Maternal Inferno

Recently, Valerie turned me on to another baby blog called "Dooce." In the event that anyone other than Valerie reads this, I wanted to pass it on. It is the funniest blog on the Web. NOTE: Dooce is funny, not wholesome. I would rate this "PG-13."

Enjoy

cliff divers

Well, we have gotten through the first week. I feel like one of those cliff divers just coming up for air after the dive of a lifetime. I think Jaime feels like she is the cliff diver that hit her head on a rock in the water and is never seen again. David doesn't know how he feels and could care less about our feelings as long as we keep the milk coming.

The first couple of nights were, naturally, the most difficult. David would spend an hour or so crying and we couldn't figure out why. We had just fed him, he was changed (not that he cares about dirty diapers) and his cries were not the gassy-tummy cries that we had at the hospital. Finally, with the help of a nurse at the Breast Feeding Clinic, we learned that while he might average a feeding every two hours, he will cluster feed several times about 45 (or fewer) minutes apart. That is usually around midnight to 2:00 am. Then, in the afternoon, he is content to sleep for three hours or so. So now we are working on turning that pattern around so that we get larger windows of sleep.

Highlights of the week: On Saturday and again today, he was weighed and looked over by nurses. He is very healthy and gaining weight like champ. He will be a little Sumo wrestler soon. He learns an adorable new look every day. Occasionally he smiles. When he is hungry, one of the signals that he gives us to to open his eyes wide and form a perfect circle with his mouth. He looks like a little choir boy. He also has an amazing repertoire of noises--each of them more adorable than the next. One of his noises sounds exactly like a perfectly articulated "ouch." I assume he will bring that out for the social worker. He has a little piggy noise, a wheezy duck noise and a couple of cute cries. One sounds like the squeaky penguin in "Toy Story II" ("I think I swallowed my squeaker"), and the other is a quick uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

It's not all perfect of course. Yesterday, I asked him what school of philosophy Wittgenstein represents. He answered "nihilism." I replied, "no, the correct answer is 'pragmatism,'" and he spit up on me. He spits up a lot. We have stopped even dressing him during the day since it is easier to change him out of a milk-soaked blanket than a milk-soaked onesy. On his changing table, he spit up with such force that milk hit the wall. Once he sent an arc of milk clean over the length of his body, past his toes, and on to the floor. He has spit up on my side of the bed twice. Even while Jaime is healing, I get to sleep in a wet spot. The nurse said that as as long as he is gaining weight, spit-up is mainly a laundry problem. Boy howdy.

He is one hairy little dude. Just like grandpa Barnhart. I recall reading somewhere that this will fall off soon. I hope so or he is going to be a serious little gorilla by middle school.

More later.

Still more photos

Here are a few shots with Jaime and David. I am experiencing some technical difficulties. I see that the photos that I have recently loaded to Ofoto are being compressed to a size that is best printed as wallet size. Sorry about that. My goal is 4 x 6 and that is the size on my computer. I will get it worked out soon, I hope. Meanwhile, enjoy.

A few new photos

Sorry that I have been gone so long. This has been a busy week. You can find some more photos here

I am still working out bugs, so email me if this doesn't work.

Picture!

This is the picture taken by St. Francis.



If it does not show up on your screen, and/or if you would like more information, then click here, go to March babies and scroll down to David Joachim.

I promise that more photos are on the way.

J-Dad

It A Boy! (but we already knew that)

Just the facts now; color commentary (and pictures) later.

David Joachim Gilbert arrived at 12:23 am Monday, March 22nd, 2004.

W: 7lbs 15 oz
L: 21 inches
Apgar: 9

mom is well, dad is well.

She's come unplugged

One of the more awkward aspects of discussing the progress of a pregancy is the frank discussion of physical processes that are normally very private. This is especially awkward on the World Wide Web. So I am not going to elaborate on the title of this post. If it makes sense to you, great. If it doesn't, then suffice to say that Jaime is progressing normally towards the Big Day.

We read through the list of "Prelabor Symptoms" in What to Expect When You Are Expecting this morning. We were able to check off eight of the nine prelabor symptoms as well as several of the false labor symptoms that women often experience in the weeks prior to real labor. What does this tell us? In fact, nothing new. Jaime is progressing normally for someone that is expecting in the next two or three weeks. However, there is a great deal of comfort in reading about what is normal and comparing that to what she is going through. It is just further reasurance that mother and child are healthy.

