Caution: New Parents

Her First Tooth

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:28:17 GMT

Now that we've starting feeding her rice cereal, we've been paying a bit more attention to her mouth. Dodi just noticed that she had her first tooth! She hasn't even been especially fussy or anything, either!

Also, let me tell you, it was hard to get this picture. She kept sticking out her tongue, the little stinker!

Celerity's First Solid Food

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:07:43 GMT

Celerity Crawls

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:30:41 GMT

One day before she turned 6 months old Celerity Wowed us with her amazing crawling ability. This is just minutes after we witnessed her first crawl.

Can't Resist the meme

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:46:51 GMT

I do as I am told.

I'm not listening to the headphones . . I'm just prepared to listen to them.

Schrödinger's Baby or "A Watched Baby Never Rolls"

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:15:42 GMT

As I had previously reported, my daughter can roll herself over from her back to her front. She now does this on a regular basis and has stopped complaining about being on her stomach. Or at least, she waits a bit longer to complain about it.

Now, I'm pretty certain that she can actually roll from her front onto her back on her own, but I have yet to actually see her do it. She just never seems to roll over when I am in the room and looking. It can't take her very long, because I step out of the room for less than a minute and, when I come back, she's moved two feet across the floor and is now on her back again. So, either she's rolling over on her own or crawling, which I seriously doubt. She is doing it well enough that she's getting into trouble, rolling up against the coffee table (and then screaming). I will be purchasing baby fencing shortly.

It's like some sort of uncertainty principle - I can always tell her position, but never her momentum, from one moment to the next. My theory is that when I am not observing her, she actually takes all possible positions in the room at once and only when I check on her does she settle into a discrete position.

Last Couple Months (Part 1)

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:14:13 GMT

Oh, yeah, I have a blog. Here is a quick summary of what's been going on with Dodi and I over the last couple months.

Back to Work for Daddy
I went back to work the second week in May, when Celerity was 3 weeks old. We set up a cot in Celerity's room so Dodi could take care of late night feedings with CJ without waking me up. We worked out a plan where Dodi would head to bed somewhat earlier than normal, I would take the evening shift, and Dodi would take the the late night feeding. This ultimately didn't work out that well, since Dodi tended to not be able to get back to sleep after Celerity's feeding. It didn't help that Celerity was still in her "Late night party" stage. We were so busy that the image to the right is the last one was have in May.

A lack of sleep and the overall stress of going from part time care of CJ to all day care of CJ was turning out to be too much for Dodi. She managed well for a couple weeks, but eventually started to break down. I started to work from home to help take some of the pressure off her. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. At the end of May Dodi had to go out of town*.

Effectively a Single Parent
I was largely unprepared for single parenting. We had not considered what might happen if Dodi had to go out of town. We did not have a Daycare provider, had not even considered looking for a Daycare provider. I was kinda in a daze. I knew Dodi was going to be ok, but I had to work, if only to retain my sanity. I started calling friends and family and managed to get a patchwork fo folks to watch kiddo for the next week. Our friend Julie gave a recommendation for a local gal who does Daycare. She turned out to be just a couple blocks away, very affordable, and had a slot open for an infant. I was super lucky to get Celerity in and thus was set for daycare.

The next couple weeks were largely uneventful. Celerity began to sleep through the night . . or at least most of it. There were off and on 3am feedings, but by and large I was putting her down at Midnight and she was waking me up at 6 or 7 the next morning. This meant that I was largely conscious while at work. We settled into a (somewhat bleary eyed) regular schedule. I fed and entertained Celerity at night while watching TV or trying to type (babies don't go well with typing). Every morning I'd drop her off with Daycare, then pick her up after work. Rinse. Repeat.

* If you don't know what I mean, feel free to contact me privately.

The Perils of Learning

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:12:25 GMT

This weekend I went over to visit my friends who have a 6 month old boy, Jak. He, of course, is quite cute, but a good deal more mobile than Celerity. I mentioned to his mother that Celerity could almost, but not quite, turn herself over. She proceeded to grab her son by the feet and ROLL him back and forth across the floor (giggling the whole way). She says she did that and within the day he was rolling over on his own within the day.

Armed with this new technique, I set up a blanket on the floor, grabbed Celerity by the feet, and proceeded to roll her back and forth across the floor. She doesn't go quite as smoothly and, frankly, looks a little bit confused by the whole ordeal. I try and get her to roll over on her own, but no dice. Later that day I go out of the room for a snack and when I get back, lo and behold, she has rolled herself over! I rejoice in my manly parenting skills and call my friend to thank her.

My celebration is short lived as I quickly realize a few things:
1) My Daughter can roll herself over from her back to her stomach, but not the other way around
2) My daughter loves to roll herself over
3) My daughter HATES being on her stomach

Before, I had a child who I could put down on her back and expect to keep herself amused for an hour or two. Now have a daughter who, as soon as I put her down on her back, rolls over to her stomach, gets angry, and starts to cry.

