Next to Godliness

So, we gave the small guy his first bath this morning. It was probably overdue but his umbilicus stub detached yesterday (haven't found it yet, a little gross), so we figured he was ready.

HE DID NOT LIKE IT.

We have pictures to prove it. But, as Quinn pointed out, what little boy really likes taking baths? Quinn did a great job. I hovered and played the part of photojournalist. Unfortunately Grandma was out seeking coffee, but that might be for the best as his persistent wailing (sounds like a bleating sheep) seems to bother her a little more than mommy and daddy; we've come to accept it.

John is doing very well with sleeping and eating. He goes for about 2-3 hours between feedings, and eats quickly and then settles right back to sleep, which is really nice when he wakes up for that 2 a.m. snack. He usually sleeps around 3 to even 4 hours after his early morning feeding, around 5 a.m., so when we get up in the morning we are pretty fresh. I can't wait to see how much the little piglet weighs on Friday, he already has a double chin!

As for mommy and daddy, we are adjusting. My body went through some kind of nursing weirdness the last couple days where I have been running a fever, but I seem to have gotten over it. John is such a sweet baby. We can't wait for all of you out there on the Internets to meet him.

First Day Pictures!

We have a lot more where this came from, but here are a few of the better ones. I'll have to get clearance before posting any that may hint at a mommy boob. They are in reverse chronological order (oldest on bottom).

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys

Whether this kid grows up to be a vaquero remains to be seen, of course, but judging by his birth weight, I don't believe he'll grow up to wear the silver star on his helmet.

John David Baker was born last night, January 22, 2007, at 8:47 p.m., coming in at a hefty 6 pounds 11 ounces, at just under 20 inches long (19 and 3/4 to be exact, though he was squirming so much it was hard to be certain), 18 hours after Jessica's bag of waters broke. Jessica birthed him at the Maternity Center ("that hippy place" according to Uncle Josh) drug-free, and she did an amazing job. I can't say enough how proud I am of her. I'll let her tell the whole birth story, and I'm sure I'll add more about my perspective, but I wanted to put it up there for people to see. We already have like 30 pictures of the kid and eventually I'll get them loaded on the computer and uploaded to the website. He has nice dark hair and I think Jessica's chin, but beyond that we're not sure who he looks like.

For those of you who don't know, the name comes from both sides of the family. Jessica has an uncle John whose birthday was last week, and I have a great-uncle John who passed away a few weeks ago; our boy is named after both. As for the David, that was my father's name (God rest his soul) and my middle name, and is also my father-in-law's middle name. We're not sure yet if we're going to call him John David or John or David or Jack or Dave or J.D. or Poncho or whatever - we figure we'll let it work itself out.

Well gotta go - Jess's parents are here now and we're about to go to Reagan to pick up my mom - just the three of us are going. Hopefully by the next time I post I'll be able to find the words to explain how awesome it is to watch your son be born. I just can't get enough of this kid - last night after he was put on the boob and fed and we were all resting before we were sent home, I sat there for 45 minutes staring at him, and I didn't get bored, not a bit.

Miracle of Life? Understatement.

Up for Parole

So, today is the 20th - and my outer limit "must deliver by" date is 02/20 - which means I will be paroled within 30 days! I am mostly sure that prison is waaay worse than being pregnant, but then again in prison at least you can lift weights in the yard and nobody EVER asks you if you're having twins.

My appointment on Thursday was fine, I am "progressing" but it's not like he's going to fall out or anything. In fact, the midwife Ellen (my favorite) told me that almost never happens with a first baby. I am GBS (Group B Strep) negative, which means no IV antibiotics, and my wimpy red blood cells rallied just enough to keep me out of the dangerously anemic range (instead I am merely pale and fatigued). The only issue that came up is SG's size. As it turns out, he might not be so "S" after all. I am sure this is not much of a surprise to anyone who received our Christmas pic, or better yet seen "the belly" live in all its glory. So next week, if I am still pregnant by Friday, I may have to get another ultrasound, which I am not psyched about. There are some (really, really gross) signs I might labor before that, which would be great. I just think it's funny that of all the people, Slim a.k.a. Quinn and I might be bringing the next Jeremy Shockey into the world although likely with much poorer hand-eye coordination.

My dad is in transit to FL and we are really looking forward to seeing him. Other than that, we are on standby in a major way. Flight SG1 is holding for takeoff.

(gno) Breaking Gnus

Adoring fans from all across the country have been clamoring for some news on Babygate 07. From our last update, there is nothing much new to report. Jessica had some pretty significant contractions yesterday after dropping me off at school for my first day. As an aside, I paid tribute to teenagers everywhere yesterday by developing a giant zit on my face for the first day of school. I know, it wasn't fair to all the ladies there: "not only are you fertile, but you're also sportin' that spotlight on your face? Take me now." Anyway, other than the contractions, which stopped after a few hours, the only new developments over the weekend were gifts from the small guy's ("S.G.") great aunt and uncle Mary Beth and Charles. They got us a little vibrating chair for the little devil that's really cool, though we still need to get batteries for it; also they got us some burp cloths (doesn't sound exciting but believe me, it is) and some swaddling blankets. And just now we pre-ordered the envelopes for baby announcements, so once the actual announcements come we can just stick em' in and ship em' out.

