The Secret Language of Baby Gear

Here are a few things we have learned after our first baby.

1. Buy a Madela pump. It will be more expensive but it is worth every cent. We had a Lansinoh brand pump and it broke. It also wasn't nearly as good as the Madela. The Madela does the job quicker, less painfully, and is much more portable. (We have the backpack model that you can plug in, put batteries in, or use in a car.)

2. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby is an essential book to read. Read it, learn it, follow it, and profit from it.

3. Lansinoh nipple cream is crack for breastfeeding mothers. Buy it, use it, love it.

4. Sleep is underrated.

5. Diapers with an indicator strip are worth the money. We find them everywhere in Japan but had a hard time finding them in the States.

6. Everyone will give you a copy of Goodnight Moon. We have at least 4.

7. You quit looking at your house as a place to live and start looking at it as a death-trap. Too many cords, too many sharp corners, and not enough soft spaces.

8. We are using Dr. Brown's bottles and yes they are a pain in the ass and yes our baby does not have colic. Don't know if they are worth the trouble but they say they prevent colic.

9. Miracle Blanket. Go find it and buy it. As soon as we got it our swaddling got much better and she started sleeping much longer. Don't use the ones with velcro. The sound wakes the baby.

10. Get a changing table. We love ours.

11. Buy Soothie pacifiers. Alana wouldn't take other pacifiers but as soon as we got a Soothie near her she went to town.

12. Aimee Gown makes some great breastfeeding gowns. Kyung has two and lives in them. She uses them around the house, as pajamas, and every once in a while out on the street.

13. Watch out for Thrush. Alana got it and we used Gentian Violet and whoa baby does it ever turn your baby purple. We took pictures.

14. Buy a Stim-Mobile. Our baby started responding to it as soon as she was born. She loves it. Use black and white for the first 3 months and then change to color.

Things we've learned since we became parents.

Alana Min-Eui Tuggle was born on 5-15-09 and she has become the light of our lives. That said, the introduction of our new shining "sun" has lead us to look at some things a little differently.

1. When we were in D.C. I bought these cool little rubber ice trays. They make the perfect size ice for a great Gin & Tonic. Now we use them to cool off formula.

2. We used to have coasters all around the house so you could put down your drink with no fear of leaving a water spot. Now we have burp rags all around the house so you can catch the spew.

3. We used to use Skype to talk with our parents in America. Now we turn it on, put the laptop in front of the baby and walk away. Grandma doesn't talk to us anymore anyway and either one will start yelling if something goes wrong. Call it babysitting in the 00's.

4. A night on the town was getting drunk at the bar. Now we put the baby down at seven and get drunk on the couch.

5. Sleeping in used to be sleeping until noon. Now it is sleeping until 7am.

6. Getting milk used to mean going to the fridge. Now it means a 20 minute session with the breast pump.

7. Reading for pleasure went out the window. Now we read What to Expect When You Are Expecting, What to Expect In The First Year, You're Babies First Year, Your Fussy Baby, Happiest Baby On The Block, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby, Operating Instructions, and A New Father's Guide.

8. The last time we were around this much vomit it was after a night on the town.

9. We used to save money for great vacations. Now we save money for a great education. (Thanks Larry!)

10. Pumping used to mean going to the gym and working out. Now it has to do something with a Madela backpack, two suction cups, a hose or two, and reservoir bottles.

Switched at birth

Astroboy - Japanese comic superhero.
Alana Min-Eui Tuggle - Southern Grandmother's superhero.


Switched at birth? You decide.

Baby T Arrives

5-15-09



Baby T's birthday. We just brought forth a healthy, 7 pound-6 ounce, brown haired, long fingered and toed, baby girl with a Mike Tuggle mouth, Kyung Lah eyes, and the Erwin (or is it the Boynton) cowlick. She was born right around 9:20am in Aiiku byooin right up the street from our house in Azabu Juban. We usually walk to get there. We did take a taxi to the hospital this time. Good thing we did. By the time Kyung started feeling contractions, they were a little under 5 minutes apart.