I am sure that this is just the begining of things I will teach her that I'll regret.

Edit: Changed both instances of 'feed" to "feet" - I'm not sure what would happen if I grabbed Celerity by her "feed".

Just Another Casualty in the Breastfeeding Battles

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:58:07 GMT

Nights are still hard, not that that is a huge surprise. Even early mornings can be rough, as you can see to the right. Kid had stopped feeding but was still fussing, so Dodi ended up "relaxing" on the couch with her. Amazingly, though, Celerity actually slept through most of the night last night. She had a marathon feed from midnight until 2 a.m., but didn't wake up until we got her up at about 8 a.m. We're not holding our breath or anything, though.

On Wednesday we went to the Pediatrician and weighed Celerity again. She was at around 9 lbs, 13oz, just under her birth weight, so we're still doing the "every 2-3 hours" feeding, which is a drag. We'll have to bring her back next week as well to make sure she is over her birth weight. The good news is, she is gaining weight well - she was up 6oz over last week, which is right in line for a breastfeeding baby. They're expected to gain 5-7oz a week.

Lactation Consultant
Because of the trouble we'd been having getting Celerity to feed off Dodi's left breast, we decided to call in a lactation consultant. We had been considering it for a week, but the fact that Celerity was till a tad underweight did it for us.

The LC's name is Jaye Simpson and she is totally awesome. She showed Dodi how to hold Celerity properly (sort of a modified Vulcan Nerve Pinch), and we finally straightened out (literally) some ergonomics issues we'd been having. This morning, using what we'd learned from Jaye, Celerity popped right on the left breast with no fuss.

You can see her to the left evaluating Celerity's suck. As we suspected, our daughter is full of suck. We had always noticed a little wheezing noise when she fed, and Jaye told us that Celerity is sometimes sucking wrong. Rather than "Suck, Swallow, Breath", she's sometimes doing "Suck, Breath, Swallow". Luckily, aspirating a bit of breast milk is unlikey to hurt her. It may also explain the little piglet noises that Celerity sometimes makes.

A More Active Child
Celerity is growing a lot more active. Well, relatively speaking, anyway. Now when she finishes feeding she doesn't always crash out right away. We are getting a chance to hold her and play with her a bit more. Sometimes she just wants to be held. I've been learning how to read my book with her propped up on my arm. Of course, sometimes it's in the middle of the night, and that can be a drag.

The Birth of Our Child, Part 4

Thu, 01 May 2008 06:56:04 GMT

Prior Parts (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

Recovering from Recovery - April 18th, 10AM to 3PM
After Tara left, we crashed out hard. An indeterminate time later, though, we were awoken by some visitors. My Aunt Barb, Uncle Char, and cousin Stacey had heard (or read) that the child was born and came by to visit. My recollection of their visit is hazy at best. I think Celerity was out of the room at the nursery. We said hi, everything is fine, can we please sleep now? It was nice to see family, and they brought an excellent crocheted baby blanket and some hand made burp cloths.

At some point Celerity was wheeled back in and, around 2pm we decided to give feeding her another shot. It took some coaxing, but we were finally able to get Celerity to open her mouth wide enough to accept a breast. We had no issues getting her to feed off the left breast, but the right breast continues to give us some trouble to this day.

Finally get some sleep for crying out loud - April 18th, Evening
I toddled off to get something to eat at the cafeteria, but Dodi was still stuck on a liquid diet. She had to drink her meals until she was able to . . . uh . . break wind. When you have a baby, your entire digestive track pretty much shuts down, so you have to wait for it to get fired back up before you can take solid foods. One of the indicators that it is functioning again is the production of waste gases. It wasn't until the following evening, Saturday, that she . . . produced waste gases. Never have has a woman been so happy to toot. Broth is just not that filling.

That night I slept on the dreaded pull out couch of doom. Imagine, if you will, a booth bench for a restaurant with a decent amount of padding. Imagine it being about five feet, ten inches long. That was pretty much it. It pulled out a bit, so it was fairly wide, but it was between two walls, limiting its length to about 2 inches too short for me to stretch out. Three nights on this little torture bed gave me cyatica so bad that on the night I got back from the hospital, I couldn't get out of bed.

The rest of the time - April 19th to April 21st
On Saturday morning, Dodi was able to get up for the first time. With the assistance of the nurse she was able to stand and shuffle around with some pain. By the end of the day she was fairly mobile and, by the end of our stay, was fully, if slowly, mobile.

On both Saturday and Sunday I made trips home to upload pictures and post updates, as well as grab needed items. We had not planned on a C-section, only having packed enough stuff for two days. I picked up some extra clothes for myself and some stuff Dodi wanted.

There is not much else to tell. Or, if there was, I've forgotten it. In general we had a very restful few days in the hospital. We had no complications, no real problems - we just chilled out while Dodi was recovering. I read a sizable Sci-fi Novel over the entire weekend that I finished Sunday.

