Welcome to my nightmare.

Well, not exactly my nightmare actually it was my daughter.  She is 19 months old and to the best we can figure out she had her first true nightmare last night.  I went to bed at approximately 1:00AM this morning (after finishing The Departed which was fantastic), and about 25 minutes after getting into bed we hear a blood curdling scream come over the monitor from my daughters room.  Now normally if she wakes up you hear her stir around a bit making some noises before she gets frustrated, this was not the case.  She went from absolute silence to inconsolable screaming. 

I got her out of bed and we got her calmed down.  After about half an hour I put her back in bed, as soon as her head hit the pillow she immediately stood up crying with her arms outstretched for me to pick her back up.  We were up all night with her, she fell asleep for maybe an hour and a half in my wife's arms but that was it.  She refused to go back into her bed, I think we tried about 8 times.  My wife couldn't even get her to take a nap longer than about half an hour today.  She was extremely fussy throughout the day.  I finally got her to go to bed tonight around 8pm.  This is completely unusual for her.  Best we can figure it was just a nightmare.  She is in good health and when we got her up she was happy to play in the living room (even though both my wife and I could barely keep our eyes open).

Being a father has shown me challenges I never thought I would face, it has also brought me great joy.  Even today when I struggled to get through work because I was so tired and irritable I instantly forgot all of that when I got home and had her run up to me.  We play every night for an hour or two before she goes to bed.  My wife works nights and I work days so we both almost live the lives of single parents.  It's rough but I wouldn't trade any minute of it.

I'm not sure what leads me to post these blogs on the website.  Maybe it's some sort of release, I'm not sure but I do find it calming.  I read several everyday ranging from the new games coming out to people sharing both life's joys and challenges.  Some people have questioned lately some of the blog content, whether it's people trying to get more points or just trying to stay in the top 4.  I'm not about any of that.  I like reading other's stories that they post and hope that some of you can enjoy some of mine/

But then again if you don't, I won't lose any sleep over it, that is unless she has another nightmare.

Posted by mdrisk2006 @ 12:23 am EDT | Permalink | 4 Comments

A little scare

After my first blog I received some positive feedback but hadn't decided if I would ever do it again.  Later that night something a little scary happened that I thought I would share.

Late in the evening Monday night after posting my first blog about some of the challenges of being a parent my wife and experienced something a little scary.  She awoke from a dead sleep with severe abdominal pain, the pain would come in waves about every 10-15 minutes.  She is only approximately 32 weeks pregnant so naturally we were concerned that it was early labor.  She called her OB who ordered us to take her to the hospital immediately.  We had a neighbor come over to stay at the house as our daughter was sound asleep and off we went.

The nice thing about the hospital we use is that in the case of an emergency a pregnant woman is brought up immediately to the maternity ward and does not have to sit in the ER and wait to be triaged.  The doctor that did the initial diagnosis thought it was simply gas although the pain was bad enough to put my wife into tears.  She was a little ashamed at the thought that something like that could land her in the hospital.  I tried to comfort her telling her that when I was 17 I had severe abdominal pain that I mistook for gas, later that day I was rushed into an OR for an appendectomy.  Not taking any chances they put her through a barrage of tests.

The next day she was feeling much better, all the tests were negative.  Stress tests on the baby were fine, heart rate was strong.  We were finally discharged around 7:30 pm the next day.  They are insisting she have one last test after the baby is born to rule out something with the pancreas I do not remember what it was called but the test cannot be performed while she is expecting.  There was no official diagnosis given to us, and to be honest we just wanted to go home and didn't think about it until we left (common mistake of a patient).  I was asked to stay home to help her out with our daughter today to assure that my wife is doing better.

All in all everything worked out, the baby is fine, mama is fine, and dad is just a bit tired (did I mention the coffee machine in the maternity ward was broken and the cafeteria was closed).  For my clan mates that haven't seen me on in a little bit this is why.  Not that it matters from what I can see everyone is playing Crackdown, a game I don't plan on buying anyway.

Posted by mdrisk2006 @ 9:21 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

My life as I know it is over.....

I realized the other day that my life as I know it is over.....not in a bad thing at all mind you just recent changes that I never saw happening to me.  This past week my wife and I purchased a mini-van, we have one daughter and are expecting another in a couple of months.   This got me thinking how did I get here.

I was never a person that saw having children as a necessary step to having a full and complete life.  I could have been happy just being married and living out my life with my wife.  Now I am on the other side of that and I can honestly say that I could never go back.  My daughter has changed me in ways I did not think were ever possible.  Today she is 19 months old and in a couple of months we will have our second (also a girl).  I never would have imagined that I would be 31 with two kids under the age of two (albeit only for a few months).  My wife is the one that wanted kids, I am so truly grateful that she convinced me and that is a gift in which I will never be able to repay.

I wasn't ready to be a parent, but then almost overnight...I was.  People say that having kids is a life changing experience and now I can honestly agree.  This is one of the things I love about this site and the members in my clan.  Most of us are people who while we enjoy playing games and chatting with each other, games are not the most important things in our lives.  Every once in a while someone posts a blog or a forum thread explaining either a tragedy or an illness or in some cases a divorce.  I then get to see members of this site post entries of support and words of encouragement, (some of which are posted by the guy that just started the Fart Joke Thread 10 minutes before).

This has been my first blog entry....I'm not sure if I will ever do another one....but I wanted to take a few minutes to share this realization with you.  I read several blog entries a day and I just wanted to give one back so to speak for everyone to read.


Posted by mdrisk2006 @ 9:37 pm EDT | Permalink | 7 Comments