End of the Month

So, it's the end of the month. I can't believe January is over already. My son is already 16 days old! Before I know it he'll be 16 YEARS old and asking me to borrow the car. Wow.

So today was a pretty good day, work was a little slow but I actually got a decent couple hours of sleep last night, thankfully. My sister came in to see me at the dealership, she is trying to buy a new car now (actually, lease) and get herself out of the pickle I tried to help her avoid 13 months ago. That was the fact that she's severely flipped upside down on her car. It's a Hyundai, what do you expect?

So anyway, I let her take an Altima home to Dale, and he really liked it. Sweet car, or so she says. She said she was driving around "bumping it." Am I really related to these people or is it all a fallacy? Who knows? But yeah, I got off around 5:30 and came home and laid down with my wife and son for a little while. He has been unusually fussy today and yesterday and we think we've narrowed it down to the Dr. Pepper Ash had yesterday.

It's almost Date Festival time, I can't wait. We went three times last year, and now I can take my son. I am gonna go lay down now, because I am tired and I need some sleep. Thanks for reading this.

Oh yeah, check out this new pic Ash took of me and my boy. Click on it to make it bigger if you want to. OK, now I am off to bed, night!

Just like clockwork...

My son is waking up about every 2 hours, right on the nose during the night. We fed him and went to bed around 11:30, and he was up around 1:30. Fed him again, and back to sleep. 3:30 rolls around and he's awake again. I'm glad he is self-regulating when it comes to feeding times. At least if we get into a routine, it will be a lot easier to know what to expect.

Also, the breastfeeding thing is going much better for my wife. He seems to latch on right away and eat for probably 30 minutes, and then go back to sleep. He is so precious. I still can't believe I'm a father though, it's awesome so far. Every little bit of lost sleep and tiredness is wayyy worth it. I am going back to bed now, so good night.

He's finally home!

After a 7 day stay in the NICU at DRMC, my son is finally home with us. We finally get to enjoy waking up several times a night to change poopy diapers and feed him. I am so glad everything turned out ok. When he was at JFK, he developed a blood infection of some kind. Turns out, the infection was a staph infection. Staph normally lives on the skin, so we are thinking that when they pricked him one of several times with needles for blood samples and stuff, he got it that way. Needless to say we will NOT be going back to JFK to have the next kid.

The staff at the NICU at DRMC was very good to us, with the exception of one or two nurses who are idiots. We won't name names right now, but if your baby ever has to go there, know that he or she will be well taken care of. I snapped a picture tonight when Ethan was laying on my chest.



Aww, he's so cute. I just love him to pieces! We're gonna go visit Auntie Katie and my brother Steve so they can finally meet him. I should get to bed though, it's my first day back to work tomorrow and I need sleep. Wish us luck on the rest of our babymoon.

My wife had the baby!

I'm a father, so hard to believe!

We saw her doctor on Fri 12JAN07, and he said that he would schedule her for an induction on Monday morning, and that often times, the baby is just born on its own before the induction. As of that visit, she was 41 weeks into her first pregnancy. So, we scheduled the induction and went home.

Saturday was a good day, nothing odd to speak of just some minor cramping/contrax that could have been BH, but not sure.

Along comes Sunday morning (2:00AM to be specific) and oh boy, watch out. My wife woke me up at that time and told me she thought she might be going into labor. My first thought was, let's time the contrax and see how often they're coming. So we timed them for an hour or two. I can't remember exactly since it was the middle of the night. I told her that if the pain was still there in the morning we would go to the hospital.

Then, at 8:15, off we go. I already had the diaper bag and her bag loaded up in the car, because I knew it was going to be soon. We got there around 8:45 and the L&D unit is FULL. I was really amazed. They put her on a gurney out in the hallway hooked up to one of those monitoring things that has the bands that go around her belly. They finally gave her a room and we just sat and waited for things to progress. They figured that since she was scheduled for the induction the following morning, they would just keep her in the hospital rather than sending her home since she was 10 days postdate.

She labored all day Sunday and into Sunday night, and had lots of contrax but guess what? No dilation of the cervix, AT ALL. Stuck at 1cm for the whole day. Finally, on Monday morning she started dialating! She was 2-3cm at first, then a couple hours later she was 4-5, and then 3 or so more hours and she was 5-6, then 45 minutes 7-8cm and FINALLY 10cm. Her water was broken right around 2:00 in the afternoon on Monday 15JAN07

They wheeled her into the delivery room at around 2:15 - 2:30 and then it began. Tremendous pressure! Her doc was awesome. He has his degree in osteopathic medicine, so he likes the lights to be turned down low, and have it very quiet (no machines beeping, no intrusive instruments, no vacuum or suction devices etc..). She pushed for about 45 minutes, and at 3:12pm our son Ethan came into this world. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid my eyes on. I cried like a baby (how appropriate) and told my wife I was very proud of her. The placenta all came out in one piece, so no problems there.

They placed him on her chest right afterwards and let him suckle on her breast for a while. It was truly a beautiful sight! Here's a few pics of our boy, which you can click on to see a larger version:







Currently, he has developed some sort of "blood infection" so he's in the NICU at the best hospital in town with the best doctor money (or insurance in our case) can buy. Since her milk supply came in this morning, she's been pumping breast milk every 2-3 hours and freezing it. They FINALLY told me some details after I fired one pediatrician (at the hospital he was born at, not the one he is currently in). They found "cocci" in his blood which is some type of bacteria, so they are treating that. The little guy's not feeling too well, so he hasn't been eating much, just a lot of sleeping. They're going to run some more tests tomorrow and try to pinpoint the problem.

For now, keep us in your prayers. I am sure he will pull through this (he's a little trooper like his Daddy) and be fine.

Last little note, I HATE hospitals. I am pretty sure our next birth will be at HOME.