Tangle - PREVIEW The Friday Edition: My thoughts on parenting and politics after 6 weeks of fatherhood.

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

A little over six weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our first child. For today’s Friday edition, I decided to take a brief break from the news to share a bit about our experience, what I learned, and how having a kid has already begun to impact some of my politics. I hope you enjoy it!This is a preview of today's special edition that is available in full and ad-free for our premium podcast subscribers. If you'd like to complete this episode and receive Sunday editions, exclusive interviews, bonus content, and more, head over to ReadTangle.com and sign up for a membership.Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up! You can also give the gift of a Tangle podcast subscription by clicking here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75 and Jon Lall. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Our logo was created by Magdalena Bokowa, Head of Partnerships and Socials.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer, Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you typically get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. Today's a little different. A little more than six weeks ago,

my wife gave birth to our first child. So I was on paternity leave. Listeners who've been around for a bit and readers know that I was off for about a month, month and a half. And a lot of people wrote in and suggested that maybe I should write a bit about my experience and ask questions about whether having a kid has changed my politics at all. A lot of interesting stuff came up.

And so I decided, yeah, you know what? I thought it would be fun to write about this, do something a little different. So today's podcast is that. It's a little bit longer. It's just a narrative story about what happened to my wife and I and our experience. And then I put my tangle hat on at the end

and share a bit about how my views maybe are starting to evolve a little bit, having kids. So I hope it's interesting. I think you'll enjoy it. It's a members only Friday post. So if you are not yet a Tangle member, you'll be able to listen to the first chunk of the podcast and then there'll be a fade out.

You'll be asked to subscribe. If you are interested in doing that, you can go to our website, reettangle.com forward slash membership and get either a podcast membership or just click the bundle to subscribe to our podcasts and our newsletter. So with that, I'm going to jump in. We were seven months pregnant when we got the news. We weren't even supposed to be there really. My wife Phoebe had gotten COVID-19 early on

in her pregnancy, so the doctors were performing extra anatomy scans just to make sure our tiny little baby boy was growing like he was supposed to be growing, and he was. The scan seemed normal. Fingers, toes, femurs, spine, brain, all there. Baby is practicing breathing, the technician kept saying in the awkward way doctors always refer to the baby as baby and not him or her or the name femur, spine, brain, all there. Baby is practicing breathing, the technician kept saying

in the awkward way doctors always refer to the baby as baby and not him or her or the name, which we were still very much keeping a secret. Baby is moving around, baby looks cozy, baby is showing off, she said. The technician left to go get the doctor who is the only one who can ever tell you anything but always comes in and says in that cheery voice,

your baby looks perfectly healthy. Then tells you to carry on with your day. And then you go get a sweet treat and a coffee and daydream about the tiny little muffin arriving and squealing and grasping your forefinger with his genuinely hard to believe they are so small hands. The wait was longer than usual. And when the knock at the door came, it wasn't the doctor, but the technician. Again, this time she introduced someone else who was shadowing the doctor

The doctor wanted another scan. She told us an image we didn't get the first time It felt normal for a beat and then came the intrusive thoughts. Why is this interesting to someone shadowing a doctor? We don't want this to be interesting. We want this to be boring. Why another scan? What's wrong? What didn't they see? Where is the doctor? We asked softball questions and she answers with rehearsed ambiguity. Oh, the baby's practicing his breathing, which makes it hard to get the right image, because in this instance we actually want him to sit still. On the screen, red and blue dots map the flow of blood through his chest and the technician keeps screenshotting it. She scans and jokes, moving the ultrasound wand across my wife's belly, assuring us that baby is an all-star. moving the ultrasound wand across my wife's belly, assuring us that Baby is an all-star.

Then, suddenly, the room fills with the audio of our baby's chest, the sound of blood swishing and whirring at 141 beats per minute. It cuts off after a few seconds. They didn't capture the audio before, why now? An intrusive thought, I tell myself, and push it away. Baby won't sit still, they joke nervously, telling us again that he's an all-star

practicing his breathing. On the screen, his diaphragm moves up and down as they try to capture still images, He won't sit still, they joke nervously, telling us again that he's an all-star practicing his breathing. On the screen, his diaphragm moves up and down as they try to capture still images but just don't get what they want. The young man shadowing the doctor and standing beside the technician points and whispers, just out of earshot, something technical about a chamber or a valve and jargon that means close to nothing to me. We're going to let you sit for a few minutes, they say, and see if he stops practicing his

breaths. They leave and we exchange a worried minutes, they say, and see if he stops practicing his breaths. They leave and we exchange a worried glance, knowing that none of this feels particularly comforting or quite right. But we're seven months pregnant now, which means we've had these intrusive thoughts a million times and we know they never connect back to reality. I tap Phoebe's belly and tell our boy to chill so the doctors can do their thing so we can go so I can get back to work and get my massage tonight. We giggle and Phoebe says a massage sounds so nice and then looks at me nervously.