As today is Wednesday, we have entered the official launch window for mission Sigma Gamma 1. The window will close on 20 February, and beyond that it's off to the hospital for pitocin and forced birth, so everyone put your spiritual heads together and keep up those prayers to whatever higher being seems appropriate to you. And while you're at it, S.G.'s grandpa will soon be making the trip down Route Irish, if indeed he has not already done so, before winding his way back stateside for some much-needed R&R. For those of you who don't know, Route Irish is not the safest route to the airport in the world, so let's all pray he makes it safely (as I'm sure he will). We're hoping for a launch date during said sabbatical so these two esteemed gentlemen may meet one another. But whatever happens, happens.

I suppose that's about it, loyal readers. Remember, no news is good news, or as some say, to paraphrase, no gnus is good gnus.

Final Countdown!

Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo do do... you all know the song. I am now officially 36 weeks pregnant according to the midwives and am entering the launch zone. Small Guy is head down although not completely "locked and loaded". I'll spare you the gory details but my, um, internal exam went well and things seem to be progressing quite nicely. If I were a bettor, I'd say he'll arrive well in advance of my "official" due date of 02/07 - I seriously dispute this date to begin with and think it's based on some miscalculations, but the whole idea of due dates is completely speculative, so whatever.

The only hurdles we have left are a group B strep test: http://familydoctor.org/281.xml; sounds way more stressful than it is, could still give birth at the Hippy peace love and flowers Maternity Center (http://www.maternitycenter.com/index.html), and a blood test to check my hemoglobin / hematocrit (to determine if I am anemic, for all you non-Discovery Health addicts). Bad blood equals possible hospital birth, not what we want. The only other way we'd likely end up at "Sh*tty Grove", as we affectionately refer to our backup hospital, would be if the Small Guy decided to make his debut before 01/17/07. Not much we could do about that, so let's all focus our collective subconscience on making sure he stays inside until after MLK day, at least. But don't focus too hard because I want this little F'er out A.S.A.P. after that!

Like a toothache

So, I thought I'd fill in all of you never-pregnant, never gonna be pregnant, or haven't been pregnant since the last ice age types on what it is like to be 36+ weeks "with child." I came up with this analogy yesterday when Quinn and I were having a little tiff over whether he was cleaning the bathroom quickly enough (gestation really brings out the best in me). Finally, I admitted that my attitude had nothing to do with the pace of his cleaning, which was excellent, and everything to do with the fact that I AM SO TIRED OF BEING PREGNANT.

After a few minutes of grovelling for forgiveness, I came up with a way to describe how I was feeling. It goes something like this:

Imagine you had a toothache. It started back in May-June and it really wasn't that bad. It came and went over the next several months; some days it was miserable, others you didn't even notice it. The only problem was that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you could do to make the toothache go away other than wait. Since around Thanksgiving, the toothache has been really bad. You can barely sleep at night. It's all you can think about. It makes even the simplest things (grocery shopping, for instance) fairly miserable. Now the toothache has taken over your life. You know how to make it go away, but you also know (1) you can't choose when this will happen; and (2) getting rid of it will be a seriously painful proposition. So you wake up every morning HOPING AGAINST HOPE that today will finally be the day when your tooth will be pulled without anesthesia, following several hours of hard physical effort. That is the best case scenario of every day.

This, as you can imagine, is not a normal way to live and it has somewhat of a detrimental effect on one's psyche. So should you cross the path of an extremely pregnant woman, smile and duck if necessary.

Special Delivery!!

No, not that special delivery. Today we got the matress for the cradle, as well as the bedding Jessica's mom made. We made up the cradle and it looks awesome! We also have some curtains she made that I'll have to hang this weekend (not looking forward to that - curtains and I do not get along). Here are the pictures of the bedding. I apologize if the layout looks weird. It took me forever just to get the preview looking halfway decent - though nowhere near the Feng Shui layout in my head - and I have no idea how it will translate to the actual blog.

As you can see, there are little grasshoppers and moths and ladybugs on it. We picked the fabric out months ago before we knew if he was a he or if he was a she. The blue accents would have been red if he were a she (which he's not).

As you can also see, here I am, a grown man, getting all excited about bedding. And not just any bedding - baby bedding. This is what happens to you when you have kids, I think. And you know what? I don't even care.

Jessica continues to have a few hours of contractions every evening. The latest round seems to have subsided. Using our many books, the Internet, and our info from the Maternity Center, we've determined that these are "pre-labor" contractions - something in between Braxton-Hicks and full-blown labor. Apparently such contractions are normal, or at least not abnormal. She has her 36-week appointment next week, and we're hoping the exam shows some progress. But even if it doesn't, there's one thing I know, and that's that they all come out sooner or later. We're hoping for sooner but later's better than not at all. Speaking of exams, I had one today and have one more next week. I've already talked to the Registrar about what to do if he's born when I'm supposed to take the exam - I can reschedule it for the next week (it's already been rescheduled once; the school decided it'd be a good idea to have 2 different classes hold their exams at the same time!). And if he comes before Friday, well then I'll just take the exam in whatever condition I'm in. It won't be the first time a major family event interefered with my law school exams, though this one will be a much happier occasion than 12/03. Whenever he's ready, that's when I'll be ready.

Life before Small Guy

So, we are now about 750 weeks pregnant. No, really we are between 35-36 weeks. Not quite to the "any minute now" stage but we (and by we I mean I and more specifically my uterus) are very ready to have the small guy on the outside. I thought I'd kick off this blog by showing everyone what hip, cosmopolitan and thin jet-setters we were before the small guy invasion. That is us last summer. But those days are long-gone! I have to keep it short because I need to save my energy to take down our Christmas tree, plus I know I'll have about 3 hours of Braxton-Hicks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton-Hicks) this afternoon. If anything exciting happens, we will update!