The vomit began years ago at Thanksgiving—when I began this blog. So, it is about time I share one of my favorite vomit stories: The one about my firstborn.
When my first daughter was just an infant, she started the night out like many other children do: A little fussy, hungry, tired, and not really wanting to go to sleep despite being 1,000% ready for it—not to mention in desperate need of it. My wife, Cindy, did what she always has magically done, she comforted our daughter, fed her, and helped her drift off to sleepy time. The apartment was calm. We were all worn out from the day. We were all ready for beddyby.
It wasn’t long before the first sounds that all parents’ hearing become attuned to: Child distress. This distress comes in many forms. It can be their child’s cry of pain. It can be the sounds of pain being inflicted by whatever. It can be many things that a parent just ‘knows’ without being able to explain it. But, it’s there. The one we were learning was the vomit sound alert—which is quickly followed by the infant wailing. Ahhh, good times…
There was that wet sort of splurting/popping sound that a baby makes when it spits up. followed by the coughing of the child as it tries to remove the excess bile and bits of whatever from its mouth. The crying is from being disrupted from the sleep it was once so happy being involved in. The parental panic of the newbies who over-worry about their first child. All of that happened in a flash like the nightstand light we turned on in order to survey the scene. It was bad. The scene was bad.
Vomit everywhere. All over the baby. On her face. In her hair. It covered her onesie. The mattress in her crib was a wading pool of puke. It was so bad. It was so much chucked up. So, we divvied up the responsibilities. Cindy handled the child. I handled the regurgitation.
At the time, we lived in an apartment complex that had a washing machine room, in another building—across the parking lot. It was cold outside. It was very late at night. I just collected the sheet (like my father had done for me all those years ago), took it to the tub, and did a quick rinse. With baby barf, there is not much of a bad smell. A quick rinse would do until the morning when the washroom was open. It would have to do.
Then, bath time.
Sarah had always enjoyed snuggling with her father while I showered her. She indeed preferred her mother’s embrace, but Sarah loved to cuddle up on my shoulder in the warm shower waters. With this in mind, we decided to give our child the most comfort we could to help calm her down. I stepped into the shower and held my crying baby girl as the warm water gently rained down upon her, while Cindy helped wash her clean—from off to the side. When all was done, and our child pacified, Cindy took our baby, wrapped her up in a nice warm towel, and prepared her (again) for bed. While Cindy prepared the baby, I prepared the crib. I cleaned and sanitized the plastic-coated mattress, put new bedding down, got other things prepared, and awaited the infant. Done. Baby back to sleep—as would soon be mom and dad.
*vomit noises*
“Again?”
Yup. Again.
We repeated the same routine: Calming our child. I cleaned the crib up. I stepped into the shower. Cindy helped clean up our baby. Cindy dried her off. I prepped the crib. Baby and parents back to sleep.
*vomit noises*
“Nooo…”
Yup. Again.
Repeat above steps. However, it was much later now. The shower was much shorter. There was not as much time-consuming cuddling (there was still cuddling. we’re not uncaring monsters. just tired parents). Crib cleaned and free of any smelly vomit bits. Everyone back to sleep.
*vomit noises*
“Where’s it all coming from?”
Just as before: Clean the baby (no shower, just a warm washcloth and lots of love). Cuddling and comforting (she really needed it). Clean crib. New sheets. Everyone to sleep.
*vomit noises*
“Oh, come on!”
Again: Clean the baby up. Cuddling. Clean crib. New… “We have no more sheets?” They had all been piled up in the tub after rinsing out the retch. “Use a towel.” “Good idea!” “Shhh! I’m trying to get her back to sleep.” Our little girl was nestled in her mother’s caring arms, doing that sort of cry-sniffle-sleep-sound thing that babies do when they’re tired and unhappy. Once again, sleep. Well, I crashed. Cindy remained mother-hyper-vigilant. I have narcolepsy. Okay? Don’t judge.
*vomit noises*
“I’m awake.”
Back into the fray.
Now, at this point, we are very concerned about many things. It is a virus or something? Is she going to be dehydrated? Where is this all coming from? It is important to remind young readers that this was all before regular, common internet in homes. Not everyone had a computer. And don’t even ask about the whole cellphone thing. Yeah, I wrote ‘cellphone’. Smartphones were not around yet.
So, we went about cleaning and preparing the living situation, again. Fortunately for us, the layout of the apartment had the front room and kitchen as a single room divided by the kitchen counter. There was a doorway that accessed the bedroom and bathroom. That doorway had a space off to one side just big enough for a crib and a chair (Cindy would sit in the chair, with her arm reaching over the crib railing, so she could touch-comfort Sarah to sleep). The bathroom door was right across from the lower half of the crib. The light from the bathroom would not awaken the baby. A perfect layout for what was to come: “William, she’s going to throw up again.”
I was in the middle of rinsing and getting things ready for the next bed-changing over when I heard the news and the prewarning wet-cough sounds. Cindy, with infant in arms, quickly moved to the bathroom and held our baby barf machine over the sink. It was another spectacular hurling. We hadn’t even cleaned Sarah up from the spew that had awakened us minutes before.
Fine.
Figuring that this might soon happen again, I got a bowl from the kitchen and handed it to my wife. I began another cleaning and prepping when… Yup, you guessed it: *vomit noises*
“Let’s just do this until it stops.” Wise counsel from my wife. I rinsed out the bowl. Wiped my daughter’s face. Then waited to be useful.
*vomit noises*
Repeat bowl rinse and wait.
*vomit noises*
Repeat bowl rinse and be patient.
*vomit noises*
Repeat bowl rinse and enjoy the interlude.
*vomit noises*
Repeat bowl… Interruption by *vomit noises*
I leaned back from the sink to witness one of the most heroic things I have ever witnessed. My wife sat there, baby still in her lap, spew streaming from said baby’s mouth, the fountain of upchuck raining down into my wife’s cupped hands. She had set her arms to support the baby and was trying to not let the mess hit the carpet to help minimize the fallout. It was magical. I was never more impressed or disgusted. Seriously.
As quickly as I could I brought the bowl over to allow my wife to dump the mostly clear gunk into the round receptacle. The strings of bile and formula… One more reason to not eat cottage cheese. ugh.
I was trying to dump and return when it happened again. On this trip, I hadn’t even left when our child started again. I assume my wife saw the understandably confused look on my face because she just quietly ordered me to, “Just hurry and dump it and get back here!” That snapped me out of my daze.
How could this all be? How could there be so much sick? Our baby was so small?
We were down to our last towel to use for bedding. All the others had been used for showers or gut soup serviettes. We had one baby outfit left that would cover up our girl. All the others had been tested for absorbency, properly rinsed, and added to the now large and wet pile in the tub. I was weary. Cindy had just once again consoled our little treasure back to lullaby land.
The mother remained vigilant as long as she could. Eventually, fatigue taking over. I was out before my head hit the pillow. Both of us restlessly waited and worried in repose about the possibility of one more…
It never came.
Almost Heroes 