On Monday we were ready to be discharged. Dodi got the staples taken out from around her stitches, we filled out some paper work, and they wheeled us to the door.

Here is us unloading Celerity from the car:

More Videos
I took a couple of more videos that I have finally gotten around to uploading to YouTube.

Cutting the Cord

Weigh In

The Mystery of the Mewing Sock Bin

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:32:07 GMT

Another late night last night with Celerity. I ended up going to bed in my lounge around the house clothes, in anticipation of having to get up and feed/comfort her again. This morning I was getting ready to take a shower, pulled off my socks, and threw them into my sock bin.

My sock bin mewed. I didn't think this was normal behavior for sock bins, so I took a look and saw this:

Mystery Solved.

On the Night Shift

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:54:25 GMT

The exhaustion is starting to set in. Being on the night shift is a drag. Even with our feeding plans working, we're still not getting the sleep we need. Last night Dodi was doing the midnight feeding before heading off to bed. I was sitting up reading, waiting for her to come in off the couch. I look up at the clock and see that it's almost 1:30 and I think that there is no way that she's still feeding. It turns out I was right:

I'm starting to feel the same way.

Last night was rough for me too. Two AM (half an hour after I get us all off to bed), Celerity is fussing. I get up and give her 3 oz of breast milk that Dodi has pumped for this purpose. Celerity seems happy, but wide awake, which I had planned for. I plop down in front of the computer with her in my arms and wait for her to quiet down so I can put her to bed. No such luck. One hour and a dirty diaper later, I'm back in the kitchen making her up some Formula. She sucks that down real fast and once again I'm waiting for her to quiet. Another hour, another diaper, and she's still rooting and fussing. Back to the kitchen for another bottle. She doesn't finish this one off, but was still bright eyed and bushy-tailed. I figure she's never going to go to sleep the way things are going, so I drop her in her bassinet and put her pacifier back in every time she fusses. Finally at five AM I turn out the light and she stays down. Eight AM - alarm goes off for mommy to feed her . . . and the cycles begins again.

Everyone told me about the lat nights, but there is simply no way to prepare yourself for the lack of sleep. *sigh* Yet, everyone I show the kid to says, "Treasure this time, it will pass too quickly". I'm at a loss to see how that would be a bad thing at this point, but I'm sure I'll understand when she's 16 and wants to borrow the car.

Good fences . . .
A few months ago we had a big windstorm which took down a lot of fences in the neighborhood, including two sides of my buddy Roger's fence. At the time I helped him to put up the replacement on his yard. All those years of helping my father with building projects finally paid off as I was able to use my mad building skillz to speed up the construction. Roger's neighbor's fence had also been blown down and so they paid him to put theirs up. Last Saturday I went over to help out.

While I was there, he had to watch his four year old son, Evan, who we co-opted to "help" by holding nails for Roger. I would hold position and hold the fence slats, then Roger would call "Nail" and his son would hand him a nail. Well, hand him a nail or run away or drop the nails and pick them up. He also became the level holder, which was quite helpful, believe it or not.

For some reason when we were standing around, I started doing my robot shtick - moving my arms jerky, making the servo noise, and sounding like Robby from Lost in Space. Evan gets this real incredulous look on his face and say "Whatever". Roger and I just about die laughing. Roger swears he doesn't know where Evan got it from. I don't get no respect.

Celery, Celerity, and Hamster - A Comparison

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:19:08 GMT

My daughter, while being incredibly cute, is a fairly simple creature right now. She is certainly more interesting than, say, a stalk of celery, but somewhat less interesting than a hamster. Here is a convenient comparison chart

Celery	Celerity	Hamster
Not Cute Sits Still Eats Dirt Can Photosynthesize Doesn't play "Good for you" Rustles in the breeze	Very Cute Doesn't Sit Still Would like to eat dirt Cannot Photosynthesize Plays with our hearts Delicious Noisy	Cute and Fuzzy Moves Constantly Eats food pellets Likes a warm patch of sunlight Plays in wheels and tubes Stringy Skitters

Visitors from Afar

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:16:45 GMT

My sister Danielle (Dee) came up to visit us, along with her daughter Maddi. Dee, who I should take this opportunity to mention is very slim now, brought up the fixings for some Shepherds Pie and made us dinner. The meal was splendid, and having a home cooked meal was awesome, after the scrape together stuff we've been subsisting on. The leftovers will be lunch for the next few days. After dinner we had a pleasant walk to the park. Beautiful weather today.

I am in awe of my sister's baby handling abilities. Celerity has begun to fuss more after she finishes eating and wants to be held. Dee scooped her up and had her asleep in ten minutes, which lasted all through our walk and until it was time to feed her again later in the evening. I have the feeling that last few days with Celerity have been the honeymoon, the calm before the storm.

Maddi wanted to hold the baby, so we had her wash her hands. She is very excited that she is now (and forevermore) the "oldest cousin".

It doesn't get much cuter than that.

