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| Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad - My New Career as a Waste Removal Technician: Part I | | Print | |
| Written by Joeprah | |
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“I never thought that after seven years in college to finish a four-year degree that my workplace chores would include changing diapers and using a nasal aspirator. This chapter looks at how I became a stay-at-home dad and the tough choices our family made that went against the grain.” I am a stay-at-home-dad, and this is my story. All the college courses and “on-the-job training” I have endured have done little to prepare me for my adventures in parenting as a stay-at-home-dad. I remember growing up as a young boy and being asked the typical questions, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I can’t remember ever saying, “I want to use a number of moist towelettes to remove poo from a baby’s bottom.” You never think as a boy growing up, “You know what, I am going to be a dad when I grow up.” It just happens. I met my wife, Jodi, when we were 16. Yeah, I know, my name is Joe, and my wife’s name is Jodi—-fate, right? I trained her how to scoop ice cream at a Friendly’s Restaurant. She almost immediately fell head-over-heels in love with me. Although everyone in our circle of co-workers and friends knew this to be the case, I was blinded to the fact that someone could find me appealing. After some aggressive maneuvering on her part (namely, her kissing me) I got the point, and we became an item. We became best friends almost instantly, and although that alienated us from our existing group of hormonally- challenged acquaintances, we never looked back. We married at the young age of 21 (me) and 20 (her). Even today, looking back at our wedding photos is a bit of shock; we were young. We looked young, but we didn’t act young. Jodi and I worked our way through college and from apartments to finally a townhouse in Towson, Maryland. From waiting tables in college to my job as a construction supervisor (and hers as a technical assistant for an engineering firm) we had started to find our way in the job market. We were 23, and each of us had nearly attained our four-year degrees, but the strain of full-time work and college had begun to take a toll on us. My wife realized that she did not want to be a teacher after her student teaching exercise. She had nearly completed her degree and was quite sure that she had chosen the wrong career path and needed a break from college. I, too, had chosen the teaching path and had switched from English Education to English Writing in an attempt to “stop the bleeding,” as I had come to a similar realization that teaching was all wrong for me. There we were no degrees, lackluster careers with one goal in mind—we wanted to start a family. After moving up in our careers subtly over the next several months, we noticed that our attempts at conceiving were not working out. Even before we were married, we had always talked about not only having a family, but having a large family. How many kids did we want? Eight. Yeah, we wanted a lot of kids, and we were probably crazy, to some degree, as well. I think we had romanticized visions of having kids, as well as ideas based in some kind of reality. We loved kids and romantically thought about holidays together with lots of little ones and how a house felt so empty without kids running around in it; but on the flip side, we knew kids meant diapers and poop, and lots of it. So, after several months of failure, we started to become worried. We desperately wanted to find out the cause of our problems. Apparently, it is usually assumed that problems conceiving usually center around a woman’s vagina more than a man’s penis, so we began to look for a experienced GYN to help us out. Jodi’s GYN at the time was a sadistic, crazy lady, who on a recent visit during an examination had ripped a cyst off my wife’s uterus, without warning. Apparently, during that unannounced procedure, Jodi screamed at the psycho lady, and as she returned home, throbbing and bleeding, she swore never to see her again. This was an obvious harbinger; that we were not in good hands and needed to find someone more qualified to A) identify our problem and B) guide us through a pregnancy. After shopping around a couple GYN's, a new doctor was recommended to us. The new Doc had a reputation for helping many women out who were frustrated trying to conceive, and as it turned out, he was a godsend, as he expertly found the cause of our frustration; endometriosis. Secretly, I hoped that I wasn’t the one with the retardation that was holding us back, so I was almost relieved to find out that my wife had issues. (A total stupid “guy thing,” but that is just what I thought.) Jodi, up to this point in her life, had always been a needle-fearing, hospital and doctor-hating maniac. However, once Jodi knew what the problem was and that she needed a surgical procedure to correct it in order to have children; she turned into a callous model of strength in the presence of doctors, needles and beeping instruments. Jodi has always been very humble (a very attractive trait that I can only aspire to) and this is one part of her personality that she seemingly forgot about; her fear of all things doctor-related—-as she marched through blood tests and examinations leading up to and including her surgery. Our doctor announced the surgery to be a success, and we were given the “green light” to try after a few weeks. We were pregnant the following month. Stay Tuned for the Next Installment
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Comments (6)
 
I'm dying to know what caused both of you to run shrieking (figuratively, I hope) from teaching...
1
June 30, 2008
Votes: +0
Your love for your wife and your joy at becoming a father are very evident in this post. Sweet.
(See email for edits I made.) 2
May 26, 2008
Votes: +0
My hubby & I were 21 & 20 when we were married too! Some days I feel like we're the only ones that married young & made it work. Nice to hear we have good company.
Kristen 4
May 06, 2008
Votes: +0
:x I can totally relate to your experience. You're a wonderful writer Joe, and this story came from the heart. Thanks for bearing your heart in this post and sharing it with all of us. I understand how crazy OB's can be.
5
May 05, 2008
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