Halfbrown

Kimberly woke me up and told me “I’ve got a suprise for you!”, and in my half-sleep/half-awake haze I was reminded, for some odd reason, of my 7th or 8th grade Christmas when I wanted a bike but didn’t think I would get one (and then got one). So ’round the Christmas tree we go in the living room when lo and behold, what do I see out of our front window?

Snow!

It really caught local TV weathercasters by suprise, too… all the channels are scrambling to get the skinny on what people are doing.

It’s only about 2 inches of the powdery stuff, but that’s enough to make me happy! And even though I’ve lived in Washington for about 14 years now and should be used to it, it still cracks me up that there are school closures going on right now. There are a few districts/schools who have at least 2 brain cells that match and are only going a little late, but still… Slap some chains on those busses and everything should be good to go, man!

Also, since we live in Washington the snow will only last for a few hours before the rain comes and washes it all away (they predict it will turn to rain @ ~10AM), but it’s nice to see it while it’s here. I just love the snow!

Evan got circumcised today and for some reason I felt the need to be in the room with him. I think it was a mixture of needing to be there as a father/parent and also a bit of curiosity. I was OK during the procedure, I think, but when Kimberly came back into the room (she didn’t want to witness the event) she said I looked really flushed. After a few more hours of me being uptight, cranky, and whatnot Kimberly let me know that I was being a bit “over the edge”.

Then, after I changed his diaper a few minutes ago I started crying because my little boy was in pain. Now I know that he won’t remember this (I sure don’t remember mine), I know it heals in a relatively short time, and I know that it’s what we both wanted for him. But I can’t help feeling bad for him since I know it must hurt like hell right about now.

OK, so wow was the labor and delivery process exactly that: a process!

Poor Kimberly had to be induced into labor, which in and of itself took ~36 hours. We weren’t really sure how that whole ordeal would go since Kimberly’s Dr. said it could take up to 24 hours for the “stuff” to even begin working. And, of course, the whole time she would be feeling like crap (which she did). We were told by our Doctor to call the L&D room at Noon to see if any beds/rooms were ready, but when I called they said call back at 4PM. Four hours later they told us to head on in.

We got to the hospital and discovered that we were going to be staying in the same room we toured when we took our “Birthing basics” class, which was a pretty interesting class. It only took us about 15 minutes to get settled in, including Kimberly getting into those sexy hospital gowns that everyone loves wearing. I think “hospital blue” is going to be the “new black” this year.

After about an hour Kimberly was put on the medicine they use to induce (”pitocen”?), which was not fun for her since she hates needles, and this one was stuck in her right hand. A nurse generally came in every 30 minutes to an hour to check on Kimberly was still only dilated to ~1cm the next morning at 8AM. Since at ~10cm they can/will deliver, this was not a good sign. Unfortunately Kimberly couldn’t really eat anything this whole time either, so I had to eat my food on the sly in the room, but she didn’t really feel like eating anyhow… she was in too much pain.

Our Doctor wanted us to stay at least a full 24 hours to see if any change in her dilation would happen, and by the time 4PM came around she was at ~2cm. We had a choice at this point our Dr. said we could leave now and come back in the morning to try it all over again, or we could give it another 12 hours or so. Since neither one of us wanted to pack up all our stuff just to re-pack it the next morning we opted to stay.

Now; by 8PM Kimberly was in so much pain that a slow but steady stream of tears kept lining her face we decided to call the nurse. Finally we got a nurse who would give her something for the pain, and Kimberly was doped up with a bit of morphine. I’d say that within 15 minutes she was feeling better… not 100% better, but better nonetheless. And she was still at ~1-2cm dilated.

At somewhere around 9PM Kimberly started feeling pressure, but not too bad so we didn’t really think much of it. By 10:30PM it was enough to warrant calling the nurse in again. That pressure she felt was the natural pressure you feel when you are about to give birth: she was now dilated to ~9cm!!! That’s right, in the span of just a few hours she dilated 8cm!!!

Well, the on-call Doctor (Kennedy, because our Dr. was not on call that night) was called and was due to arrive in our room shortly and the anesthesiologist was called in as well. One of the nurses tried to get Kimberly to go natural since she had, quote, “gone through the worst part already.”. No way; Kimberly wanted the drugs and I don’t blame her! But the contractions were coming in so quick that it was iffy as to if the anesthesiologist could get the epidural in fast enough. Luckily he was able to get it into her just in the nick of time (between contractions) and after that all was good.

