New Arrival: Husband's Perspective

This post may be a little scattered because it's almost 11:30.

I took a late lunch today and worked out at the gym with my buddy Dako from work. As I was stepping out of the shower (about 2:30) I heard my voicemail chime and then got a text message that said I should probably come home.

We hurried back to work so I could drop Dako off and grab my stuff. Then I headed home.

Wifey and I got some stuff together and went to the hospital. By the time we got to the triage room Wifey was dialated to maybe 6cm. We hung out there for awhile while they got a delivery room ready. When we first arrived they were all full as today was aparently a popular day for babies.

Mom showed up and took our little girl as she was getting a little grouchy that someone had delayed her nap. Mom dropped the little girl off with the Painter's family and had to run home as she was expecting a ton of company tonight (we were supposed to come for dinner too).

By the time she got back we were getting closer. Wifey was having close contractions that were pretty strong. Pharmacousin made it up to our room and stayed for the whole process.

Wifey declined the epidural and any drugs and did really good at managing the pain and pushing the baby out. Things got a little rough for her on the last couple pushes but at least the little guy came a lot faster than our first one.

He was born fiesty and healthy with all the right parts in their correct quantities. I believe the time was around 7:20 but I didn't see the exact time. He turned a healthy pink right away and tried out his little lungs with great effect. He weighs 7lbs and 10oz. I didn't catch his length so we'll have to update on that later.

Pharmacousin brought us some Papa Johns, which was awesome, and the Painter family stopped by so we could introduce our little rascal to the big rascal.

He latched on and fed with gusto on the first attempt. He was pretty much ready to eat as soon as he blew the goo out of his air pipes. We got him washed up and moved from delivery to an actual room and are headed to sleepy land

We don't have a name yet! We had a list but nothing we were super excited about. We have a few final options but standby for another post with a name and the time/length and other details that people always ask about.

In the meantime, check out the pics of the little guy and we may get a little sleep. I got a lot of better pics and video of the bath and stuff on mom's camera but I don't have the means to xfer them at the moment. These shots from our mediocre camera will have to suffice.

38 weeks!

I am actually at 36 or 37 weeks here and it's a horrible picture of me (do I look like a deer caught in headlights, or what?). It is a good documentation of my tummy size, though. You can see that my shirt doesn't fit any longer.

This was taken just last night at this boy's gramma and grampa's house. I am now at 38 weeks. I kinda have a bullet shape going on, but at least this shirt fits. I look like a rosey cheeked Santa Clause, minus the white hair. Put me in a costume at the mall and I'm sure all the little boys and girls would be flocking toward me at the speed of light with questions, concerns and/or thanks for their Christmas gifts.

I am working on a "quilt" here. Maybe I should also say: "working," as I am pretending to work on it. I bought this fantastic pre-quilted material from Hobby Lobby that I thought was really cute and put some batting and a backing on it and, walla! A quilt. To make it more quilt-like I am sewing yarn in swirly designs all over the quilt. It will also help keep it together in the washing machine...A lesson I have learned from previously made "quilts."
Sorry, Punkin' Face, your quilt is one that is messed up from the washing machine. It's pretty bad though, since it was my first attempt at a real-ish quilt and it's just kinda ugly. I'll have to make a new one for her some day.

Now a little about our Punkin' Face. This picture was taken a few weekends ago at Auntie and Uncle's place. She really likes things that rock. Other recent things/updates about our little girl:

She's been doing this downward facing dog pose or, what the people at Stride call, the bear pose. It's pretty cute to see her little tush high up in the air.

Stride gave us this blue booster chair to use for a while and Punkin' Face has been standing up to it and crawling into it, which has been exciting to see. Other things she has stood up to include her crib and some low laundry baskets. Sometimes she pushes just with her arms to get to standing and other times she gets up the same way she does her downward facing dog pose. It's her little funny way of learning, I guess. The other day I walked in to her room after a nap to find her standing in her crib. It was very exciting to see. That excitement faded a little when a few days later I heard a thud and came into her room to find her on the floor, on her back crying next to her crib. I guess it's time to move the mattress down, poor thing.

With therapy we've been working on her disassociating her legs because she would always use them in unison before. For instance, her frog-hop way of crawling. She is getting much better at this and the therapist noticed a big improvement since before the Christmas break. She is crawling more the "normal" way...about 50/50 I would say. She is also crawling up to low things, like the couch cushions and her little, blue booster chair. Sometimes she can even crawl back down from them.

Stairs are another thing she is getting better at, but will not do it on her own. She doesn't get the backward, going down part yet, but on a good day with just a little prompting will crawl up the stairs (she needs prompting at each step).