Late Night Feeding
Last night was fun for me. I've been taking the "middle of the night" feeding with either formula or pumped breast milk, so Dodi can get a full(ish) night sleep. About a half hour before I was due to wake her, Celerity woke me. I fed her 3oz of Formula and she stopped eating. I bundled her up and put her in the bassinet. 10 minutes later, I'm back up, since she doesn't want her pacifier and she doesn't want to sleep. I mix up another 2oz of formula and she drinks most of it (and burps up the rest, all over her shirt). She doesn't want anymore, so it's back to the bassinet. Ten minutes later, more fussing - she doesn't want food, she wants attention. I pull her up to my chest and lie down on the couch. Four hours later, Dodi finds me there, asleep, with Celerity cuddled up on my shoulder.

I'm hoping tonight goes better. I'm considering adding a splash of brandy to her milk ;) (This is a joke, never let your baby drink brandy, only fine wines and vodka)

How We're Doing - Week 1

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:18:36 GMT

It's been a week today since Celerity was born. Oh, what a crazy week it's been. C-sections, late nights, early mornings, trying to nail down a feeding schedule, first bath, and more.

Dodi - Rockin' and Rollin'
Over the last week Dodi has gone through many changes. She has been completely exhausted by the labor and surgery, overwhelmed by having a new child, worn out as she recovered, alternately trepidatious and frustrated by the mysteries of breastfeeding, thrilled by the little joys of parenting, and confident that she can be a good mother.

A big challenge for Dodi was learning to deal with Celerity crying. At first she found it very upsetting and, the more Celerity cried, the more anxious Dodi would get. I had to explain to her that crying was just Celerity's way to communicating to us. It didn't necessarily mean she was in pain or hurting, just that she wanted something. It is important that we remain calm so we can attend to her needs. Once she accepted this, she was able to interact with a crying Celerity much more confidently.

Actually, dealing with Celerity with confidence has been a challenge for both of us. As new parents, we're pretty clueless about exactly what we're expected to do, so we have to fall back on what the Doctors and Nurses have told us we need to do. Beyond that, there are plenty of more hours in the day where we have a BABY and we're not always certain what to do with it.

We had been concerned that, with Dodi's illness, she would have a much higher predisposition to Postpartum depression, or even (as we only just learned about) Postpartum Psychosis (eek!). So far she is doing fine. She has regular appointments with her Psychologist, and I will be watching her closely over the coming months.

There is a steep learning curve on motherhood, but with each little learning and each little victory, Dodi grows more confident and self assured. She rocks!

Breastfeeding
Once Dodi recovered from the lack of sleep and was on the road to recovery from her surgery, our biggest challenge has been breastfeeding. Babies can lose up to 10% of their birth weight in the first week after they are born. Until she regains her birth weight, we have to feed her 8-12 times a day, which is every 2-3 hours, even if she is sleeping. Feeding Baby has become the center around which our days revolve.

Before we could deal with the schedule, though, we had a number of challenges with feeding itself. At first, the milk didn't come in for one of Dodi's breasts. She had to use a breast pump to stimulate that breast for a couple of days before the colostrum would come in. After that, we've had attach issues. Right after she was born, Celerity would not open her mouth far enough to get a good attach. Combined with the size of Dodi's breasts, this was a real problem until she learned to open her mouth farther. Dodi had to just shove Celerity's face in boob to get a good attach. The ergonomics of breastfeeding are also difficult. Because of the size of Dodi's breasts, just about the only position that works for her is the "Football" hold, although once we purchased a Boppy we've had a bit more luck with the belly to belly hold. Only in the last couple days has Dodi been able to consistently get a good attach. Sometimes we simply can't get a good attach and I have to feed her with some pumped breast milk or with some of the formula we got from the hospital.

We have been having a lot of trouble maintaining that feeding schedule. Initially it was hard at the hospital because we were so tired. All we three wanted to do was sleep. Once we were better rested, though, we still have to wake Celerity every 2-3 hours to get her to feed. Putting aside how guilty we feel about waking this poor child, sometimes she just doesn't want to stay awake. We've starting changing/checking her diaper before each feed which gets her roused most times. Other times we have had to strip her naked and tickle her to wake her up enough to feed.

The natural result of all this waking up is that we're plum tuckered out. I've been trying to spell Dodi at night with either a pre-pumped bottle, or formula, but that hasn't always worked out. Two night ago we had it all planned out so Dodi would feed her at 2am and 8am and I would fill in at 5am with a bottle. It would would have worked great, except Celerity REALLY wanted to eat at 2am and had such a hard time attaching, Dodi was still awake at 5am! My alarm went off and, darn it, there was Dodi with babe to teat. Finally, last night, Dodi did a feed at midnight, I picked her up at 4am with a bottle of formula, and Dodi was able to sleep from about 1am to 8am straight.

Baby's First Bath
I would consider Celerity's first bath to be a peak experience for me. On Wednesday we gave her a sponge bath. We're not able to do a proper bath yet because she still has her umbilical stump in place. Celerity absolutely loved the bath. We had her on a sponge bath pad covered by a towel and used wash cloths to wet, soap, and rinse each body part.