I assure her it's okay. They want to get all the images they can. A couple minutes later they return. More gel on the belly, more scanning, more clicking, more whispered pointing and then they tell us they're going to give this report to the doctor but maybe just stay in this position with the belly out and gelled up in case she wants to take a look. That didn't happen last time and now my heart rate starts to increase but I fake some confidence from my wife. The technician and young man leave. A minute goes by and there's a quiet knock at the door.

It creaks open. A nurse is in the wrong room and apologizes, shuffling away. More minutes, more exchange glances, more reassuring. Finally the loud confident knock of a doctor sounds from the door and she enters before we can answer, trailed by the same young man who we were told is shadowing her today. And I hate everything about how she looks.

I hate the tightness in her face and forced smile and the focus, like she's about to do something she doesn't do every day and she knows she has to get it right. First of all, your baby looks healthy, she says in a voice that conveys the important part is coming in just a moment, but I'm seeing just a few things that concern me.

My wife grabs my hand and her other hand goes to her mouth and I feel the room lift as if it was just picked up by some great force I can't see or touch or fight and the words start falling from her mouth. I'm desperately trying to focus and hear every specific medical term, but the doctor seems slightly nervous. And as she starts to explain how a heart works,

why is she telling us how a heart works? She pauses. "'Are you medical?' she asks. "'No,' we both answer quickly and sternly, as if insisting she'd get to the point. "'Okay, sorry,' she says. "'Sometimes I start talking like this "'and then the people I'm talking to are cardiologists

"'or doctors, and I just wanted to check. I couldn't really care any less about how this sometimes goes with other patients who are medical and I stare at her in a way I hope conveys this. Basically, your baby's heart is larger than it should be, she says. Okay, I think Lance Armstrong had a big heart, a third bigger than most humans and look how he turned out.

Big heart, who cares? 20 minutes ago, before any of this was even on the radar, the doctor told us the baby's head was bigger than average. We laughed. Big heads run my family. Poor Phoebe. Big heart, what's the problem? This is often an indication of some kind of stress,

she explains. If a heart is bigger than it should be, it could mean that it's working harder than it's supposed to be, which could mean that the baby is having some trouble transferring blood between the chambers of the heart. This makes sense. Too much sense.

Okay, big heart. Not good. Definitely may be possibly a problem. She delivers this news in a brisk way that does not communicate that this might be a problem but that this usually is a problem. Phoebe starts crying. The doctor tries to keep talking calmly through it and I try to swallow my fear. I kiss Phoebe's forehead and whisper, it's going to be okay, he's okay.

And the shadow doctor sitting in the corner witnessing the now very obviously interesting thing happening today grabs a box of Kleenex and solemnly hands it to me. There are some other issues too. Some things she wanted to see on the technician scan but didn't. Some blood vessels, some connections. She uses words like Venus and pulmonary and something about quadrants or chambers or top or bottom portions, but she says if there is a problem, they can fix it. Fix it here is doing a lot of work. All I can see in my mind's eye is our child being cut open by

some surgeon and hooked up to machines and wires and struggling to breathe and I focus. Okay, I'm here. I squeeze my wife's hand and I kiss her again. I tell her it's going to be okay. I will tell her this maybe a thousand times in the next 24 hours, but right now I have the overwhelming sense that this is one of those turning points in life that I won't forget. And I'm just trying to keep from vomiting in my lap. So I'm going to take a look, the doctor says, and she asks if we are ready. A question with no right answer. Jail, belly. Phoebe looks at me as she begins in her eyes, hold a panic that I've never really seen. An hour of quiet fills the room for 45 seconds. It is the most pregnant quiet,

if you'll excuse the expression I've ever heard in my life. The baby's tiny little heart is projected onto the big screen. More screenshots, more pointing and whispering just beyond my ears periphery. His heart is structurally sound, she says, and my shoulders drop a quarter of an inch. Is that the pulmonary vein?

She asks the room out loud as if anyone but her can know and hovers her mouse over some dark blotch on the screen, circles it in yellow and saves the image. This seems good. The images keep coming. My wife's belly bounces up and down as she sobs. The doctor keeps pointing, changing angles, explaining what they are seeing

in ways we cannot come close to understanding. "'Okay,' she says, and she takes her gloves off and starts to wipe Phoebe's belly down. "'I think I'm seeing,' and I'm stuck on the word think already. The veins that I was worried about were not there, but the baby's heart is still a bit bigger than it should be.

