for Duke's fever his initial blood work showed a few oddities for which we've had to take him back for several more blood draws and further examination. The results of those tests have been similarly inconclusive with everyone involved (as in the people making six-figures a year, who drive Range Rovers and wear Movado watches) more or less shrugging their shoulders while saying, "Well, it's probably his body's reaction to something viral."

I think I'm going to start using that myself as an excuse in everyday life.

"Robert, why didn't you come to work today?"
"Oh, it was something viral..."

"Robert, why haven't you paid the mortgage in 5 months?"
"Oh, it was something viral..."

"Robert, you caused World War 3, why would you do that?"
"Oh, it was something viral..."

My personal opinion of these additional tests aside (I know a lot of doctors and nurses mean well but I also know some of them look at a patient like Duke as if he were a living, breathing ATM machine), it goes without saying that we'll do whatever we need to do in order to insure his health. I just wish we weren't over a barrel with these suggestions from his doctors. Almost any other parent in the world could have refused those tests but we have to go along with whatever they say because of the fact that we can't do anything to jeopardize our standing in the adoption process. It is what it is - I'm just glad he's doing better.

And now we know better as well. You have to take a few lumps in going through this rookie parenting thing.

We seem to learn something new every day because he's changing every day. Duke just turned four months old last week. He's to a point now where he's picking up on things visually more and more, and he's learning how to use his hands better. (Jill will attest to this as he's to a point where he'll reach up and grab her lovely blond hair.) One of his latest tricks is that he can raspberry rather well and he can make a very loud "smack" with his mouth. He's measuring in the area of 14-15 pounds and is a little more than 23 inches, which his pediatrician tells us puts him right in line where he should be in terms of his physical progression.

Our Road to Building a Family - Portrait Innovations? More like Portrait Hostage Negotiations!

It goes without saying that as new parents my wife and I are constantly taking pictures and video of our son, The Duke. We make great use of the fact that our cell phones are equipped with way better than average cameras - I couldn't tell you how many of him I have on my personal device but I would say it's in the area of 100 to 150 shots at this point in time. (My wife likely has 2 or 3 times as many, and I am rather scared to consider how many my mother in-law has.) That's one of the lovely aspects of digital photography as opposed to traditional film. You can take hundreds if not thousands of photos, more or less to your hearts content, because the only concern you have is whether or not your memory card is getting full. I recall when I was a kid feeling lucky if I got 24 quality exposures out of a roll of film. (Do people even remember what a roll of film looked like?)

Those pictures are all well and good but they're not the professional, keepsake kind of photos that every family has hanging around their home. This being the case, my wife decided a few weeks back that it was high time we had some pictures taken.

If it sounds like I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with joy over the idea, you wouldn't be too far off base. It's not that I didn't agree that we ought to do what we can to document Duke's life in as grand a method as possible, rather it was the frugal side of my personality taking over. (Call me cheap if you want to, I like to think of myself as being fairly skilled at stretching a dollar and that's not a bad thing.) Actually, my frugal side didn't so much take over as it did go into a screaming, riotous conniption fit seeing as how I suspected this was going to be a pricey endeavor, and that was with me having absolutely zero knowledge of what a photo shoot with a commercial vendor goes for these days.

After we'd decided to look into having pictures taken my wife booked an appointment for us with the Picture People studio at the Buy Buy Baby location in Columbia, South Carolina. I don't think either one of us took the time to investigate what the cost of their services might be at the point in time the appointment was made. Was that a mistake? Maybe, maybe not. In hindsight it likely wouldn't have mattered as they don't seem to publish their pricing online, but that fact should have been enough of a red flag for my frugal sense to start going berserk.

We wound up visiting that Buy Buy Baby before our appointment as we were in the area and needed a few supplies. Jill got some documentation from them that included a menu of sorts with packages they were currently offering. One of the lower packages was in the area of $300.

Suffice to say that frugal me had a mild stroke at the sight of that...

We canceled the appointment with the Picture People the same day in favor of looking around at other options. Low and behold, within a few days time, my wife had located a coupon for use at a competing photography studio, that being Portrait Innovations. The coupon offered a shoot with prints for around $40 - that sounded like a great deal to me when compared to the fact that the Picture People wanted the equivalent of a car payment for their services, so we set up an appointment with them.

I forget who it was that said this to us but when we told someone about the shoot and the coupon their comment was "Oh, but you know you're going to want to buy more pictures than that!" I already had it in mind that there was a possibility we might want to add a few prints but I didn't see us spending more than $60, tops, and I gave that number to my wife as a ceiling for what I saw as being a reasonable expenditure.