It's very much a two person job, though. One of us was always holding her while the other was rinsing and washing.

She was very quiet and really seemed to enjoy the experience. I loved it. She's so soft and pudgy. Of course, we took a bunch of pictures of her, which will be useful as blackmail when she gets a boyfriend.

And so it goes
Our chief priority is getting Dodi ready to take care of Celerity once I return to work in about two weeks. I think we're coming up with a solid plan for getting her ready. The key thing is to increase her baby knowledge and confidence. I am considering working part-time from home once I return, if only to be available to Dodi. I'm not sure if I'll do this, since it may not be practical, and is probably not fair to my work.

Happy Baby, Mellow Baby

I know it's still early, but so far Celerity seems to be a pretty happy and mellow baby. I know these thing change over time, but right now I couldn't be happier.

That is, except when she is surly baby:

Cat Blogging

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:47:46 GMT

I believe there is a rule on the internet that, once one has a blog, they must indulge in a little cat-blogging on a regular basis. The practice has a long and distinguished history, from taping bacon to ones cat (and the resultant fame), to cat vacuuming.

I cannot claim to aspire to these lofty heights, but I submit to you my contribution.

My Niece Maddi and her Cat Nutmeg

For years my niece Maddi has wanted a pet so, finally, for her 8th birthday she was allowed to get a cat. Unfortunately, due to the time of year that she was born, not many kittens are available. My ~~sister~~ father took her down to the pet store to get cat supplies and they saw Nutmeg there. While the pet store has initial concerns because the cat was to be outdoor as well as indoor, they finally decided to let my ~~sister~~ father take her home. She is 3 years old and fairly neurotic. Now that she has stopped hiding all day, Maddi loves her! We're not so sure what Nutmeg thinks about it . . . Doesn't she look like she's rolling her eyes?

Pica and Boomer - No longer the babies

These are two furry girls, Pica and Boomer. On the left is Pica, a Pure bread American Short hair Silver Tabby. We got her years ago when we were living in an apartment. On the right is Boomer, our generic SPCA Calico. We got her a couple of years after we moved into the house. The two have never really gotten along. Once they were willing to be in the same room with one another, they would still bat one another around. One is forever grabbing the other when she is drinking, or when she approaches a favorite spot on the bed.

Now, with the baby in the house, we see an almost unprecedented scene: Pica and Boomer sleeping close to one another. Usually it's one cat by my feet, one in my face, or one on each side of the bed, but, as you can clearly see, they are sleeping peacefully back to back. Wonders may never cease.

Updated: Fixed Maddi's name spelling and found out it was my father taking her, not my sister.

Big Big Crib, Itty Bitty Kid

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:34:26 GMT

I love my camera. This picture was taken with very low light and a long exposure.

As big as Celerity is, at 10lbs, she is not nearly big enough to fill up this huge crib we got. Ahh, she's so peaceful when she's sleeping.

The Birth of Our Child, Part 3

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:25:59 GMT

Part 3 of our saga. (Part 1 | Part 2)

Daughter in the Nursery, Wife in Recovery - April 18th, 7AM to 7:30 AM
Once the kid was out, weighed, and cleaned off, the nurses moved her up to the Nursery while they finished closing up Dodi's abdomen and moved her to Recovery. I decided to follow my daughter up to the second floor Nursery. They put her in this little wheeled bassinet that would be hers for the rest of our stay at the hospital. When we got to the Nursery, they put her under a warmer lamp, gave her shots, and put Vitamin K goop in her eyes. I took a bunch of pictures and even some video:

The first thing I noticed once I got a good look at her is her nose. She has Dodi's nose, in perfect miniature. She also has our eyebrows, which is no surprise since we have very similar brows. Other than that, she kinda looks like a chubby little china man. She may have blue eyes, but I guess that changes over time. Right now they are so very dark.

I stood there, petting her and taking pictures for five or ten minutes. She sort of lay there and squirmed. Babies are so squirmy. Finally I went over to the nurses and said "So . . . what do I do now?" They suggested I see my wife in recovery, so I decided to head down to see Dodi. I stopped back by our old delivery room to grab the cell phone, then I went into recovery. Dodi was there for observation after her Surgery. They were keeping her for at least an hour to make sure her stats were up, that her stitches/staples were holding, and that she was not bleeding too much. She surprised the nurse by being able to move her legs fairly soon after the operation.

I called my folks to tell them the good news, but couldn't get through to Dodi's mom. Since a whole lot of nothing was going on with Dodi, and she was ok, I headed back to the Delivery room to get out of these crazy scrubs and make some calls. I got a hold of Dodi's mom, and then left the voice post below.