Her lips are moving and I'm trying to focus as hard as I possibly can, but none of it makes sense. His heart is working, structurally sound, doing what it should be, but it's big and also maybe not moving the blood around properly. I hear Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, fetal echocardiogram cardiology, we'll need an appointment and we'll need it soon.

It could be nothing, just an abnormal size heart, she says in a way that doesn't inspire confidence, or it could be something that needs to be fixed. Fixed, that word again. That's a word that I know does not imply ibuprofen in water and rest. It means scalpel and flesh and a thumb sized heart having its flaps cut and stitched and held together

inside the four inch cavity that is my son's fetal chest. Do you have any questions? She asks, any questions? Five minutes ago, I was thinking about the two hour massage I had scheduled for myself tonight as a celebration of surviving the workload of the 2024 presidential election. And now you're asking me if I have any questions about my baby's enlarged heart

that might not be working anymore and might need fixing. Yes, I have some questions. I have a million questions. Let's start with how this could be maybe. What is this? And did we give it to him and will he need surgery? And when will we know? And how do we get this fucking appointment today? And what are the odds What is this? And did we give it to him and will he need surgery? And when will we know? And how do we get this fucking appointment today?

And what are the odds this is nothing? And what are the odds this is something? And are you more confident now that you've had a look or less confident? So his heart is too big. I feel the words fall out of my mouth. The least helpful question I could possibly ask. And that could mean it's stressed, I say.

I'm trying to get her to explain to me what I'm looking at and what we know, but the distance between her expertise and my layman's knowledge is an ocean neither of us has the time to cross. Yes, his heart is bigger than it should be and that could mean it's working too hard. So we want to know why.

She apologizes. She knows this is scary and not the thing we want to hear, but we have left her world and entered another. A cardiologist really needs to look at this, she explains. And so we need to go to cardiology, to see the experts, to take another look, to figure out what's happening. She leaves the room and my wife and I both unfurl, weeping and sobbing and falling into each other.

I promise her over and over again, it's going to be okay. Even though we just left our world and walked into some dark misty forest full of horrors we don't know or understand. And it was in that moment, full of fear and angst and desperation to help my son, that I really felt the weight of being a dad for the first time. And it was in that moment, full of fear and angst and desperation to help my son, that I really felt the weight of being a father for the first time.

Phoebe and I gathered ourselves and left the office, trying to put on straight faces for the other expectant parents in the waiting room we did not want to scare. We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at BedMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette

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or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Our baby's heart ended up being fine. It took the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, CHOP's best cardiologist to determine and deliver

the reassuring news, but it was unambiguous. In fact, due to a mix up at the office, two cardiologists reviewed our files separately, both thinking we were their patients for the day, and both came to the same conclusion. His heart was not a malady, but merely generous in size, as one cardiologist put it, words that made me collapse into the table

and weep again, this time in relief. The 72 hours between our first appointment and the one at shop were the longest three days of my life. The scare was a reminder in stark bold print of just how tenuous life really is. And that really is pregnancy in a nutshell. The most incredible thing is that any of this ever works at all.

The truly mind boggling heart stopping miracle is the way a human just grows inside another human. For 10 months, Phoebe cooked this thing up inside her body, one millimeter of a toe or an eyeball or a heart valve at a time. We understand how it works, yes, but only to a point. So much is still shrouded in mystery from the way her diet or hormones actually impact the baby

to what allows him to survive each leap in development without any complications. And the grand finale is labor and birth. So now, before I look at my pregnancy and parenthood through the Tangle lens and get into the politics of it all, I'd like to just tell you our story. And I'll say clearly and for the record to preempt the questions that, yes, I penned this piece with my wife's consent, though of course her perspective on all of this is different and distinct. If you want to hear that first person perspective, you should go listen to our third annual Valentine's