Still no words...Except the other day I was playing with her with a puppy and kept saying "puppy" and barking. She said "puppy!" clear as a bell and then never again. She did the same thing when Mom was visiting around Thanksgiving with the word "peaches." Clear as a bell and then never again. So, it has me puzzled. Was it just a coincidence? Kinda weird coincidence though. Hmmmm. Makes me wonder if she'll be one of those kids who all of a sudden start speaking in full sentences out of the blue one day. ???

She jabbers and jabbers some times...or most of the time. It's pretty cute. We have these little pet store characters that we don't let her play with because she can fit the entire animal in her mouth (somewhat of a choking hazard). For a while we had them at the top of our 5' dresser. She would spot them and just start talking to them very excitedly. She does that to whatever she can't touch and wants to. At gramma and grampa's they have a ceramic moose with a plant in it that she isn't allowed to touch. She loves it so much though and always heads straight for it to chat with it. As long as we are right next to her saying "No" she doesn't touch it, but I imagine if we weren't there she would have a hay day with it and it would be in pieces all over the tile it rests on. Basically she loves anything with a face. But, she always goes straight for the head/face of these poor creatures and chomps them to show her affection, showering them with drool and bite marks. Makes me a little worried for her soon-to-be brother.

Until next time.... And please pass on the word that we've updated since it is a rare occasion that we do. Next post will likely be the new arrival. I would have liked to post our trip home before then, but I just don't think it's gonna happen that way.

Photo Says It All

Our Plans for Jan 27, 2009

Quick Nora Video Post

So I don't get yelled at by our readers :P

Get Rich Quick Scheme #3,654

A quick departure from baby pics for a geeky post:

Are you a slacker? Have you ever wanted to get rich quick but don't like to work for it? Let local children work for you!

Google has just released their Business Referral Program. Here's the summary of the program: Google is trying to increase their business listings on their Maps and Adwords properties with their obviously deep pockets. They will pay you $2 for each business in your local community that you provide information (such as hours and payment methods) about. You also must take a digital photo of the business. They send a postcard to the business asking them to confirm the data. If the business confirms the information you get another $8. So, you can potentially gain $10 per business listing that you supply.

Here's an equation I came up with to describe your potential riches (remember highschool math?):
d = ((n*p)*10) + ((n*(1-p))*2)
where n = business info collected
where d = desired earnings
where p = percentage business response

Here's how you leverage it. Recruit a few hundred kids from your local youth group or school. Create a treasure hunt contest where teams of a few kids go from street to street filling out a form and taking a photo with mommy's digital camera. The kids get one week to get as many sheets filled out as possible. Sheets can be turned in any time during the week. Any duplicate businesses only count on the first sheet to be handed in. Kids do not have to stay in their community. Create a few cheesy prizes based on total business sheets collected to give them a reason to compete.

Entering the data should only take a minute per sheet if you have decent typing skills.

Buy yourself something nice with the resulting treasure. Remember Jump Rope For Heart or those Magazine Subscription deals that elementary schools always sucker parents into? This is like that only you get rich :)


obligatory baby pic:

Write Your Own Caption

Kristy shot this while Nora was in mid yawn. Turned out pretty funny. She looks real mad like.

I'm sure you visitors can come up with some funny captions in the comments section.

Videorific

(If you do not see a video window above this text you may need to install the latest version of macromedia flash)
Here's the first video of Nora. One Week old...sorry about the bad color quality. My video camera doesn't auto-adjust color very well and compression compounds the problem (I can give you a technical explanation of compression resampling if you really want it).

Nora Settles In

Here are a few more pictures of our new little treasure. We are being discharged from the hospital today. It's a good thing because we were both getting a little stir-crazy in this little hospital room.

I almost went back to work today but we have a lot of stuff to cart home and get settled. I plan on heading back to work tomorrow. I could take this whole week off but it's hard for me to go a whole week without working when I'm two minutes away from my job. Makes me antsy. Plus, we're hoping to take a trip to visit Wifey's family before the end of the year...gotta save a little vacation.

We had several visitors while we were in the hospital. Thanks to everyone who came and visited. Thanks also for cards, gifts and warm wishes. If anyone is wondering if there's anything we need, yes there is: experience! You should see me trying to figure out how to clean the plumbing on something that's squirming, kicking and (sometimes) crying. Dressing the little squirmer is also a challenge.

Visitors are welcome, let us know you're coming and you don't need to bring anything!

Welcome Nora Larene

Well, this is the post ya'll ladies have been waiting for. Enough of the geekery, let's see some BABIES!