Moving Rooms and Mommy Meets the Baby - April 18th, 7:30AM to 10AM
We had brought a LOT of stuff to the hospital. We had 3 bags, a cooler, some jackets, the clothing Dodi had worn to the hospital, and a stack of pamphlets/booklets/papers we'd been given. In addition, we'd set up Dodi's iPod and some computer speakers. I found out where our new room was and borrowed a wheelchair to get all our crap upstairs. It took me about 20 minutes to get everything gathered and hauled up, then I had to figure out to get back to the recovery room.

Let me tell you something about the layout of this Hospital: It is a twisty maze with many hallways, all alike. The delivery rooms are all on the bottom floor, with the cafeteria, and the postpartum rooms are all on the second floor (which is really the first floor - the bottom floor is the "LL"). I came to find out later that the floors are shaped kind of like a Butterfly outline. This means a bunch of 45 degree angles AND 90 degree angles, some going in, some going out. I spent the next 20 minutes trying to find my way back to the Recovery room. Over the next few days I slowly figured how to get from point A to B, but I certainly spent a lot of time looking lost and confused.

I finally made it back to Recovery and chilled out with Dodi until she was due to head back up to the room. She came out of the surgery with flying colors. She impressed the nurses by being able to lift herself up using her feet and crab walk over to the new bed, only a couple hours after the surgery. Once her O2 level stabilized, the called transport and around 9:15 we rolled up to our new room.

After only a few minutes in the new room, the nurses brought Celerity in for Dodi to see. Aside from the glimpses she had in the OR, this was the first time she had really seen and held her child. She was completely blown away by the experience. The nurse initially tried to get Celerity to breast feed but could not just not get her started. Dodi was so tired and overwhelmed by the experience of it that she couldn't really follow the instructions of the nurse. Instead we gave her a bottle of formula. Later on, when we got serious about breast feeding, we found out that the breast that she'd tried feeding on didn't have any milk yet. It took us 3 days and a bunch of pumping before it would produce a drop.

The nurse pulled me out into the hall to express her concerns about Dodi's ability to cope with having a child, etc, etc. As I was explaining exactly how tired Dodi was, and just what over-stimulation did to her ability to think, a familiar girl walked up. "Hey, Rex," she goes, and I am thinking, "I totally know this person . . but I don't know from where." So I say, "Um. . .I'm pretty sure I know you, but who are you?" She gives me the dirtiest look ever and cooly informs me that she is Tara . . you know, my Wife's niece . . you know, the one who planned the Baby shower for us . . . Yeah. I think it was a combination of a lack of sleep and an out of context problem. Dunno. Anyway, she came in a visited for a bit and cooed at the baby.

We eventually shooed her out and crashed out for some sleep.

That's all for now . . . Part 4 when I'm feeling ambitious.

Functionally Single Parenting

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:11:50 GMT

I mentioned yesterday that I had hurt my back sleeping on the little couch in Dodi's hospital room. I didn't realize until later in the evening exactly how bad I had hurt it. Last evening I went to get up from the couch and I could barely get up. It wasn't actually my back, as much as a nerve running from my lower back down my right theigh. I couldn't walk on that leg, and I could hardly even stand on the other. I'm guessing the nerve got pinched.

Dodi was stuck doing all of the parenting duties for that evening's feed, the middle of the night feed, and the morning feed. While we were at the hospital, I was on diaper duty the whole time, because for the most part, Dodi could not get out of bed. There were a couple of times that I walked her through the diaper process, but last night was the true trial by fire. I ended up guiding her by yelling instructions and answering questions from the bed. I got to be her breast feeding coach remotely. I could totally disarm a bomb over the phone now. Dodi totally rocked it!

This morning, since I still wasn't mobile, Dodi did manage to find a use for me: Baby wrangler. Even an invalid husband is a useful husband.

I was finally able to get myself mobile enough that I could hop in the shower. A warm shower loosened up whatever was tight and I was able to walk again. I'm still having trouble bending down, and I'm not sure which ways I'm not supposed to twist until I'm wincing in pain.

Dodi was completely exhausted after the night and morning's activities, so I spelled her with formula and let her get four hours of uninterrupted sleep.

I'm working on Part 3 of the childbirth report right now.

Back Home

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:06:43 GMT

I'll continue the Hospital story tomorrow, but we just got home today about 3pm.

On the left is a picture of us just before we left the hospital. We were really pretty tired. Dodi got the staples out of her Cesarean scar, and the last few days of sleeping on a 3" too short bed finally caught up with me and my back is hosed. Right now we've got Dodi who can't bend over or exert herself and me with a gimpy back/leg. I hope the house doesn't catch fire because we'll never make it out. Between the both of us, we make up about 3/4 of a parent.

Dodi's mother, Joan (who is the inspiration for Celerity Joan), came down from Placerville to see Celerity and visit. She made us some kickass potato salad which I am currently feasting on.

We're plum tuckered, especially Celerity.

Time for all of us to get some rest! More tomorrow . . .

The Birth of Our Child, Part 2

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 00:14:23 GMT

(Continued from Part 1, below)

Pushing to Cutting - April 18th, 3:55AM to 6:00AM
I don't have any pictures of the next two hours. After 20 hours of sitting on our butts, doing nothing, this was the moment we had been waiting for. Finally, we were going to have our baby. This was the main event! It was time to start pushing.