Those would fall into the category of famous last words.

Our photo shoot was scheduled for 11 AM on the morning of January 17. Jill's Mom was staying with us that weekend as the three of us all had the following Monday off in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. We got dressed, prepped Duke, and loaded ourselves into the car so that we could be there with time to spare.

It was around 10:35 AM when we arrived and the parking lot was rather full already by that time of day. I point that out more for the sake of describing the scene than anything else seeing as how this particular Portrait Innovations is attached to several other shops in a strip mall, so it only made sense that parking would be limited. Regardless, as we got out of the car I began to get the same feeling as I do when I have an appointment with a doctor; your appointment may be for 11 AM but what they mean is you'll be seen somewhere between 11 AM and the rapture.

When we entered the studio there appeared to be one family in the process of having photos taken and two others that were waiting to get started. The customers who were there had spread out in such a way that all the seating was taken except for one chair, which we quickly assumed possession of so as to give Duke somewhere to perch until it was our turn. I don't blame those other families for the lack of seating, I blame the business. The waiting area was big enough to have accommodated significantly more seating than what was installed. As it was, we made like a couple of horses and stood around.

By the time 11:30 rolled around the family that was already on set when we arrived had wrapped up their shoot and one of the families in front of us were roughly half way through their turn. The other family ahead of us that was still waiting to begin apparently lost their will to hang around any longer and left without saying anything to the staff. Low and behold, not five minutes passed from the point that they left to when one of the attendants came to fetch them and begin their shoot. Their loss was our gain.

We began our shoot around noon, nearly a full hour later than our appointment. Jill had told me that the plan going into this was to not only get photos of the Duke but to also have a few family portraits made, and that sounded like a fantastic idea to me. What did not sound like a fantastic idea was the photographers first pose for us as a family which would require the three of us to get on the ground.

I am 34 years old as of this writing however I will tell you that I am probably less than 10 years away from having to have some sort of procedure done to one or possibly both of my knees. I'm not immobile by any stretch of the imagination, but when you combine my joints being what they are with the fact that I'm not the most graceful of individuals anyway, you can hopefully understand why getting on the ground isn't something I often choose to do. I did it anyway because that's what was asked of me and I wanted to try my best to make the most of the situation.

The pose we wound up in had me on the ground on my left side with my right knee raised and my left arm/leg left to prop myself up. It wasn't an uncomfortable position, to be quite honest, but it became uncomfortable after my wife and Duke were added to the mix (I'm not blaming them, I'm blaming the pose!) as I wound up more or less having to support their weight with my hips and lower back. It just wasn't a good situation for my pelvis and spine, is what I'm getting at. Making matters worse were the commands of the photographer to lean in, get closer, turn your head, and keep smiling all the while even though your left femur feels like it's about to pop out of its socket. I don't know why it is photographers have to put their subjects in these odd poses - they are wholly unnatural and you can tell this in the resulting images.

We did one additional pose as a family and it was in a more traditional arrangement where my wife & I were seated on stools, holding Duke in between us. The shots we got from that pose were the best ones of the day and I would've been perfectly fine if the thing had ended there. It went on for a while longer, though, and Jill's Mom even got brought into the mix. The idea, of course, is to take as many poses as possible because then they can try to sell them to you, which brings me to the next phase of this event.

Once we were done taking photos, we sat down in front of a monitor with our photographer - a young black woman who looked to be in her early to mid 20s - to go over what we had to work with. It was then that my wife mentioned to the photog that we had a coupon; the photog more or less hushed my wife, telling her that it was only good for one pose and that we'd get a much better deal by going with one of the packages currently being offered. How much those packages were going to cost wasn't discussed at that point, though, as we first had to go through and select our favorite shots.

Remember how I mentioned earlier the fact that pricing information for packages offered by these studios isn't readily available online? Nowhere in the shop itself was there a display, menu, or any kind of signage that would clue customers in to what they'd be forking over for pictures made therein.

The pictures did look quite good for the most part, although there were a few poses (such as the one of us on the floor) that just looked weird. Once we had it narrowed down to somewhere in the area of 16 poses the photog navigated through her software to the sales module and we finally got an idea of what we were looking at in terms of cost.

The first package she showed us was $554.

FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR DOLLARS.

To put that into perspective, when I was still making payments on my truck they were $250 a month, and when we were renting a house after we got married the rent payment was $525 a month.

I think she was joking but the photog turned to me after the total charge for that package was displayed on the screen and said, "So, Dad, do you want to write a check for that today?" Joking or not, the disgust on my face and in my tone of voice was very real.