Engaged

We went to the doctor today. Baby is still upside down, which is good. His little heart is 150 beats per minute, also good. Jaime's cervix is dilated 1.5 cm. For you non-experts, that is not much, it could stay that way for quite awhile (10 cm is the final goal). In childbirth class, we learned that the cervix is about the size and shape of a stack of three lifesavers. It eventually thins and stretches to let the baby through. Jaime's is still about 2 or three lifesavers thick, so it has a ways to go.

The most interesting news is that he has dropped into position in the pelvis. This is interesting on two points. Firstly, all of the hobbyist-OB/Gyns in our life have assured us that he is still quite high and will not be here for many many more months. Heck, we can barely call Jaime pregnant yet at this point, she has soooo far to go. Well, he is there, in position, presenting. Secondly, I expected his move into the pelvis to be a bit more dramatic. I figured there would be some sort of "plop" and the sound of Jaime's bladder being schmushed. Not so. While this is all good news, it is really no indicator. He could be ready in three days or three weeks. We counted from the presumed point of conception and that puts forty weeks at April eighth. However, the doctor will not let this go more than ten days past the due date of March 25.

Stay tuned

other baby news

In other news from the baby world. Congratulations to our friends Justin and Jody Mathews of Kansas City for their new arrival--Asher John Mathews! A healthy baby boy. May God grant him many many years!

Also, Jaime's cousin, Michelle, who is due in early April is progressing well, we hear. She has passed a mile-marker and could be here very soon.

bladder biter

Ok everyone, we are going to play a roll-playing game! This requires the participation of both the husband and the wife so if you don't have one of those, go get someone to play along. The wife is going to lay on the bed and be the pregnant lady with the breech baby. The husband will be the doctor doing an external version. If you like, you can prop up a stuffed animal at the bedside to be the pregnant lady's speechless, horrified husband. Now the one playing doctor is going to place one hand on either side of the patient's tummy. Ready? Now push your hands together squeezing just as much of the tummy just as hard as you can. Are you pushing! Hard?! Com'on, I don't hear any groaning--PUSH!! You may need to work out a bit if you don't think that you are really putting vice-like pressure on that tummy. Wasn't that fun? That is what we call an External Version!

Fortunately, I think it was worse for the horrified, stuffed animal husband than for the pregnant lady. It went exceptionally well. This procedure can take ten to twenty-five minutes. Our baby flipped in about 90 seconds--a record for our doctor. Jaime felt discomfort and is a bit bruised. She is having pains in her back that seem to be showing up in the monitor as contractions--but not real ones. She describes the change as feeling distinctly different and very weird. Now the baby's head is on her bladder. At one point her bladder was full and the head was on it and the discomfort was acute. Jaime described it as feeling like he was biting her bladder.

The whole thing was monitored with a sonogram with which we were able to see the baby again. Good strong heartbeat, lots of activity, definitely a boy.

One of the nicest things about this was the enormous amount of prayer and encouragement we got from everyone. We were inundated with emails and phone calls expressing love and support. It felt great. Thank you to everyone.

Bottoms up, not

As of this evening, the baby is breech--head up and bottom down. With only two and a half weeks to go, this is cause for mild concern. Tomorrow, we will go to the hospital and Dr. Wiley, our OB will attempt an external version. This is latin for "pushing against Jaime's abdomen in such a way as to try to get the baby to turn over." Dr. Wiley guestimates that about 25% of first-pregnancy breeches flip over with this proceedure and stay that way. We have been told by other sources that he is very good at this. In thirteen years, he has never had a complication.

I will let you know how things turn out (no pun intended).

Pear

I don't know if this will make a good print or not. It is pretty low-res.

Welcome

If you are reading this, then you are probably a friend or a relative just brimming with excitement and craving news about our soon-to-be-born bundle of joy. Mark this in your "favorites" and return often. I promise to try and update this at least once a week. Additionally, I will try to keep up-to-date photos here that are linked to Ofoto, Flickr a great service that will allow to buy prints of any of the photos that I post.

Eventually, I will have our email addresses posted as well as links as time allows.

Enjoy.