Our nurse was the Shakespearitcly named Juliette. Once she had established that Dodi was fully dilated, she had me come over to Dodi's side, while she took the other side. We helped Dodi pull her legs back and, withe every contraction, she would take a deep breath and BEAR DOWN and push. She would do this three times for each contractions, 10 seconds at a time. Periodically, Juliette would check the baby's "Station", that is, how far down the birth canal the baby is. Station is measured in centimeters from the pelvis centerline. Dodi started out the day at -3 and started pushing at 0. She never got past a station of +1.

I totally lost track of time. Our entire world contracted (hah) down to watching the monitor for the next contraction so Dodi could do her pushing. I started out by just helping her with her legs, but by the time we stopped I was doing all the counting and giving encouragement. If there is one thing I'm good at, it's telling Dodi what to do. I have no idea how helpful I was. I was starting to get a little silly towards the end. After about an hour of pushing, Dodi's doctor, who had been monitoring her remotely, had them shut off the Epidural. As the Epidural wore off, each pushing session got more and more painful. She started growling and yelling with each push. I knew from our childbirth classes that making noise actually made her pushes less effective, so I was encouraging her to keep the grr on the inside. "You don't have a Uterus," I said, "you have a GRRRR-Uterus!"

After an hour and a half, Dodi's Obstetrician came by to check things out. Celerity was still sitting at +1, but the Epidural was fully worn off. He said that we had 1/2 hour to make significant progress or we would have to have a C-section. We redoubled our efforts but, after another half hour, we had not made any progress at all. Dodi was completely thrilled to stop pushing, but we would have to have a C-Section. The Doc said that the baby was too far in to use suction or forceps, and because her water had been broken almost 24 hours ago, we needed to get the kid out or risk infection. At 6AM, fully 24 hours after we had arrived at the hospital, we were heading into surgery.

The C-Section - April 18th, 6AM to 7AM

I was in a daze. I'd been up for over 24 hours on 5 hours sleep. I'd just been coaching my wife to push and now it was time to stop. They handed me some disposable scrubs and told me to get suited up, while Dodi was prepped for surgery. I made my way over to the couch and pulled the scrubs on, but the shoes covers were tiny. The nurse said she didn't know why the man's size package had such tiny shoe covers. She came back with a set that looked like they could cover an elephant. I wish I had a picture of them, because they look ridiculous. No one was really telling me what was going on, but the Anesthesiologist came in and hit Dodi with the FULL Epidural. He may have given her something else, but she's not sure either. Regardless, she was feeling no pain.

Fairly quickly everything was ready to go and they wheeled Dodi out. I followed along behind as we went over to the operating theater. I was ready to follow them in, when I was directed to a little single folding chair with a sign over it that said "Daddy waiting area". At first I didn't know what was going on. Was I going to be able to see the operation? Would they let me in? Holy CRAP, my wife and baby are having SURGERY! I sat there staring into space while my head was spinning. Finally, Dodi's Doc came by and explained that they were just prepping her and that I would be able to go in once they were ready. Then it would be 15 minutes to baby, and 15 more to close her up.

After just a few minutes seeing doctors and nurses head into the OR, a nurse lead me around to the side door and inside. In this amazingly light room, there was my wife . . . or at least the top half of her. The rest was hidden behind this huge blue drape. I was disappointed because I had wanted to watch the cutting. Dodi was oddly calm. Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe she was just tired. I held her hand and tried to be supportive while they started cutting. It was almost funny - I could see my wife's torso being pulled back and forth, really hard, as they were slicing and dicing. All I could do was sit there holding her hand and looking at all the machines the go "ping."

Before too long, the nurse who had escorted me in said to stand up and look, and I did just in time to see my daughter being pulled out of a hole in Dodi's stomach. It was SO COOL, just like Aliens, only without the baby killing everyone.

I watched as they whisked the baby off to the baby cart. They proceeded to clean, suck, poke, prod, itemize and deductify my daughter. At first I could only get glimpses of her as they were doing their thing. I was taking pictures the best I could and trying to wrap my head around the fact that, oh yeah, I had a daughter and, yeah, this was her. I think I had been prepared to have a baby, I'm not sure I was prepared to have a daughter.

Then they called me over - I was going to get to cut the cord or, at least, cut it short. I got a cool video of myself doing the cut. They were still stitching up Dodi's belly, so all she could see were glimpses of the kid too. It wouldn't be for another three hours that she would get to see her.

I followed them out to the scale and got a video of them weighing her. The inital reading was in KG, so I'm looking at it and going, "Yeah, so what's that in real units?" and then they push the button and it says 10 .07! 10 pounds, 1 oz. I was shocked! I didn't think they came that big. I rushed back to Dodi to explain why it didn't matter how much she pushed, 10 pounds just wasn't going to have happened.