I should mention that the packages I speak of are set up in such a way that you have to buy a certain number of photos featuring a specific set of poses in order to get freebies. For example, you might select 12 poses which would qualify you for a free hardcover book, two softcover books, and a CD with all the photos burned onto it. The more poses you select the more freebies you get, and the fewer poses you select the fewer freebies you get. This whole deal is, of course, meant to make customers feel like they're getting a deal when in reality you're paying for every one of the freebies. I have no method of verifying this but I would hazard a guess and say that the photogs (who double as sales staff) are more than likely working off of commission.

We then went through the process of whittling down our selection so that we could try to get to a price point that wasn't quite so ridiculous. For me, this became like what happened last year when I took my truck in for service to get the brakes done. What I thought was going to be a $200 bill wound up being almost $600. In this instance, what I thought would be a $60 bill wound up being $100 (the package we picked was around $200 and, thankfully, Jill's Mom was generous enough to pay half of the total). We paid our due, left to have lunch (it was roughly 1:30 PM by then, and I was feeling every bit of it since the only thing I'd had to eat thus far that day was a fiber bar), then came back about an hour and a half later to pick up our photos.

I made a comment about our experience on Facebook and a friend of our family chimed in with the comment, "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt." Along those lines, the lesson I take away from this is that it's all a part of being a parent. Sure, the pictures are good and we'll undoubtedly treasure them for as long as we can, but this is one of those times we'll look back on in 10, 15, 20 years and say "Do you remember how silly this day was?" Then we'll see the pictures with that little boy and his perfectly round head, and the money won't matter. The standing around won't matter. The pain in my knees won't matter. What matters is that we have a family and we did this together as a family.

Our Road to Building a Family - 10 Things I've Learned from "The Duke"

I will be upfront in saying that with this list I'm ripping off my wife's recent post over at her blog, The Truesdale Times, wherein she discussed 10 things she's learned from the time we've had thus far with our foster/hopefully adoptive child, who will be known in these parts until further notice simply as The Duke.

10) I don't know what we would do without family & friends

I pointed out in my previous submission to this blog series the fact that my wife & I had absolutely nothing in our home that would make it a suitable dwelling for a newborn when we got the call about The Duke being available. As a matter of fact, we had gone to great lengths to prepare our home for older children as we never anticipated we'd have the opportunity to potentially adopt a baby. Everything we were told in the training sessions we were required to sit through before we could be approved as adoptive/foster parents lead us to believe we had a better shot at finding a four leaf clover, getting struck by lightning, and winning the lottery all in the same day than of getting a baby.

That said, I don't know where we'd be if not for donations and gifts from the people we're lucky enough to have as family and friends. What most couples prepare for over the course of 9 months we did in a matter of hours, but only because we are surrounded by people who love us and who were willing to participate in The Duke's life. To anyone who helped us in any way, shape, or form, we can never say thank you enough!

9) Uninterrupted periods of sleep don't exist

I have to say that this has not been so much a learning experience for me as it has been for my wife.

Before The Duke came along I would typically get in bed around 10:30 PM, watch a little TV, and finally conk out by 11:30 or midnight. I drink a fair amount of water in the evening, and as a result I have to get up usually once or twice a night to relieve myself. (Too much information? Probably, but we're not done yet with the subject of bodily excretions in this blog entry, not by a long shot!) As such, I'm somewhat accustomed to having to put myself back to sleep every night after an interruption. The biggest difference now is that the "interruption" has to be fed, have his diaper changed, and then settled back into his own slumber before I/we go back to Dreamland.

The Duke is in a pattern of becoming needy about once every 3 to 3 and a half hours. So long as we time it right even with having to tend to him we can still get a good 6 or 7 hours of sleep per night, which is about what I was getting before.

8) Burping is not only necessary, it's encouraged

If you consider how newborns receive sustenance, you'll quickly realize why it is that they need to burp. They're on a liquid diet and they're going to wind up swallowing air. That air can be quite painful once it's trapped in their tiny bellies. Their little bodies aren't finely tuned enough to be able to bust out a burp as needed, so they need some assistance in the form of a pat on the back.

That said, The Duke burps like a grown man. He has all the power and volume behind his belches that I do, which is saying something seeing as how I've got roughly 34 more years of experience in the matter than he does. I'm sure that as he grows up he'll continue to hone these skills so that he's ready to vocalize a proper burp - because being able to throw a lighthearted jab at one of your buddies through a burp is part of what being a man is all about.

