We went in for a planned induction at the hospital on Wednesday, January 14 around 7:00pm, got admitted, etc, etc. Karla was still only dilated one centimeter. Around midnight they started the epidural (which was pretty rough) plus the petosen (sp?) for inducing. Around 7:00 on Thursday morning the nurse checked her again and still no change, so they called our doc. Around 7:30 they came in and said, "We're going to do a c-section...at 8:15." Yikes! I'd sorta had a notion in the back of my mind that this would happen, as did Karla, so we accepted it. It was really a quick procedure. They didn’t actually wheel her back until about 7:20 and I didn’t go in (gowned and masked and such) until about 7:25 or so and at 8:36 our boy was born.
Fox Ewan Gladstone
Thursday, January 15, 2009, 8:36am
8lbs, 6 oz
21 inches
Tastes like chicken
The procedure, on top of being quick, was extremely laid back. Dr. Dunn and her assistant and those assisting the assistant, etc, were very chatty and funny and considering Karla was awake for the procedure, this helped set her at ease. About halfway through the deal the gas passer (yeah, I’m getting all M*A*S*H on you there) stood me up and I looked down over the sheet and there’s this little head squalling and poking out of Karla’s stomach. Had I been a wit more alert I’d have been traumatized pretty severely, but as it was I was dazed and confused and sat back down and about two breaths later he was all the way out, the cord was snipped and he was being cleaned up.
An early, day 1 picture and still my favorite.A few notable events from the past on the day he was born:
• 1559 - Elizabeth I is crowned queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London.
• 1759 - The British Museum opens.
• 1889 - The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1967 - The first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles, California. Green Bay Packers defeat Kansas City Chiefs 35-10
• 1986 - The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.
• 2001 - Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online.
• 2005 - An intense solar flare blasts X-rays across the solar system.
• 2009 - US Airways Flight 1549 makes an emergency landing into the Hudson River shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. All passengers and crew members survive.
And births:
• 1622 - Molière, French playwright
• 1754 - Richard Martin, Irish animal rights activist
• 1893 - Ivor Novello, Welsh composer and actor (FYI--I'm a big fan of this guy and Ivor was a late running candidate for Fox’s middle name!)
• 1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipping magnate
• 1909 - Gene Krupa, American drummer
• 1913 - Lloyd Bridges, American actor
• 1929 - Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
• 1937 - Margaret O'Brien, American actress
• 1941 - Captain Beefheart, American musician and visual artist
As those of you who’ve had children know, the next few days were basically tests and nurse visits and doctor check ups and various procedures and lactation training and would you like to have his picture taken (no) and family and friends popping in and the like. All good stuff and much appreciated. I really have to commend Baptist for having an overall knowledgeable and compassionate staff and a couple of the nurses in particular really took their time with Karla, especially with the breastfeeding procedures and were highly complementary and supportive and I daresay appreciative of Karla being so agreeable and obviously eager to learn and do things right, etc. That’s my girl. But as great as all of that is, there’s nothing like getting to go home, and after a false alarm on Saturday we finally got to head out early Sunday afternoon. I swear, every idiot driver in town was out to get us, but we made it without so much as a peep from the little guy.
Those first couple days of his life Fox was super easy going, through his first shots and bath and whatnot, he’d cry out once or twice and then just sorta chill and deal with it. That pretty much continued throughout the hospital stay and even after we got home everything was going quite well until bedtime Sunday when Fox got super fussy and 11:00 o’clock became midnight became 2:00am and we finally got to “sleep” around 3:30. I think we both had our “coming to Jesus” moment separately in those hours. I’ve said this to many folks the past few days: You can memorize the books, you can believe all the stories, you can mentally prepare yourself for what you think it will be like, but nothing really equips you for 1:30 in the morning when you’ve fed, changed, burped, changed, fed, swaddled, cooed, walked, rocked, fed, fed and fed the little tyke and he’s still screaming blue murder in your ear. Part of the problem was in the hospital everything was right there at our fingertips, but back at home we were scrambling around trying to remember where we’d put this and that as much as two months ago.
Relaxin' on the couch.
So with that in mind and an afternoon nap for fortification, last night (Monday), after another docile evening, we were better prepared for what was to come, and with a bit of a feeding schedule already being established, got a tad more sleep broken down into units. He never got nearly as fussy and distressed as the first night, just let us know he was ready to eat, burp, be changed…really, at this point it’s a guessing game or any combination of the three.
Today has been more of the same, feeding and changing and poking at him while he’s asleep to see if he’ll jump or make a face. Karla pumps when she can’t feed au natural and we administer the good stuff with a syringe which tends to give him the hiccups, but as Karla gets more skilled (and yes, it is a skill) and toughens up, his feedings are becoming more one on one. He’s a strong little guy and is already holding his head up and is pretty feisty when he’s waving his arms in the air, especially when we’re trying to change him or feed him (we refer to his left hand as The Hand of Doom, http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/2/0/0/11e/5/AAAAAq62-AoAAAAAAR5dZw.jpg). Also, because of his super lungs (refer to below video) and the fact that he gets red and red-hot when he’s upset, we call him the Human Torch (http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ArticleImages/VsSystem/August/HumanTorch.gif). As far as a permanent affectionate nickname, nothing has really stuck, but we call him Popeye and Cyclops ‘cos he tends to squint his left eye a bit.
The Human Torch prepares to go home.Karla is doing well overall. Aside from the lack of sleep, she’s a bit sore from the procedure and with everything going sometimes forgets to keep up with the pain meds, but the incision seems to be healing quite well and everything else has progressed as we’ve been told it should.
My mom is up from PC and of course thinks he’s perfect. When I asked her if she liked him or me more she responded, “I like the nice one.” Great. (BTW, I did the same thing to my father’s mother a few years back and got denied then as well.) K’s mom has been battling the flu so hasn’t had a chance to meet Fox, but her sis and nieces and nephew all think he’s tops, as do my cousins, etc, etc. So I guess he’ll be accepted in the clan. As for the rest of our “family,” last night Avery really discovered him for the first time in a very funny way (video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4KO28b_7dw). The bird is completely indifferent.
We’ve taken lots and lots of pictures and quite a bit of video, which I’ll share a bit here, so more will definitely follow in the next couple of days as I already have a couple more entries in mind.
And of course THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all of your prayers and tips and positive thoughts during Karla’s pregnancy and since Fox’s birth. He’s anxious to meet you guys, so don’t be strangers!
Check back super soon for the reasons behind his name and his first music mix.
And of course he's a rocker.
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