Nora was born Sunday, July 29th at 10:59AM. She weighed 7lbs 12oz at birth and was 20.75 inches long. She's content, complete and healthy as far as we can tell!Kristy got up on Saturday morning and went to the parade with Mom, her mom, Sister and some others. I got up at 6 and helped dad work on his house. We finished up at about noon and I met Bro-in-law (BNL) at my house. We hung out in the basement and were playing some games on the computer. It was pouring rain outside and I suddenly noticed that the window well had filled up halfway in about 5 minutes! Water was beginning to seep into the basement.

BNL and I dashed outside and I jumped into the window well and started bailing water with a ~gallon bucket. The water was coming in faster than I was throwing it out so BNL brought me a trash can to bail with. I kept bailing while he tried to reroute the water. A trashcan full of water has some weight to it and I had to toss the water at least five feet past the edge of the well or it would just run back in, all of this while standing in waist deep water and mud.

Wifey called right before we noticed the window well filling up and said she was in light labor and was coming home. Wifey and Mother-In-Law (MNL) got home right after we had the window well cleaned out and were working on shoveling a trench to drain the water. They went down to the basement and moved some stuff around to avoid the water. Not very much got in.

After we got the situation somewhat under control I went to Dad's and got some flexi-tube to reroute the water from my downspout. I hooked that up and then took a shower in case we had to go to the hospital.

Kristy's labor was picking up but we wanted to wait until it was more serious before going to the hospital. I didn't want to take a nap because I wasn't sure I would wake up for a solid 8 hours.

At around 9PM we checked into the hospital and, after a brief stay in triage, settled in to our labor room. Kristy and I (mostly Kristy, I didn't have much of an opinion as it would be her pain) had decided to try for a natural birth so she declined the preparation for epidural, IV and other medication procedures.

Kristy initially moved through the labor process pretty quickly. By midnight it looked like we would be having a baby within an hour or two. Such was not the case. The hours slid by with Kristy having painful contractions and me trying to stay alert and be whatever support I could. I took quick snoozes here and there, or rather, fell asleep with my face on the bed rail. Mom, Dad, MNL, Sister and BNL were also in the hospital but Dad and BNL went home to get some sleep a little after midnight.

Kristy decided to allow the doctors to start an IV around 6AM, she was dehydrated and getting pretty exhausted. She also agreed to .5mg of Stadol, painkiller, as the contractions were getting excruciating.

Finally by 10AM we were making some progress. They had tried a few test pushes earlier but things just weren't ready. This time, it was for real. With the doctor, nurse and I helping, Kristy brought Nora into the world. It was hard for me to truly appreciate the miracle of birth because I knew how much Kristy was dealing with but it was still pretty amazing.

Nora's cord was wrapped around her foot, which cuts down on the blood supply from the cord, so she needed a little oxygen when she came out. I went down to the nursery with her, so they could monitor her heart and oxygen better, and rocked her for a few hours. I nearly rocked myself to sleep so I started calling people with the news to stay awake...I don't remember any of those conversations! When we were ready to go back they had moved Kristy into the postnatal room.


Anyway, that's pretty much the whole story. The birth was mostly-natural with just a little Stadol and oxygen. I tried to offer enough details (without too much information) to satisfy you ladies, hopefully these pics will hold you over until I can post some more.


PS: Her name: We liked Nora because it's not an unknown name, most people have heard the name but we don't know anyone named Nora...it's unique. I liked Lorraine as the middle name and Kristy liked names that end in -ene because several of her family members have -ene middle names. We combined the two to end up with Larene. The last name was easy.

Random Update

So, dearest blog readers, I know we haven't been posting so much lately. There hasn't been that much news. Here's a brief synopsis of recent events.

1. On Recording: Well, Kristy and I have both had a bunch of allergy problems. I had a tenacious sinus infection, which was largely unpleasant. Anyway, this means that I have done very little with the microphone lately because my head has been full of snot. I will probably mess around with it in spurts...I have a lot of hobbies so I rotate focus on them continually.
   
2. On Babies: Our baby has been beating my wife. From the inside. She kicks hard enough that you can see Kristy's shirt move. If you've never felt a baby kick I guess I could best describe it as feeling like a cat, moving around inside a beach ball full of jello. I have never put a cat inside a beach ball full of jello. You are sick to have assumed that. I'm not sure you could even get jello inside a beach ball.
   
3. On Nerd Activities: Our town has a pretty unreliable power source. Every time there are power fluctuations it really screws up my computer and server systems. So, I got an Uninterrupted Power Supply and have the core components plugged into that. It has already gone on battery backup twice (in half a week) due to power flux. The power seems to hit 130+ volts (120 is normal) pretty regularly, which is probably not good for sensitive electronics.
   