7) Baby formula is ridiculously expensive

We noticed that when The Duke was on a traditional formula after we first brought him home that it appeared to be going straight through him, meaning he wasn't getting the nutrition he needed. After talking to his doctor, we switched him to a soy-based product and he's really taken to it. He was a little over 6 pounds when he was born but I would say he's closer to 8 by this point in time.

I will admit that I had never looked at formula prices before now - all I can say about the matter is holy crap, why is this stuff so expensive?! It's just a powdered mix, how can it cost that much? Are soybeans on some kind of endangered species list? You'd think he was drinking something derived from a rare earth metal. And it's not like the stuff is packaged in a glass vial that was shaped by a master craftsman then scrubbed and polished by hand. It's a can for crying out loud!

Of course I say that even though when I was still working out regularly I used to pay $20 or more for a tub of protein powder. I guess that was different seeing as how I might take one or two doses a day versus him who's taking 7 or 8 per day.

6) Daycare is ridiculous

Up until now I had only heard stories of how daycare operations are so overcrowded that many have waiting lists and that if or when you do get approval for entrance into one the costs can be staggering. Suffice to say that we can verify both of those presumptions as being factual.

5) Baby poop is a horrific example of the sort of material our bodies can produce

I discussed formula earlier in this entry and I also mentioned how The Duke is on a soy-based formula. It still baffles me, to a degree, how a person like him can ingest what is a liquid (albeit one that is certainly loaded with vegetable fiber) and then poop what is most certainly a solid. It went in one end as a fluid but it came out the other end as this oddly chunky, not quite mustard yellow but not quite beige colored matter the odor of which is somewhere between rotting animal carcass and construction site port-a-potty.

It's a visual and smell that I wasn't necessarily prepared to have to deal with. I haven't gone so far as to invest in a HAZMAT suit but I am considering purchasing one of those inclosures with the rubber gloves in them - you know, like the type you see in monster movies where a scientist needs to examine a specimen but doesn't want to touch it for fear of contamination? I may have to run a ventilation line but that's alright.

4) When it comes to interpreting the needs of a baby, science has failed us

The Duke is a grunter. As in when he makes his presence known it's not through a coo or some kind of gentle sound, it's through a "HNNNNNGH!" or a "WUUUURGH!" When he starts to grunting you can safely bet that in short order he's going to need either a bottle or a fresh diaper.

That said, our boy isn't a particularly fussy baby however there have been times where he'll cry and we have no idea what his need in that moment actually is. Are you hungry? Here's a bottle. Wait, why are you still crying? Your diaper is full? Okay, lets change it - wait, I did what I thought you needed, why are you crying now? You don't like being naked and it's chilly in the house? Well why didn't you say that to begin with?

I'm shocked there isn't some kind of gadget out there that can accurately predict what it is that a baby like The Duke needs when he begins to sound off about a given displeasure he's experiencing. I don't know what a device like that would cost but I would be willing to at least consider buying it if it existed. It would seem to be a more worthwhile product than a lot of the other seemingly useless and/or limited baby tech that's out there.

3) Babies require roughly the same amount of gear as is needed for a military deployment

Speaking of baby tech, I am dumbfounded at the volume of gear that is available these days for parents to equip and accessorize their baby. I can only compare it to the cellular phone industry in that there exists this insane, fanatical culture centered around outfitting today's children with stuff that they don't know they have and would more than likely be just as well without. What's worse is the fact that to the modern parent all of it is apparently necessary, although I would say that aspect has more to do with Mom and/or Dad wanting to maintain a particular social status level through ownership of a certain stroller, car seat, or what have you than it does with serving the needs of the child.

There are things in my house right now because of The Duke that I have no idea what they do (some of which I have no desire to learn what they do) or that I could do without because I already had a device or process that accomplished the same task. Case in point, after we brought home The Duke I bought a lidded trash can (with the little step you can press to raise the lid) and a pack of stick-on air deodorizers thinking that would be an adequate containment unit for diapers and other waste. All totaled, it cost about $11. Was it sufficient?

Someone gave us one of these things, a Diaper Genie by Playtex.

If you've ever seen the bio-hazard disposal boxes mounted on the wall of a hospital or doctor's office examination room, this is essentially the same thing only instead of needles and bloody gauze this is for poopie diapers. Depending on what model you opt for, these things will set you back anywhere from $30-$40. The kicker, though, is that it doesn't use ordinary trash bags - instead it uses a cartridge pre-loaded with a sleeve of plastic that you must cut and tie off as needed. How long will the cartridge last? Who knows but refills of these cartridges cost $7 a pop!