It all started around midnight of the 15th. She came to bed and told me she had some spotting. We decided since she wasn't in pain that we would just sleep on it and see what would come of it in the morning. Well, “she” came of it. I read in bed while Kyung fell asleep, as per our pregnancy custom, and then I got up and pittered and pattered about the house for a few more hours until I was tired. That turned into 2:30 in the am. Ouch. I shut down the TV and climbed into bed.

Just a mere two hours later, she woke me. This time with pain. Her stomach hurt. It felt like she had to take a massive shit, or as she put it, “like my asshole is falling out.” I wasn't too concerned, but told her I would get up and check what the internet said about pain and spotting. Old Mister Internet said get on your horse and ride, motherfucker. Ride! So I wrote Sakamoto sensei an email and then we started calling all of his numbers. We got him just before 5am at home. “Go to the hospital. We will have the c-section today, probably in the afternoon,” he said.

We grabbed our pre-packed bag and only dithered a bit before moving it downstairs and catching a taxi. “Aiiku byooin onigashimas,” I said, and we were on the move. The driver blew threw the first red light after seeing how big Kyung's belly was and the size of the suitcase I dropped in his trunk. I heard him say a few words in Japanese, but all I could catch was, “Aka-chan,” which means “baby” in the Mother tongue of the land of the rising sun.

A quick trip up the hill, and we were here. But the doors were closed! Finally, after all of 25 seconds, the doors opened and the night watchman came out and asked us a few questions in Japanese that we couldn't answer. I pointed at Kyung, said our doctor's name, followed by the words for 4th floor, which is where I thought we were told to go off-hours. It was actually the 3rd floor but I had a 1 in 5 shot at getting it right. One floor has nothing but lockers and a cafeteria, so I didn't worry too much. Well, this guy needed our blue book of doctor visits past. I dug it out of our two bags after looking through all 9 available pockets, wondering why we couldn't be searching for it on the 4th, and wrong, floor instead of in front of the elevators while my wife was in labor. Got him the book and he got us on the elevator to the aforementioned 3rd floor.

That is when it got interesting. A nurse weighed Kyung and then took us to labor room #4. She got on the bed and I got it to looking like our place... namely by scattering things over every available horizontal surface. The iPod put out Coldplay and I took pictures to the beat.

At this point, Kyung was still telling the nurse that she wasn't having contractions because, “They don't feel like this.” She asked me to find her the 'I am pregnant in Japan but do not really speak the language' cheat sheet we got at our birthing class and proceeded to tell the nurse, “It feels like I have to poo.” But she did the first half in English and the second in Japanese since moving your bowels is covered in the 'I am pregnant in Japan but do not really speak the language' cheat sheet but a translation for “It feels like” is not to be found therein.

By this time, the pain was pretty intense. We could see the rising and falling of the contractions, or as Kyung put it, the poo-tractions, on one of the monitors. We could also see the baby's heartbeat and it was pretty steady at 143 beats per minute. I pulled out the video camera and held Kyung's hand as she breathed through the pain. Not once did she glare at the me and accusingly yell, “You did this to me!” I was very proud of her and made sure she understood that I, too, was in a lot of pain.

You see, I'd just started working out again and in that fine old Tuggle tradition, I pushed it too far the first day back. And this was actually the start of the third day, which if you have ever been one to push a lot of weight around then, you know it's not the first day that gets you. It's the ones that follow when the lactic acid really builds up and holds your protesting muscles in contraction but inflicts massive pain when you made the obviously wrongheaded decision to extend that overworked muscle. So basically, I couldn't straighten my arms today. I did back and biceps with Kyung's replacement Morgan Neil the other day. Waaaaaay too many back and bicep exercises. Well, now that you properly understand what a harrowing condition I was in and have diverted a major amount of your pity my way, we can get on with our story.

I learned quickly to only proffer one or two fingers for Kyung to encircle in her vice like grip when the roller coaster of pain started its slow climb. Too many fingers of mine in hers resulted in pops and cracks of an ugly sort. With only two within her paw, I simply experienced blood loss.