4. On Family: The family met last Sunday to hear my grandparents tell about how they met our friends years ago and other interesting stories about folks we've known for years became friends.
5. On April: Well, the ol' April Fool's joke post kinda backfired. I was going to do a followup post but there were enough comments that mentioned it was a joke that I decided not to. I forgot that comments don't show up on the post in list view and a week later (after it was no longer April Fools) the joke played out in force. Sorry to the folks who were seriously concerned that we're moving.
6. On Spring Break: Wifey went to IA to visit family for her spring break. They threw her a nice baby shower out there and she had a good time. I have a picture of wifey on my coffee mug at work, she's all skinny and holding a fishing pole up in the mountains. Sometimes it slips my mind that she's currently pregnant, fat and sassy (and obviously doesn't read everything I post on this blog, heh heh). Anyway, I asked her if she was playing paintball with her cousins, which we did last time we were out there. I think she thought I had lost my mind but in retrospect, it was darn funny to imagine my pregnant wife stomping around with a paintball gun.
7. On Virginia Tech: Sometimes I think our country is really, really screwed up. Then I remember that some countries live with these events every day. I hope that somehow, our activities in Iraq and other places around the world are doing some good.
8. On Drugs: I was just required to attend a Meth Awareness Class at work to help us determine if our employees or interviewees are potential Meth users. It was interesting, Meth is a disturbing drug. The ironic thing is that pro-drug magazines, such as High Times and some others, actually warn their readers against Meth. So, even the "drug industry" thinks Meth is a bad drug (I don't read pro-drug magazines, they told us that in the class). When a coke dealer says "That's some bad stuff" you know you shouldn't be putting it in your body!
9. On Physical Fitness: This guy at work is a pretty hardcore marathon and triathlon athlete. It's kinda inspiring. He was telling me about this event called the Muddy Buddy that's toward the end of the summer (Aug 19th) in Boulder. It sounds kinda fun but I am in terrible shape. I keep feeling sort of motivated to run but thankfully I keep quashing that ambition. Basically, the Muddy Buddy is two buddies with one mountain bike. You take turns running and riding on and off over a 6-7 mile course with several obstacles. Oh, and it ends with a crawl through a mud pit. I was going to the gym pretty regular but that has sorta dived off lately. I truly detest running but I do love to bike. It's hard to imagine myself as one of those fitness wackos...I like donuts and computers too much.

Welp, that's the summary. Have a good week homeys.

It's A Girl (we think)

Well, you probably figured out by the title of this post that Wifey got an ultrasound today. Lots of our friends lately have had little baby girls so we were sorta hoping for a boy to mix things up a little. That being said, we were not disappointed to find that Wifey is, most likely, carrying a little girl. I have taken the liberty of posting the poor girl's picture right out here in public, girly bits and all, properly labeled and identified. Sorry kid but there ain't much to see anyway. If you're not offended by murky sonar images of naked babies, then scroll on down.


Below is the first portrait of our baby girl. It's kinda like one of those 3D magic-eye pictures. If you sorta squint at it, cock your head, and back up a few feet, you can almost make out a human-like face.


And the last pic is her foot. They measured a bunch of different bits of anatomy: spine, head, guts, etc. and finally determined that she ought to be a roughly-normalish kid. It's pretty fascinating to see everything where it's supposed to be, heart pumping and all. Miraculous. Speaking of the heart, I got to hear the little ticker on the ultrasound machine. Have you ever taken a two-liter bottle or a milk jug and upended it? The baby's heart sounds pretty much like that "BLUBG-BLUBG" sound that water chugging out of a bottle makes.


After looking at that little foot (not quite an inch long) I shudder to think how many pairs of tiny baby shoes wifey will come home with tomorrow. She was already eyeballing some tiny Puma's at the mall. I admit, they were pretty cute.

Now excuse me while I go talk to my shrink about living with two females in the same house.

Baby FAQs

Wifey is pregnant! We're spreading the news and below is the list of FAQs that we get:

How far along is Wifey?
As of this original posting and according to the doc, 9 weeks.

When is she due?
July 25th, 2007.

Are you going to find out if it's a boy or girl?
I was surprised how much I've been asked this. Yes. When the baby comes out I hope it's obvious. But, sarcasm aside, we will probably find out in advance by ultrasound.

Were you planning to have kids?
Yep.

Are you excited?
Yes. It's scary but exciting.

Has Wifey been sick?
Not so far.

Any cravings?
Beyond the usual, unreasonable lust for chocolate, popcorn or junkfood? Not yet.

I will post more FAQs as we have more news and more questions.