So, just to re-cap where we stand with my trash can versus the Diaper Genie...

My Trash Can:
- Initial investment: $11
- Recurring costs:
     * $30 for 1,000 trash bags purchased from buying club
     * $3 per pack of deodorizer inserts

Diaper Genie:
- Initial investment: $35 (I split the difference)
- Recurring costs:
     * $7 per cartridge

If you do the math, the trash can wins handily in terms of cost of ownership over the lifetime of the device. Plus, who's to say manufacturing of the refills doesn't up and stop or that a new & improved model won't come out leaving you with no way to wrangle the poopie diapers? You're left with a gun for which no one is making bullets and that's not a good thing. Also, you can continue using the trash can well into the future either in the child's room or somewhere else in the house. At some point the child won't be in diapers anymore - what will you do with the Diaper Genie then? You might have gotten your money's worth out of it by then and I guess you could hold onto it until you're wearing Depends. The latter option is a personal choice and not one I'm ready to make right just yet.

2) Stores specializing in baby gear are oddly terrifying

My wife & I went to a Buy Buy Baby location last weekend in Columbia, South Carolina. (As it turns out, BBB is a sister store to Bed Bath & Beyond - whoever owns these things has some affinity for the letter B apparently.) It was the first time I'd ever set foot inside a store that sold nothing but baby products. To say that I had a hard time digesting the entirety of the thing would be an understatement.

Why? I can't hammer it down to be totally honest with you. I guess I assumed that babies weren't so complicated that the breadth of offerings in a store like that one would be as vast as they are. Sure, a lot of it is worthless stuff that people buy because they can, but I couldn't get over how it is that all of those products exist. Because if they exist, someone bought them and uses them. Babies have gotten along for a very long time without things like the Pee Pee Teepee (I'm pursuing a patent on a rival product right now, which I'm calling the Tinkle Tent), but there's a Mom or a Dad out there right now that won't change their son's diaper without it because they're mortified at the thought he might score a head shot on one of them with a well-timed stream of whiz.

1) Priorities

There was an indie professional wrestling event last Sunday (November 2) in Cayce, SC promoted by a company called WrestleForce which I have featured previously in my Rasslin' with Redbeard YouTube show. When I'm at events like that one I typically will record the matches (provided the federation in question has voiced no opposition to my doing so) then later on I'll add them to my YouTube channel (which you can find here at this link). I don't want to toot my own horn but after that particular show I was contacted by three of the wrestlers that had performed on the show who wanted to know if I was there because they were eager to see and share footage of their matches.

I wasn't at the show. For obvious reasons.

That's not my way of saying I'll never go to another pro wrestling event; far from it, actually, as I would hope to be able to get to one or two a month even now. I had just spent the night in North Carolina the weekend before in order to attend a show in that state. Even though the building where WrestleForce runs their shows is less than 45 minutes from our house, it wouldn't be fair of me to take off two weekends in a row and leave my wife to tend to our child by herself.

Only I would use professional wrestling as an analogy for pertinent life lessons, right? It's a valid example of the fact that we're parents now and there will quite often be times where our schedules, needs, wants, and desires are going to play second fiddle to The Duke's schedule, needs, wants, and desires. Parents have to be prepared for that.

To me, sacrificing things like personal interests for the sake of being a considerate, involved parent is just one more way of showing how much you love your children. That doesn't mean giving up on your own aspirations, rather that as a parent you've got to acknowledge the responsibility that comes with the life you're charged with shaping while continuing your own life. For some that might mean not going to the movies or out to dinner as often, for others it might be that your work hours have to change or that you'll have to look at your classes to see what will be best going forward. Everyone can do it, you just have to be willing to put in the work to make it happen.

Being a Mom or Dad takes a level of maturity that a lot of people just plain don't seem to have these days, and I feel like that's why some relationships fail after children come into the picture. My wife & I aren't as young as a lot of new parents are when they bring home their first child. We're fortunate enough to have already done a lot in our lives and are fairly content with where we are emotionally and professionally. I've made the comment before that I don't have a whole lot of goals left in my life. I met a President of the United States. I've traveled abroad. I have a stable career. I was front row at a Metallica concert. I could name others but I'm sure you get the idea. Saying you've checked off a lot of items from your list of things to do isn't bad. It means I can be more in tune with allowing things to happen in my life as opposed to having to chase them as hard as I would have otherwise. It's an especially good thing now because it will allow me to enjoy being a Dad without feeling like I've got to impose my will on my wife or The Duke in order to pursue some arbitrary gain that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't matter as much as making sure that little boy grows up to be healthy and happy.