For me, all was happy cell-phone calls and merry e-mail. I've always been fond of occasions that force people to talk to me nicely whether they want to or not. By those standards, this was the preeminent moment of my life. One e-mail, from someone with whom I hadn't been in touch lately, said, "We love you and we love your baby!" Now that was how people should talk to me, I thought. I was a man now and I'd earned respect the hard way, so I definitely deserved a nap.
After forty-eight hours in the hospital, Regina was up and lurching about. Elijah hadn't malfunctioned. I have no idea when it's appropriate for the father to leave the hospital, but I knew that I'd be of much greater use to my family if I got a good night's sleep in my own bed. Regina didn't protest much. "I'd rather have you refreshed and helpful than grumpy and insane," she said.
I picked Hercules up from the neighbor's and let him give me a big long stinky slurp, while I said things like "You've got a new wittle baby brother, yes you do, yes you do..." The house was empty and quiet. I sat in my blue easy chair and reveled in my domain while watching Turner Classic Movies. I made myself a cup of peppermint tea. I took a bubble bath. I treated myself so well you'd think I'd just given birth. By ten p.m., I was in bed with the dog, fresh cotton sheets, and a genre novel. This would be the most peaceful night of my life.
At midnight, the phone rang.
"The nurses are in here," Regina said.
"OK."
"They say he's lost weight."
"That's normal. He's a huge baby."
"They want to supplement with formula."
"Ridiculous. Just tell them no."
We'd done some reading that said formula, while containing all necessary nutrients, didn't have the same disease-blocking attributes as mother's milk. Regina was determined to make Elijah the world's healthiest child.
"They're going to do it unless our pediatrician tells them otherwise," she said. "And he's out of town."
"Oh."
"It's gonna hurt his immune system," she said.
"One dose of formula is going to hurt his immune system?"
"What should I do?"
This was a snap decision that required wisdom I didn't possess. I tried to think of a smart Jewish man from history, like Solomon, and what he would advise. Let's see. Offer to cut the baby in two, and the person who protested the loudest would ... that one didn't work.
"I'm not sure."
Thus, Elijah got supplement he didn't need, and we'd once again learned that the whole point of the world was to unintentionally conspire against its inhabitants. Everyone else, the postpartum nurses at St. David's Memorial Hospital in particular, was trying to destroy our family. For that last twenty-four hours Regina was in the hospital, they became our enemy. First they made our healthy child eat out of a formula tube. Then they said they wouldn't let us check out of the hospital unless we agreed to take him to the pediatrician the next day. After we agreed, they still wouldn't let us check out, because we'd forgotten to record the last time Elijah had urinated.
Amazingly, he did pee, and the next morning, we drove to our pediatrician's office. We'd chosen a nice guy named Rivas, who was about our age. It was sobering to realize that doctors were no longer older authority figures. Rivas bounced into the room.
"How are we all feeling?"
At that moment, I felt about as mentally sharp as a mushroom, but I said, "Fine."
"He didn't mean you," Regina said.
"Right."
We laid Elijah on a cushioned table. Rivas leaned over him.
"Why are you here again?"
"The nurses told us to come," said Regina.
"This child is healthy. I'll see you in three months."
Now, with other health issues out of the way, circumcision loomed. More than two years later, we learned about a guy from Houston called "Max the Mohel," a pediatrician from Houston who performs pretty much every bris in Texas. Since the vast majority of these ceremonies occur within three hours from his home, that's not quite as big a challenge as it sounds. We didn't learn about Max the Mohel in time, but we wouldn't have used him even if we had. Strangely, my parents didn't want a bris. All they cared about was the surgery. It's not like we knew anyone in town to attend a bris anyway; we'd only been living there two months. Also, perhaps I mentioned earlier that Regina didn't want it done at all.
Our pediatrician refused to perform the operation. He recommended a urologist to us. Eight days after Elijah was born, we went to the urologist's office. This is how it works, he said. He would put Elijah on a board and strap down his hands and feet. Then he'd slide a metal ring over the top of the penis, which would cut off the circulation to the foreskin and gradually kill the nerve endings. Over the next week, the foreskin would gradually turn black, and then it would rot off, and then Elijah would be permanently connected to his ancestors.
When Regina called about the procedure, they told her that the doctor used topical anesthetic. That made her feel a little better. When we were actually in the doctor's office, we asked him about that.
"Of course we don't use topical anesthetic," he said. "Everyone knows that stuff doesn't work."
We wouldn't put our son through pain without anesthetic! But by then, it was too late. The doctor took our baby from us and told us to wait in the hall. A few minutes after the procedure, he said, he'd let Regina in to nurse. I went into the waiting room, sat with a six-month-old issue of Sports Illustrated, and tried to remember a time when I wasn't an adult.
Regina and Elijah came out. He was screaming. She was bawling.
"Babe..."
"Let's just go!"
And so I drove us home, which was strange enough considering that Regina usually does all the driving, but even stranger because my newborn son was in the backseat howling because someone had just lopped off the tip of his penis, and my wife was holding him, weeping as though her soul was being ripped from her body, and my heart and throat and face felt clogged with sorrow and grief and mucus and shame, and I could barely see the road through a film of tears and I thought, Oh, this is just fucking great.
About an hour later, my parents, who had since returned to Phoenix, called to see how Elijah was doing, both on the line at the same time.
"How's Elijah?" my mother asked.
"He's asleep. He cried a lot."
"He'll be fine. It didn't hurt at all."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
From the book: "Alternadad" by Neal Pollack. Copyright (c) 2007 by Neal Pollack. Published by arrangement with Pantheon Books, a division of Random House Inc.About the writer
Neal Pollack's is the author of "Never Mind The Pollacks" and "The Neal Pollack Anthology Of American Literature." His most recent book is "Alternadad," released in January 2007.
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