It was around this time that Kyung exclaimed, “Whoa!” and fervently grabbed for the Holy Shit nurse button. I whipped my head around to look at her. “I think my water just broke!” Damn straight it did. There was a flood of greenish yellow liquid absolutely pouring out of my once blushing bride.

“The books are wrong. They say it’s more like a trickle but I'm telling you I just had a Grey's Anatomy moment like when Dr. Bailey's water broke in the hospital and it was foush! A flood of water.” The difference was that Dr. Bailey's water was the right color. It was clear. Kyung's was more like a Mellow Yellow Slushy.

When the nurse got in the room Kyung said she thought her water just broke and the nurse pulled up her gown. I don't think Kyung saw the nurse's face but the nurse looked surprized and a little shocked.

I mean, for the first thing, Kyung wasn't even supposed to go into labor. Baby T wasn't due for another two weeks and we had just the day before gone to the doctor for our last tune up before the scheduled c-section of May 22nd. We found ourselves only a day older but a lot further on the road to becoming parents. Kyung was just going to go in on the 21st, spend the night, no food after 10pm, and boom-- have a planned surgery on Friday morning. Nope, not my wife. She likes to experience eh-ver-rhey thang. And did I mention her penchant for drama? Hence the pea soup concoction pouring out between her legs. We asked if there was anything wrong. I mean, we went to birthing class, we read What To Expect When You Are Expecting, we saw Grey's, and the water is supposed to be see-through, not earth-toned. Our nurse sort of brushed off the question and said everything was OK. She was obviously stalling for time until Sakamoto sensei showed up.

We had gotten to the hospital a little after 5 am. It was 6:30 when she spilled the St. Paddy's day shake. The doctor wouldn't get there until 7:15am. So what's a girl to do? She got on her blackberry and continued calling everyone in-between contractions. I had to document that. You see, I came to grips with her crackberry obsession long ago. It can come between us but only when it vibrates. We talked to her Mother, my Mother, my best friend Larry, one of her producers Junko Ogura, and we left a message with her brother Andy. Baby T was on the way.

When the never sleeping Sakamoto sensei arrived in blue jeans, penny loafers, and a thin yellow sweater, we both felt better. He is the OBGYN to the ex pat community of Tokyo. Every gaijin with a bun in the oven has at least heard of Dr. Sakamoto. He was educated in Japan and then got another degree at Yale, he speaks perfect English, he gives out his home phone number, he is direct in a so-not-Japanese but totally refreshing way. He is known as the “Epidural King” in a land of doctors that believe a woman needs the pain to truly prepare for birth. And he shepherded us though Kyung's scary, come out of nowhere pneumonia of just 4 weeks ago that turned into a massive sinus infection before morphing into a moderate case of Bell's Palsy.

Yup, my girl has been through the ringer in her third trimester. The first two trimesters were a breeze. Heck, we went hiking in New Zealand in the first trimester without a hiccup. So back to our doctor; We trust Dr. Sakamoto. He came in and told us the truth right off, “We will perform the c-section in the next hour. The green and yellow look to your water is disturbing. It is a sign of fetal distress. The green color means there is fecal matter in the amniotic fluid. We will get your baby out soon.”

Kyung hunched over in pain as a contraction hit and above her deep breathing and my low whimpering at what was being done to my darling digits Sakamoto asked, “Do you want an epidural now to help deal with pain?” Kyung couldn't say yes fast enough. In fact, she kept saying it so fast that he didn't catch it until she got out her third affirmation.

Within minutes Sakamoto sensei was back in the room with a tray of goodies. Kyung rolled into a ball to expose her back and practiced her “He, he, whos.” “Done,” he said after a long minute. Kyung looked up and said, “Hey that wasn't bad at all. I barely felt a thing.” Cue the smug tone, “That's because you have such a good doctor,” is what he said between a broadening smile.

The tide had turned. Kyung was in an entirely different place now. Without the pain, it was almost as if she had just finished her first cup of morning coffee; colors were brighter, music was in the air, and sunshine washed over us all. “People are crazy if they don't get an epidural,” she told me. “This is great!”

