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As a repetory player on Saturday Night Live, Bill Hader has learned a valuable life lesson: to simply go with the flow. And when he became a first-time father to daughter Hannah Kathryn in October — in the middle of a show week nonetheless! — that lesson was put to the test.
“I honestly don’t remember doing the show,” he admitted during a recent appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. “It was just, look at the cards, read the cards … ‘What’s happening?’ It was a crazy week.”
Barely functioning and only going through the motions of the live show, Bill, 31, hadn’t anticipated the extreme exhaustion that accompanies life with a newborn.
“I literally had not slept for five days. Everyone tells you [that] you don’t sleep and it’s true — they’re not lying to you.”
While the couple may have received plenty of advice from close friends and family, Bill and his wife Maggie Carey also signed up for a birthing class. Despite being surrounded by six other expectant couples, the pair received a less-than-friendly welcome! “My wife — she wasn’t righteous about it or anything — wanted to try natural, she wanted no epidural, and the other people … got really offended,” he recalls.
“My wife was like, ‘We’re going to try and tough it out,’ and this guy was like, ‘What? You’re saying my wife’s not tough?’ Huh? Who wants a tough wife? What are you talking about man? He was like, ‘Come on! Wrestle right now.’”
The misconceptions about Maggie’s au-natural approach didn’t end there! “He was like, ‘So what, you guys are going to have your baby in a bath tub or something? What, you like live in a hut or something?’” Bill jokes.
When the moment of truth arrived, however — following a 16-hour attempt to go natural — Maggie traded in her birth plan without a second thought. “She was in labor for 30 hours and at the 16-hour mark it was like, ‘GIVE ME THE EPIDURAL!’ and [I said], ‘Honey, remember?’” Bill reveals.
“[She said], ‘Shut up! Epidural — now!’ And she hooked herself in.”
Click below to read about Maggie’s eventual c-section and 3-month-old Hannah’s latest milestones.
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