Day podcast. Phoebe might be the most popular guest I've ever had on the show. In the movies, having a baby is pretty simple. A woman's water breaks in dramatic fashion, the husband snaps into action, they rush to the hospital, nurses storm the room, a baby pops out, dad cuts the cord and everyone starts crying and hugging. The real thing is a lot different. This was my first child. So Phoebe and I went to a birthing class for a crash course on what to expect. We, I, learned a lot in the class. We learned that labor is called labor because it is laborious and that it can sometimes

last days or even weeks. We learned that the contractions can start and continue for hours or days around your due date and then mysteriously disappear or accelerate without warning. We learned that contractions are not all equal. We learned that labor does not always start with water breaking. In fact, that's rarely how labor starts. For many women, labor will go on for hours before the water breaks or the water never breaks at all or needs to be broken in the hospital. We also learned a lot about the hospital setting and the ways in which it can limit more natural elements of labor. Primarily, we learned about how movement during labor is critical and how giving birth on all fours or in a side-lying

position can limit tearing and trauma for the mother rather than giving birth on your back as is standard in the United States. Phoebe and I were wholly convinced by the evidence presented in our birthing class and in part due to our desire to keep Phoebe moving through labor and Phoebe's fear of not being able to feel her body during labor, we committed to an unmedicated all fours birth

at the hospital. We also hired a doula to guide us on the journey, a commitment I was slightly skeptical of in the beginning, but cannot recommend strongly enough now to those fortunate enough to have the means or to those who live in one of the states that offer doula services through Medicaid or Medicare. Our baby boy, Omri Fuller-Saul for inquiring minds,

was due on January 12th. We spent most of the week leading up to that due date, sitting around staring at each other, convinced he was coming any moment, overreacting to every little cramp and kick and movement. When his actual due date sitting around staring at each other, convinced he was coming any moment, overreacting to every little cramp and kick and movement. When his actual due date arrived and nothing had really changed besides the size of Phoebe's belly, we decided that sitting around

and stressing about his arrival wasn't helping us. So we opened our house to friends, committed to getting outside a few times each day and did all the tricks known to man to invite him into the world. Curb walking and red raspberry leaf tea, six dates a day, evening primrose oil, and even a mason jar full of water under a frozen full moon. What can I say?

We were desperate. On Saturday, January 18, Phoebe started getting contractions. They were light but consistent, and we thought maybe the party was starting. But in the afternoon, they started to subside. Coincidentally or unfortunately, or maybe hilar hilariously depending on who you are, my Washington commanders were playing in a huge playoff game on Saturday night. My commander fandom is religious as well as torturous. After 33 years of watching them descend to the realms of the worst franchises in sports, they embarked on a

miraculous turnaround over the last year. Since their last Super Bowl win was the last year I was born, and the turnaround began with the drafting of our franchise quarterback the same month Phoebe became pregnant, I've used that coincidence to claim that Omri was the curse breaker, the prophet risen, the omen for a bright football future. So, naturally, I was adamant about getting to witness the team's rise from the ashes. Phoebe, being the understanding person she is, consented to me watching the game but banned football in the house, wanting to relax without my yelling and hollering, so my dad

and I huddled up for the game at a bar next door to our apartment. In the first of the weekend's miracles, the commanders pulled off a truly stunning upset of the Detroit Lions in Detroit, sending me into a manic tizzy of joy, a sporting fandom high I had never experienced. In between embraces with my dad and high-fiving strangers in the bar, Eagles fans were quite happy too, we just got them home field advantage in Philadelphia. Phoebe texted me to ask how the game was going, and we had the following exchange. This might be happening, I said. We just got another interception. I can't explain to you what's happening. Well, she said, this baby might be happening, I said. We just got another interception. I can't explain to you what's happening.

Well, she said, this baby might be happening too. We'll be right back after this quick break. I said goodbye to my dad and ran home, finding her on the couch, counting the minutes between contractions. She was listening to her body and told me calmly that this was about to get real. I was a few drinks deep,

had just witnessed my all time favorite sports team defy all the doubters and odds, and was now hearing my wife tell me our baby boy was on his way. So naturally I started to cry again. seemed defy all the doubters and odds, and was now hearing my wife tell me our baby boy was on his way. So naturally I started to cry again. Phoebe held my head and laughed at my absurdity. The contractions were about 20 minutes apart

and still bearable. The advice we had gotten for this part of labor was to relax, rest, drink water, prepare for the marathon, sleep if you can. So we followed everyone's advice and went to bed. The contractions continued through the night and started getting a little more intense and then they lasted the entire day on Sunday. Phoebe stayed calm, doing her exercises and breathing through each wave of contractions, but it felt to me like things were speeding up. That night while we were watching TV, Phoebe,

lying on the couch, yelped and shot up like she'd been electrocuted. Oh my God, she said, I think my water just broke. Sure enough, as she turned to run to the bathroom, I saw wet stains appearing on her sweatpants. Water breaking is one of the first tests of pregnancy that can determine the route of your birth plan. It's a good thing if this happens on its own because it reduces the odds you might need

a form of induction at the hospital. But specific cases of water breaks are alarming. We got one of those cases. Phoebe's amniotic fluid was a greenish brown color, which means there was something called meconium in the fluid. Meconium is the first kind of poop that babies make, typically once they are born. When it is in the amniotic fluid,

it means the baby might have already pooped in the womb, which is one of the early signs of baby distress we were taught to look out for. We exchanged now common nervous look and texted our doula. She said she was packing her bags to head over and suggested we hang tight and not worry too much. We could discuss options together when she arrived at our house.