We took a quick picture of the three of us and Dodi was off to the Recovery room, while I followed the Baby up to the Nursery.

That's all I have time for now - I have to head back and take care of my wife and daughter. I'll still have more stories to tell and pictures with which to tell them with, so watch this space.

The Birth of Our Child, Part 1

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:26:47 GMT

Once again, I'm home grabbing some stuff while Dodi takes it easy. I figured I'd take some time to write up a more detailed report of our birthing experience. I've also posted a bunch more pictures to go with the story.

Getting the show on the Road - April 17th, 4:45AM to 8AM

We got up at around 4:45 AM, since we had to call ahead to the hospital at 5AM to make sure they had our bed ready. We'd both stayed up until about 11 the prior night, getting all our last minute things together. We got to the hospital around 6 and got everything moved into the room. As you can see, Dodi was jazzed up and ready to go! Little did we know what the next 24 hours would bring (ominous music here). Dodi changed into a robe, the nurse got an IV started (after 3 tries), and hooked up a zillion sensors and leads. . . and then we waited. It wasn't until 8AM, after a shift change, that they started the Potosin drip.

Labor (such as it was) - April 17th, 8AM to April 18th, 3:55 AM
Now, we'd heard plenty of stories about Potosin. Frankly, after hearing all the comments about how much harder labor was with Potosin, and how my sister Dee had gone from 3cm to Baby in 4 hours, we were expecting fireworks. We were very disappointed. Not that we expected to have a baby in 4 hours, but we expected things to move along quicker. We were sadly mistaken.

We had the contraction-graph and baby heartbeat monitor on Dodi's stomach. Every time she would shift position either or both of the sensors would go out of alignment and we'd have to either get a nurse to reposition them, or try and move them ourselves. Since we pretty much didn't have anything to do but wait, I would sit there and watch the contractions go by. Over the course of the next 20 hours, the contractions went from about 7 minutes apart, 1 minute duration to almost continuous 1 minute contractions. Of course, every time the monitor would stop working, I was poking at it. By the end of Labor, I was able to reposition the contraction monitor almost as well as the Nurses.

About every 6 hours or so, the monitor would run out of paper, causing it to ding. The first time we didn't know what was going on . . we're looking around, searching for what is making the periodic dinging noise. We didn't figure it out until the thing spit out it's last paper and started really dinging. We called the nurse to come fix it. We had so many machines that would start dinging - at first we didn't want to call anyone, but eventually we'd call right away and say "Something is dinging, please fix it". We were very close to the nurses station and they always came right away.

I should mention how awesome the nurses have been throughout this whole experience. I have never once gotten the "well, what do you want me to do about it" type vibe. Sutter Roseville has a clear commitment to quality care and their staff shows it. We went through 4 shifts worth of nurses and every one was uniformly helpful, knowledgeable, friendly, and sometimes funny. They've answered all of Dodi and I's technical questions with ease and always seemed willing to take time to explain. Totally full of Rock.

The first 8 or so hours were uneventful and completely boring. Shortly after they induced the broke her water, which I wasn't even in the room for. Between the two of us, I watched the monitors and read, Dodi shifted positions and read. It wasn't until 5pm that her contractions started to get a little painful and she decided to get the Epidural. This was a great decision and she had no pain at all until after we had started to push. We spent a lot of the day saying "This is what I was worrying about?" (more ominous music). I've got a great video of Dodi saying, "Man, if it's this easy, I'll have 10 kids." To the left, Dodi chills in a glide rocker.

Dodi started at 1.5 cm and it took 20 hours for her to become fully dilated at 3:55am. Every time we would get to a new size, the nurses would say, "oh, it's supposed to go faster then" - it never did. Even the last 1/2 cm took almost an hour. Then the fun really began.

(Continues Next Post)

Quick Picture Update

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:50:33 GMT

Due to the C-Section, Dodi will be staying in the hospital until Monday, and I will be staying with her.

I had to run home and grab some stuff, so I figured I'd throw up some pictures really quick.

The picture on the left is from when she was 3 minutes and 46 seconds old and had just been cleaned off by the nurses.

On the left, Celerity after her first successful breast feeding. On the Right, a Baby Burrito - I made that! (Ok, I wrapped her, Dodi helped with the baby making part).

I have a bunch more photos and video that I hope to be able to post once we get back from the hospital.

Voice Post:

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:44:16 GMT

The Adventure Begins

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:22:15 GMT

Well, It's almost 5:30 AM. Oh, how I despise early mornings.

*makes zombie arms*

We're off to the hospital to get this party started. I'll keep y'all posted!

The Baby Plan

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:31:14 GMT

In consultation with Dodi's doctor, we have decided to induce. We are scheduled for early Thursday morning. We'll have to call in a 5AM, and be at the Hospital at 6AM when they will induce.

I will make a voice-post on this blog once the child is delivered. With an uneventful birth, I expect to have pictures up by the weekend.

Watch this space!

* bounces with excitement *