She could still see that something was going on down there by looking at the readout from the monitor, but the peaks weren't as high and all that pain, mild, by the way, according to the nurse, was washed away. I held her hand and talked nonsense until green light go. Kyung got up and walked into the operating room. I walked as close as I could to her without getting in her way but still holding her hand.

Then we entered the sterile area that does not include Pappa sans to be. She went in and I was given a hair net (check), sterile mask (check), and a brand new Large size-u slightly off-white lab coat. It reached down past my knees, seemed close to ripping at the shoulders, and was about 4 inches too short in the sleeve. Appropriately goofy looking and with nothing to do, the nice nurse pointed to a lonely looking stool resting to the right of the operating room entrance. “For you, prease.”

I sat. I waited. I watched as several people walked briskly in and out of the room. Husband, thy name is accessory. One of the new faces who was getting to talk to my wife while I waited was a Japanese man of middling height and slight build. He stopped in front of me to tell me, “Hello, I am to help Sakamoto sensei.” He smiled at me and, I believe from experience, knew that I needed a friend, “Domo arigato gozimas,” I replied and smiled back beneath my West Nile mask. He rushed off and I was left to my own again.

Inside the room not to be entered, it sounded like a party. I could hear my wife talking and laughing with Sakamoto sensei and a smattering of Japanese. My knees kept time with my inner metronome. I reread my college ring for the hundredth time and went back to cataloguing the hallway I now dubbed The Waiting Room.

Finally, a nurse in blue stepped in front of me and granted me access. Finally! I was in the room! Hidden within a flurry of activity I could hear Kyung. She was splayed out on a table but draped from her neck to her knickers in a blue sterile cloth. Dr. Sakamoto was on her right, the anesthesiologist was sitting behind her head, two nurses scurried hither and yon, while Mister “I am to help Sakamoto sensei,” was standing on a block so that he hovered several feet above his normal perch. I was given brother of the stool I had just left, but this time I got to look into the lovely eyes of my wife and hold her hand. She smiled at me. “I am so glad you are here,” she said. “I missed you. I don't want to do this without you.”

I told her I was just outside the entire time. To my utter disappointment, she did not call me McDreamy or McSteamy. Not even a McTuggle for laughs. Not once. Selfish, I tell you.

It was at this point, I heard the rib splitter (I don't know what its called but it was metal, had a crank that made noise and room when you worked it, and was on E.R. They use them to spread ribs). Kyung looked at me directly in the eye, “Do not look at the reflections in the glass in front of you. I did it once already. Don't pass out on me, Mike. Look at me.”

I only had eyes for her. No matter how much my devil brain now wanted to pull my eyes in one, and only one direction, I kept them on my beautiful wife instead of the miracle-holding glass doors of the medical cabinetry. Not to say I didn't see some shit. There was the aforementioned rib splitter, our actual child in her very first moments of harsh exposure, the strange looking blue green rope that connected her to Kyung, and finally a great big blob of placenta that looked like a cross between one of those pillows you buy at the airport that are made of an elastic material and are filled with tiny plastic balls and raw liver. Saw it. Didn't faint. One point Pappa san.

As Kyung and I talked about what was going on around us, I could tell some pretty heavy-duty shit was happening on the other side of her blue curtain. Kyung's entire body would move, shake, and jostle with whatever the two doctors were doing.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw it happening. Baby T was about to say hello. All of a sudden I could see Mister “I am to help Sakamoto sensei,” (sorry I just didn't catch his name in all the excitement) push down on my wife's very pregnant belly. Scccoooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrre! Bam! Houston we have liftoff! Result!

But I didn't let Kyung know I had seen it. I stared at her and rubbed my thumb across her hand. Sakamoto sensei clipped the cord and held her up so Kyung could see our DNA experiment in the flesh.

This was the moment, the first time Kyung was ever to see her daughter, a truly important moment in anyone's life. In that instant, I ripped my gaze from that of my wife to that of our Baby T ns she was raised above the doctor's head, held aloft with both arms like the baby cub Simba from The Lion King. In this first Kodak moment of our new family, it was then that I expected to hear Pavarotti, Freddy Mercury, Andre Bochelli, Billie Holiday, or at the very least the glass shattering falsetto of Adam Lambert rising in the air around us all. Instead, I heard her small cries that almost sounded like laughter.