Over about another hour or so after that the nurses prepped the room for delivery, the Doctors bopped in and out of the room, and Kimberly smiled for the first time in almost 2 days. In the mean time Kimberly was allowed to take a nap to get ready for the big event, and I started calling our little phone tree of friends and family who wanted to know right when the birth was taking place. Now I”m a really private person; i don’t have a lot of really close friends, and I don’t like people all up in my business, so when we first talked about who would be in the delivery room we decided that it would be me, Kimberly, and whatever hospital staff was needed. That all went out the door that evening. Kimberly’s sister Angela came over all the way from Seattle, and I picked my mom up since she literally lives a block or two from the hospital. In retrospect it was really nice to have them both there.

Anyhow, Evan, much like his father, did not want to come out. Well, I guess you could say that Kimberly was having trouble pushing as well… the epidural makes it difficult for a lot of women to know when contractions are coming, when to push, and to push when needed. So Evan had to be taken out with, for lack of a better word, a suction cup. Imagine, if you will, the handle of an old-time raygun with a rubber head that somewhat resembles a styrofoam cup. That’s what took him out. Of course doing so made his little head mushy, which really worried me at first, but it turned out everything was alright.

We had Evan!

That is to say, Kimberly had Evan. Here’s the basic stats: he was born on Nov. 9th @ 2:45AM Pacific time and he weighed 8 lb.s 8 oz.s and was 20 3/4 inches long at birth.

I can’t stay on too much right now, but let me say 3 things:

1. It’s incredible how much you can unconditionally love someone right when you meet them,
2. I am without a doubt the happiest I’ve been since my wedding day, and
3. Kimberly and I have finally gotten 8 hours of sleep. Eight hours of sleep since Wednesday morning, that is.

I’ll have more details soon, but before I go here’s a picture of Evan:

We’re all set for the induction tomorrow; we’ve got the bags packed (”Car seats set up?” “Check.” “DVD’s for Kimberly?” “Check.” “Book for me?” “Check.”), Lily’s being taken care of, and I just got finished dusting everything, vacuuming the house, and cleaning the bathrooms. whew… and you know how I feel about cleaning!

One thing that won’t be happening is the pictures of the, um, er… “privates”, as the baby comes out. We hate that; so all the pictures taken will be of the baby after he’s out. What? You think I’m running a porn site or something?

So I’m excited, Kimberly’s nervous, and we’re both a bit antsy. I guess that’s to be expected. Since we’re having a boy, I’m thinking about playing catch, gaming, and teaching him how to fish… you know: man stuff. Kimberly, of course, is coming to grips with the fact that a living object the size of a watermelon will soon be coming out of something of hers that is not the size of a watermelon; hence her nervousness. You know, the usual things people go through before a child is born. Honestly though; even if the ultrasound was wrong and we’re having a girl; I could care less… as long as the baby is safe, healthy, and in my arms. Of course, we’ll have to do some returns/exchanges (heh) for some of the baby clothes we got at the shower(s); but at least we already have a girls name picked out: “Jasmine Christine”.

So yeah… I’m about to be a father. It’s sort of surreal. Not “Salvador Dali” surreal; but more like dreamy/fantasy surreal. I was really nervous for years about taking this step, but at long last I think I’m ready for it. I didn’t want to just fall into being a father. I had such a great example of what a father should be in my own dad that, I wanted to make sure I was in a place in my life and in myself that I could give my own child the love, patience, and nurturing I had growing up. And not from just my father… I had great parents; truly great parents. I am a hell of a lucky guy to not only have parents who loved each other and loved me, but who were so very tolerant and understanding of my every dream, goal, and fantasy, no matter how ridiculous and/or faddish, and who would let me explore as much or as little of life as I wanted. Everything from guitar lessons at 5, soccer (1 whole game!), drum and bugle corps, games, books… everything. Of course, I didn’t realize how lucky I was back then, but I certainly do now. And I hope I can give Evan what I had growing up.

Well… the NST test (etc.) went fine and dandy. Kimberly’s blood pressure is still a little elevated but both mother and baby is doing very well. We had to go in again to the hospital today to get Kimberly’s blood pressure checked… actually, we had to do the whole NST/BP/etc. done again today. We thought that we’d have to just get her BP done; sort of an in-n-out type o’ thing. Nope.

We were there for about 45 minutes getting all the tests done again. And, of course, since we thought it would only take about 10 minutes to do the BP we went to Costco first and had some of their yummy frozen fried shrimp in the car. Frozen shrimp… good thing it’s cold outside here in the Puget Sound! Anyhoo… momma and baby are still fine, though Kimberly’s BP is still a little high. The Dr. on call (ours if off this weekend) said it was all good (word) and that she should just take it easy.