Melody, a birth retrospective (finally!)

Posted on January 3, 2010 by David

I’ve finally gotten enough sleep and have enough free time and hands to be able to type up a blog post. It’s been busy! It’s been sleepless! It’s been loud!

So here’s my attempt to ‘catch up’.

Melody’s Arrival

On the 19th I was in school for most of the day. I would leave early, but I had a test I had to take at 7:00pm. We had to go in the next morning and arrive at the hospital at 6:00am to start being induced. I took my test and left as early as I could, so I could get as much sleep as possible.

I returned home at 8:30 pm and had dinner with Jolene. I was ready for a sleep filled night to get ready for the next morning.

Only I didn’t sleep. I felt like a kid the night before Christmas, and tossed and turned. I only got 3 or so hours of sleep, when I sorely needed more.

We arrived at the hospital, and started the induction process. It took nearly an hour for an IV to be put in, so we had a late start. Waters were disturbed, and things went on their way.

Eventually, the pitocin started to be pumped in…

Jolene could only have so much at a time. When on one side, the baby’s heart rate would decrease when a strong contraction was had, presumably because the cord was getting pinched at these times. Because of this, we had to take things slow.

The entire process was pretty much what I thought it would be. I was calm, but tired throughout. The nursing staff at the hospital was amazing. We had several very kind staff members on hand throughout the delivery.

At about 8:15pm things started getting near the end. I was pretty calm throughout but at this point I started freaking out quite a bit (though I think I held it inside fairly well). The nurse that was the instructor for our birth class was the one who ended up coming on her shift and helping deliver. Our doctor waited for the moment to arrive, and was simultaneously delivering another baby in another room. Final arrangements were being made, the room started getting transformed for the event.

The suspense was huge. Eventually, pushing started. I decided to stay up near Jolene’s head rather than down at the business end of things. I figured that if I could be of any assistance it would be to my wife, not the doctors. That may be partially an excuse as well, since I was, as I said, freaked out a bit. Faster than I could have imagined the baby shot out and was planted firmly on Jolene’s chest. It was breathtaking, and ridiculously fast. My other thought was that she had a huge amount of hair for a baby.

They started checking her to make sure she was ok, and she scored fairly high on the ‘apgar’ scale. This is what measures the initial life signs of the baby, and is an indication as to how healthy they are.

She was then given to us. Grammy, the other ‘birth coach’s said hello to her, and I took as many pictures as I could to send out. The swine flu made this a 2 visitor maximum, so I felt like I needed to send pictures out via my iPhone to make sure everyone was included.

I finally sat down and really looked at her…

It was wonderful to finally meet her. We stayed in the hospital for an additional day as she was slightly jaundiced and they wanted to make sure she was ok to go home. She was, and we departed the next day. Spending the first night with the baby was exhausting, since she seemed to want to be up all night.

Melody has arrived!

Posted on November 22, 2009 by David

At 9:25 on November 20th: 8 pounds, 14 oz, and 21.5 inches long.

We’re exhausted, since we have had very little sleep. She’s a nocturnal baby, you see…

Here’s a link to pictures from her debut, and coming home

Swine Flu. Welp….

Posted on October 28, 2009 by David

This letter made Maddie cry and Ben upset…

… so I guess the only people that can be with the new baby are me, her mom, and her grandmother. In other words, Jolene and her two coaches. It’s sad that everyone can’t come, but at the same time… we’re not going to let it interrupt the happiness we feel.

Ultrasound 3 – She does not look like a fruit! – Surgery

Posted on October 23, 2009 by David

Week 37. We went in to get a final ultrasound done, and she’s flipped almost into the right position. She’s working on it. Some quick pictures, with labels on the first one for clarity Yes, that’s her face:

It’s always so much clearer on the ultrasound machine, as there’s a sort of continuity of the image that you don’t get with stills. You can’t see her eyes in this one like you could on the screen, and you of course can’t see the movement of her mouth. Someday technology will give us video, I’m certain. That day is not today.

Another face shot. Today we looked into her growth, as well. She has a largeish head, I guess. That could mean she’s a little further along than we thought, or perhaps just that she has a large melon. We double-verified she’s a she, and were presented with unmistakable evidence that she is in fact a she-beastie. No pictures of that because, well, a girl has to have her dignity.

A random foot shot, pointing skyward. I liked this ultrasound tech better than the one we had last time. She’s more personable, and Jolene worked with her in the past as well.

Surgery

Jolene has had a complication in the pregnancy. Nothing to do with the baby, really, but side effects that are common when a baby is there. Her gall bladder has a stone, and she will be having surgery 4 weeks after birth. Not a huge deal, but definitely very scary. They’re going to do it laparoscopically, which is the way to go. There’s no great emergency at this time – it’s not infected or anything, but it’s something that needs to be fixed.

Long Time no Post, Schoolings, Week 36

Posted on October 16, 2009 by David

I have every intention of keeping on posting here. I really do. I’m finding between work, baby preparations, and school that I’m lacking in time to do much of anything. Some of the things that have been keeping me busy are…

School

I’m set to register for my next semester, and am planning on taking:

Intermediate accounting – A logical extension to the first two accounting classes, I’m planning on going through my whole accounting book over winter vacation to prepare myself. It’s been a while since I took my accounting courses and want to brush up.

Managerial cost accounting – Standard cost systems for processes, basically budgeting and costs for systems used in business. I’m pretty sure this focuses on the internal users of accounting info, rather than public documents.

Federal Tax Accounting I – Required for the CPA exam, should I choose to take it. This one I’m not really thrilled by, but I want to make sure I’m prepared just in case I want to go down that road.

