Commentary: The day we became parents

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As I’ve documented in this space, my wife, Laura, and I recently became parents. Josephine was born as a healthy — if not a little skeptical — baby on January 31. Josephine is our first daughter, so we are doing a lot of “learning on the job.” I took about a month of (mostly) uninterrupted paternal leave from my law firm. Laura took three months, so she has been taking on a larger role of the child-rearing duties lately. I’ve quickly learned that the stresses and demands of my job as a corporate M&A attorney pale in comparison to taking care of a newborn.

For the most part, Josephine has been a pretty good baby (I just literally knocked on wood, and I ask you to do the same for our benefit). Of course, we deal with all of the normal difficulties that new parents face — getting up in the middle of the night to feed her, trying (often without success) to soothe her when she gets grumpy and worrying about every little thing in her environment (Is the temperature too hot? Are her clothes too tight? Too loose?). But, in many important ways, she’s doing great: She’s gaining weight at a normal rate, she passed all of her early diagnostic tests and she generally sleeps well at night. All in all, we’ve felt extremely lucky, especially when comparing war stories with friends and colleagues who are also new parents.

A few days ago, karma reared its ugly head and took its revenge. It started as just another Tuesday, but it quickly devolved into a day Laura and I may never forget. What follows is an hour-by-hour account of what Laura and I now refer to the as “The Day We Became Parents.”

8 a.m.: I receive an urgent call from a colleague that a long-percolating transaction has just kicked off. We would be representing the sellers of a large international corporation to a United Kingdom-based private equity group. The nature of the transaction wasn’t unusual — this is the type of work I do on a regular basis — but the timing was extreme. The parties wanted to close within the month, which is breakneck speed for a deal of this size and complexity. But I enjoy doing deals and delivering for clients, so I told them it wouldn’t be a problem. I lined up calls for the remainder of the day.

9 a.m.: Laura wakes up to the sound of Josephine crying inconsolably. It was a rough night for both of us, as Jo didn’t sleep well and woke us up every 90 minutes. Laura’s day of near-constant breastfeeding, baby-soothing and diaper-changing was off to a rough start.

10 a.m.: Laura had a video call with her doctor, so I took over baby duty. I strap Josephine to my chest — our “Baby Bjorn” has been a lifesaver — and continue with work calls. Shortly thereafter, a client calls me, yelling about an indemnification notice he had just received. I told him it was nothing to worry about, but clients are understandably shaken when another party writes a threatening letter demanding that they pay an exorbitant ransom. I told him we would deal with it in due time. In that moment, Jo violently threw up on my chest. The client instantly felt better about his predicament.

12 p.m.: None of us (Josephine included) had the energy to cook, so we ordered salads from a restaurant down the street.

12:30 p.m.: The food arrives. The salad dressing tastes a bit off, but we can’t be picky these days. We devour the food and retreat to our respective bunkers (me, the den; Laura, the nursery).

2 p.m.: I jump on my first call for my client’s new transaction. Almost immediately, my stomach starts to violently gurgle. I also start feeling a little warm, so I go to turn off the heat. As I step out of the room, Laura almost knocks me over and runs into the bathroom. Jo is lying in her bassinet and stares at me with a bemused look. Not sure what to do, I grab the baby and head back into my office to continue my call.

2:15 p.m.: The gurgling has progressed to violent pains. I’m sweating now and feel as though I’ve developed a fever. I’m getting nauseous. I send my colleagues on the call an email letting them know that I have to drop off for an emergency. I grab Jo and run out of the den, only to find that Laura is still occupying the bathroom. I knock, and she screams at me to go away. I (carefully) run upstairs with the baby to our second bathroom.

3 p.m.: At this point, Laura and I are both violently and uncontrollably sick. Neither of us can keep any food or liquids down, and we have fully encamped in our respective bathrooms. We start passing Jo off to the least-sickest among us at any given time. Perhaps sensing something is wrong, Jo decides to start wailing. Nothing we can do consoles her. She doesn’t appear to be sick and doesn’t have a temperature. She’s just clearly unimpressed with her current level of care.

4 p.m.: Things have gotten progressively worse on all fronts. Because of COVID-19, we decide that we can’t have anyone come and help us take care of the baby. We ask a couple of friends in the neighborhood to deliver us essentials, however — Gatorade, crackers and medicine. They drop the bags on our porch, and I slowly make my way downstairs to retrieve them. We each chug a Gatorade and take Tylenol and Pepto-Bismol.

4:30 p.m.: Laura learns that breastfeeding mothers shouldn’t take Pepto-Bismol. We frantically call the pediatrician, who tells us that Laura will need to “pump and dump” her breast milk for 24 hours. Great. For every feeding, we’d now have to thaw milk, clean the bottles, etc.

5 p.m.: I’ve cancelled my work calls for the rest of the day. A new junior associate calls me and asks if I’d like him to draft a threatening letter to the salad restaurant. I laugh and say, “Are you kidding me?” After a short pause, I say, “Of course. Please have it ready by morning. They’ll pay for what they’ve done!”

5:05 p.m.: I realize that the associate may not have understood that I was joking. I send him a text to stand down on the nastygram.

6 p.m.: Laura and I somehow get Jo to sleep for an early bedtime. We slink to the bed and try to fall asleep.

12 a.m.: We again wake up to the sound of Jo crying for a feeding. At this point, she’s woken us up every 60 minutes for the past six hours. We’re drained. We have no strength left. We look like the walking dead. I use my last reserve of energy to lift her from the bassinet and carry her to the nursery. I give her a pleading look. “If we feed you now, can you sleep until morning?” In that moment, she looked me straight in the eyes and urinated on my arm.

6 a.m.: Daylight. Streaks of sun begin breaking through the blinds. Jo actually had a good three- or four-hour stretch of sleep there at the end. Laura and I had been able to keep our food down for about the same amount of time, and we were both feeling a bit better. We feed Jo, go back to bed and set our alarms for 9 a.m.

9 a.m.: The dawn of a new day. Laura and I look at each other and smile. Jo is still sleeping soundly. We both feel better. The symptoms seemed to have left as quickly as they came. More importantly, we survived what felt like our first real test as parents. It wasn’t pretty, but perhaps that’s what parenting is. One thing is for sure: I’ll never force Jo to eat a salad.