The First Diaper Change

It was about seven hours, if I remember right, after the birth of our first child when my beautiful wife noticed that our new bundle of joy had made his first little poopie. She had just underwent a Caesarean section so she was in no shape to change the little poopie so I took my new son and places him on the hospital’s changing table. My cute little baby boy looked up at me with only one eye open like poopie little pirate.

Yarrr!  Change me diaper!

As I unfastened the sides of the miniature diaper… Now let me pause for a moment. The people who call what babies do when they are born “poopie” are liars. Poopie is a cute word that implies tiny cute poops but what comes out of a newborn baby is nothing like what the name alludes to. The medical field calls it meconium. It is a thick, black tar-like substance that is clingier than a lonely guy at a singles bar. Anyway… back to the story.

Are you sure you don't want to give me your number?   My mom says I'm a real catch.

As I unfastened the sides of the diaper I quickly noticed that my baby’s diaper looked like BP had been there first. What I was looking at was something that was created in the furthest depths of hell and somehow crawled out of my child’s rear-end. It gurgled and I am quite sure I heard it say, “I have come for you.”

Above: Artist's Rendition of what was seen.

At this moment in time I quickly realized that no one has taught me how to change a diaper. I looked over at my wife who apparently had ample enough energy to get the camera and was taking snapshots of the situation at hand, laughing the entire time. She advised me to go get the nurse.

I raced out of the room to the nurse’s station and quickly alerted them there was an emergency in the room. The four nurses sprang into action and with stethoscopes flying they ran down the hall to our room. It was like a scene from ER as they darted into the room one at a time and quickly huddled around my wife who was just lying on the bed smiling and pointing at the baby. The four of them swung around and I saw their eyebrows rise as they took in the whole scene; a panicked father standing next to his naked newborn son who had kicked black snot all over himself. I must admit it wasn’t one of my finest moments.

I have learned that certain equipment is needed for this type of endeavour.

There was quite a bit of eye rolling as three of them left the room. One nurse had mercy on me and stayed to clean up the boy and put a new diaper on him, all the while lecturing me on how “we do not leave a newborn baby alone on the changing table.” She apparently did not understand the full scope of the situation. After she finished cleaning the baby, the changing table, the wall, floor and parts of me she walked out of the room shaking her head.

The only thing worst than an eye roll head shake is a facepalm.

Once the nurse had left I turned to see my wife giggling happily with camera in hand. The poor thing must have been sitting on the morphine button.

By the way, if you are wondering what happened to the pictures of this event… boy… I just don’t know…