You know, my Father had one thing to say to my Mother when they first laid eyes on my older brother Robert after he had been pushed, pulled, and prodded into this life. “He looks like a squirrel.” That is what my beloved Pops said forty years ago. Needless to say, I had learned from that mistake and was bound and determined not to say anything at all. It was hard. What was being held above the blue curtain was covered in a healthy dose of what Bill Murray once famously said in the movie Ghostbusters, “I've been slimed.” A poltergeist must have flown through the room and passed directly through our little girl for her to be covered so completely from head to foot in protoplasmic goo. Did I mention it was yellowish green? Sakamoto sensei held her aloft to give us proof of life, and as he did so in his blood and goo splattered doctor's outfit, a long line of yellowish gunk began to pour down our pretty girl's face and added steam as it passed her nose to loop down off her chin and started a trajectory right in the middle of my 37 year old wife's face. I was a little scared and a lot fascinated, but his decades of experience guided our doctor's hands in an arc that ended with Baby Goo T in the arms of the awaiting pediatrician.

It was over. It had worked! We had a baby. We had just seen the proof in all of its vomit colored glory. We had heard her cry, and yes, there it goes again! The belly doctors went back to work and so did I. I locked down Kyung's gaze and started talking. She talked back while poking her head up, down, to the left, and to the right trying to see what was going on behind me. I pulled a few quick looks myself but couldn't really see anything. Two people were checking and cleaning our little girl. They also seemed to be busy creating a camouflage of blue gowns to keep us from seeing our baby girl. It was working. We would get quick glimpses of arms, legs, and maybe a head, but then lickity split and they were gone. Finally, the two men without hats dancing the safety dance waltzed her over to us, extending her foot to Kyung's munchkin like fingers and said, “Oki aka-chan! Mamma san touch.” So Kyung reached out her pigmy first and second finger and brushed it against The Thing From the Bloody Lagoon before it was whisked away. Mamma san smiled and said, “We made her!”

“You can come,” said the mysterious face behind the blue mask to me.
“OK. Kyung I'm going to follow Baby T. I love you! You did an amazing job.” Then I got up in my undersized medical gown and followed those wisps of blue to the nursery. Little Baby T was splayed out on a table lightly roasting under a baby sized heat light. I just stood there in awe. That little dudette was me. She was Kyung. She was we. And she was full of surprizes. Her hair was brown, not black like Kyung's. Her fingers and toes were long like mine. Her eyes squinted in a way that was much like Kyung's but also much like any baby's. I didn't know it at the time but as Kyung would tell me over and over later in the day, this little goddess' mouth was like mine, and her hair seemed to grow in a spiral like mine or the million little “softo creams” that Kyung quaffed during her ten months of incubating this little life.

Did you know that Kyung has been violently lactose intolerant all of her life? Right up until she became pregnant. But since the day the little strip turned blue, my wife has lived in a frostily whipped Nirvana of ice cream flavored with vanilla, chocolate, green tea, and coffee. She didn't have strange cravings during this pregnancy, but she did have explorations and sacrifices. The once cherished morning coffee and the much enjoyed evening cocktail both went away for nine months... mostly. She has already placed orders at the bar for both now that Baby T is out. Anyone coming from Chicago please bring her a Gold Coast Dog and a beer.

I guess the first big surprize was that we got pregnant in the first place. Like the Network reporter she is, Kyung researched what we needed to do to get pregnant. She charted her cycle, her temperature, and knew to the day when the last bit of the pill had worn off. The stars aligned and I got that phone call all husbands love, “Come home, I'm ovulating right now!” We did it according to the book, Kyung's book that is, for two days and then I left for Alaska to help with ABC's interview of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign. We both thought, “Oh well, we'll have to try again when I get back. There is no way we got past the goalkeeper on the first kick.” Guess again. Fertile Myrtle and Manly Mike knocked it out of the park. We were both surprized. And now we had just gone through a few more. Kyung didn't expect to go into labor, she didn't expect for her water to break, she sure as Hell didn't expect it to be green, and we didn't expect to have an emergency c-section on Friday the 15th of May.