Not long after Phoebe's water broke, the contractions intensified. For a few hours, every time a contraction came, she let out a deep breath and start a timer. Now though, she let out a deep moan or grumble, breathing through them, talking to the baby, just as she was taught in our birthing class. This continued into the night, past midnight, as Ardula and I looked on. Phoebe spent much of the evening on a yoga mat in our room or in our bed,

and I stayed by her side most of the night, with the exception of a brief nap, holding her hands and bringing her water after each contraction. Around 2 a.m., Ar doula came downstairs to wake me up and take a nap of her own, and I watched as Phoebe seemed to move from early labor to active labor before my eyes. The contractions, in effect, became more and more difficult to bear,

and the sounds Phoebe was making each time they came on changed, too. There were times she went from controlled breaths and groaning to outright yelling or sometimes whimpering in pain. She broke into a sweat and needed to take off her shirt. Then would get cold and needed to be wrapped in a blanket. She started the night with total confidence

but as 3 a.m. approached, she began questioning aloud whether she could do this or not. I assured her that she could, she believed that she could and deep in my stomach, I wanted to make it stop for her. But all I could do was sit there, hopelessly trying to apply counter pressure on her hips

or rub her back or give her water like I've been taught in our birthing class. There were moments where her pain seemed intolerable and then she'd regain control, will the baby forward and steady herself through it. After some time downstairs, our doula came back into the bedroom where Phoebe had been laboring.

By now it was around 4 a.m. in the morning, nearly eight hours since her water broke. Eight hours of contractions every few minutes, each wave enough to stop someone in their tracks, and each time the baby's body descending another imperceptible fraction of an inch downward. Like me, the doula sensed a change in Phoebe and she suspected things were progressing. We could check her cervix here at home, she explained, and decide whether we need to start preparing for a home birth or we could go get the car and head to the hospital. At the words home birth, I quickly left the room, began packing our bags and searching for the keys, then frantically ran out to our car, scraped all the ice and snow off

it that I could, and pulled it around to the front of the house. When I opened the front door, Phoebe was squatting in the hallway, in the middle of a contraction, trying to bear through it. We put her in the car and drove a few minutes to Pennsylvania Hospital. Phoebe was walking to the entrance when a contraction hit and she had to pause in the street for a minute as it passed through her.

A security guard looking on suggested we named the baby after him as she waddled up to the fifth floor. She went through the intake and was told she was six centimeters dilated, a number we wish was higher. And as the contractions kept coming, we were moved into a labor and delivery room.

The transition from home to hospital is tough, but Pency, as it's known colloquially here in Philly, is about as good as it can get. We were under the care of a midwife in a room with a large bathroom, shower, birth ball, and even handlebars hanging from the ceiling that Phoebe could use to hang onto and stretch out with during contractions.

The midwife on call came in and looked at Phoebe, sitting on a birth ball, cussing, screaming, and seemingly trying to break my hands. And she said, she looks like she's got this under control. I'll see you guys in a little bit. It's hard to capture the way time unfolded during this period. Some combination of the sleep deprivation,

the surreal nature of what was happening, the fear, the excitement, the adrenaline, it made it all feel like a fever dream. But that's how it went for the next four hours. Every few minutes, a new contraction, a new sound, a new position. Phoebe moved around a lot. She sat on the birth ball and laid on the bed

and squatted on all fours in the bed and straddled the toilet and hung from the ceiling and squatted on the floor and rode the wave. Relentlessly, the contractions kept coming, minute after minute. And each time Phoebe closed her eyes, positioned herself to let the baby inch his way down, breathe through the pain, and invited him closer and closer to us.

With the intention and focus unlike anything I'd ever mustered in my own life, she labored. And with each breath, with each contraction, with each scream, our baby shifted ever so slightly down her belly through the birth canal toward the world. All right. That is it for the free preview of today's podcast. If you want to hear the full thing, the rest of the bad section and my unclear section and the important section, you can subscribe to the Tangle podcast by going to retangle.com forward slash membership and find those subscriptions

on our website. I hope you do that because I think it's worth a listen. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Duke Thomas. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Will Kavak, Gellysol and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was made by Magdalena Bikova, who is also our social media manager. The music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go check out our website at reedtangle.com.

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