Many of those thoughts ran through my head as I stood over our little bundle of joy, but the one thought that just passed was, “Shit! I forgot to bring the permanent marker!” You see, I had planned to mark up our little girl with a Tuggle tat on her foot, under her arm, or on the nape of her neck. The leading contenders were “Baby T”, “UGA”, “Kyuggle”, “Tiggle”, “Stafford is my homie”, “Knowshon for President”, “MT+KL”, or “Property of CNNi.” I did not want to lose this precious little girl in the nursery after all the hard work that went into meeting her. As I ran through those options, the nurse who was inspecting our little girl picked up a red marker and wrote KYUNG on the bottom of her right foot and LAH on the corresponding left heel. It made me smile to see it. I already knew she was ours but having Kyung's name on her seemed to seal the deal. I started snapping pictures like the new daddy I was. I took several hundred before picking up the movie camera to document her just a little bit more. I reached out my pointer finger to touch her tiny hand and she clamped down on mine! We were holding hands and she was just 30 minutes old. I got a lump in my throat. Her hair was still looking pretty crazy and the towel behind her kept absorbing traces of the yellowish gunk that had surrounded her for months. She just laid there, barely cried, and kept holding on to the finger on my left hand. I didn't ever want to let go.

I kept expecting the nurses to shoo me away at any moment but I kept sticking around for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. And now I started to become concerned for Kyung. I hadn't seen her in way too long and I am sure she wanted to see her little baby. The next nurse that walked by got the full force of my Japanese, “Aka-chan ikemaska? Mama-san deska?” Yup, I said it, just like that. And your interpretation is probably just as good as the nurses. It is not really Japanese. I think the direct translation would be, “Can the baby go? Mama?” At that moment, I was so tired and had been such a bad student of the Japanese language that I couldn't remember how to connect the two thoughts.

I just wanted to take my baby girl to see her Mother. I wanted to put her on Kyung's chest and make sure they connect. I wanted to be with my entire family. The nurse somehow figured out my pidgin abuse of her language and told me, “Um, about 30 minutes I think.” Not the answer I wanted to hear but I couldn't remember how to ask her why and why not now so I shook my head and said, “Ima!” That means “Now!” “No, in 30 minutes I think. We do tests,” responded the nurse. I asked three other nurses and got the same answer before deciding I needed to leave our precious little girl with the big bold capitol letters proclaiming her either to be or to belong to KYUNG LAH and go see the woman whom that name belongs too.

I said goodbye to our little girl and went up to the 4th floor. Kyung was still groggy and packed in a room with 3 other couples. And by couples, I mean equally groggy Mommy, tired Daddy, and screaming Baby... 9 other human souls in that one little room. A nice thin tan sheet kept us from seeing each other, but there was nothing to stop the noise. I knew Kyung would want out of this room as soon as possible. She was tired, still a little drugged, and oh so beautiful. I got her an ice chip and she asked about our child.

I told her everything and showed her the pictures and the movie and most importantly I held her hand. “Why can't I see her?” she asked me and it broke my heart to deny her this. I gave her the same reasons the nurses had given me but they sounded bitterly hollow now.

After an eternity, our little girl did come to see us in our crowded room. Make that 12 souls in the room now. Our little girl. Our precious little girl. Kyung held her, I held her, I held them both. I took pictures, movies, and tried to paint a picture of this moment in my mind's eye. It was about this time while I was awash in the nostalgia of become a Father that Kyung looked up at me and asked a very simple question, “So, what should we name her?”

“Shit,” I thought. We have to name her. Oh the pressure.

So God was watching… and listening. We’re having a baby girl. A glorious wonderful feminine version of the two of us is growing by the minute inside Kyung’s body. Hopefully she will be intelligent, beautiful, and above all else a healthy baby girl. Our doctor said he wasn’t sure, but he sounded very very sure to me. Just think, the first female quarterback at the University of Georgia. Wow. Take a look inside my wife’s belly.