SAP in Business – I’m an accounting information systems major, so I think I should concentrate on, well, accounting information systems. This is optional but I would think it would be mandatory for this major.

Visual Basic Programming – I’m taking python, have taken java, dabbled in php and perl, so this should be fairly straightforward. This language lets you make quickie applications to handle a wide variety of needs on the windows platform, and I have no experience in it.

Baby School

We went to baby school! Last weekend we got to go and sit in the womens health center at Bay Medical Center. I got to learn about all sorts of things, such as:

The ‘Ring of Fire’ (poor Johnny Cash)
Weird electrode looking things they hook up. One of them gets ‘drilled’ into the babies head!
Techniques for handling the contractions
Aftercare for the baby
How Bay Med handles things, procedurally

Afterward, we went on a tour of the birthing facilities. It’s on the third floor of the hospital, and is actually very nice. They have a fridge, hardwood floors, and a general ‘apartment-but-not-really’ vibe. Basically as ‘homey’ as they could get in a hospital. More excitingly, they have WiFi throughout! Might be nice during some downtime, if there is any.

At the end we got our prize:

We sure are certifiable!

I do feel better now that I’ve seen the hospital. I was a bit anxiety ridden beforehand.

Week 36

Jolene is doing well, but feeling ‘very pregnant’. She has developed a ‘pregnant waddle’ as she walks now. We’re coping, but the whole thing tires her out. The baby feels neat when she moves, but you can tell she’s getting more and more cramped in there. She doesn’t ‘hit the walls’ as much as she did, since she has little room to do so. She does shift around a lot. It’s pretty neat to feel her feet or whatever sliding around in there. All that’s really happening is that the baby is fattening up.

As an aside, I had a bit of an issue, but am now fully vaccinated against all flu viruses. The CDC wants the families of newborns to form a ‘cocoon’ around the newborn. The people at the CMU health department didn’t understand at first, but after repeated visits they gave in.

Weeks 32-33, He-Beastie Birthday

Posted on September 27, 2009 by David

It’s been busy. I’ve gotten about half of my Python programming class completed, and have recently taken my first tests at CMU. It seems like if I’m not driving to and from school, I’m doing homework or work or some other thing that keeps me from posting. Yesterday we went to the CMU Vs Akron football game, for example. Since we’re not going to be able to make the homecoming game because of childbirth classes, we took the kids to see their first CMU game before we wouldn’t be able to. It was lovely, and rainy throughout the entire game. I think only I and the she-beastie enjoyed it. No pictures, since it was so very wet out.

Weeks 32-33

Jolene is doing well, though she has acquired some of the more common issues that a pregnant woman has. Braxton-Hicks contractions are NO FUN in the middle of a soccer field, behind the CMU Kelly/Shorts Stadium.

We’ve delivered our birth plan to the baby’s doctor. It’s such a detailed document and contains stuff that… I couldn’t believe was on there. Jolene doesn’t know, but I scribbled “I want to wear a grass skirt to deliver the baby” on the bottom of it before handing it to the nurse. What a surprise that will be!

I guess right now the baby is between 4-5 pounds, and is starting to get more normal looking skin colors. She’s putting on weight, and generally making mom uncomfortable. Also, she’s losing the wrinkly “alien looking” skin texture. Which is good, because the alien birth look is so 90′s.

The he-beastie turned 10!

He is now officially a double-digit individual. He had a birthday party with family all coming over to have lasagna and give him his presents. I missed half of the entertainment, having class through the beginning of the dinner party. No pictures here, but he made off quite well. It almost makes me want to turn 10 again. It was nice having everyone over all at once, even if our house is so tiny.

We have these wonderful friends that live in our computers!

Posted on September 20, 2009 by Jolene

Yesterday, we had a get-together with a few friends that we met on a message board. Most of them, we have met in person before, but a couple we had not. We feel very blessed to have these people in our lives. Even though our face to face contact is rare and brief, we consider them very dear friends.

These amazing and generous people threw a little shower for our little lady! Heather and Kate did the planning! Kate and Bill got to the chinese restaurant early and decorated everything. She brought an adorable cake!

She even brought clay so that everyone could play a shower game. Everyone had to make little ‘clay babies’ and I had to pick the winner! My friends are not artistic. Not with play-doh, anyway. The results were HILARIOUS, though. Nothing like a roomful of grown adults playing with clay!

They traveled from all over the state. All the way from Kalamazoo, Detroit, Muskegon, Lansing, Grand Rapids and even Alpena! And they brought the baby-beastie gifts! David even got his man-bag diaper bag! LOL (this was a big concern for him- Thanks again, Jim! LOL)

I just want to thank you all, again. I don’t think I could possibly thank you all enough. It meant SO much to us.

CMU Week 3, Baby Week 30-31, Beasties Week 1 at School

Posted on September 11, 2009 by David

CMU

Things are going well at college for me – things are getting routine. Instead of bringing my GPS with me to Mt Pleasant, I’ve started leaving it at home. I figure the iPhone can handle anything I need to find anyway.

Supply Chain Management: I can now say that I don’t think this is something I’d like to do for a career in the future. It’s gone past the first chapter introduction information and has moved on to ratios and the like. Nothing mindblowing, but the way it’s presented is not the way I would think if I were in the situation in the business world.

Python Programming: I’m 40% complete with the classwork, and have been doing it from home mostly. I plan on hopping in for some assistance on the next chapter though, some of the syntax in this language is a little off. This is somewhat challenging since I’m basically teaching myself.

Financial Analysis: Easy so far – still doing annuities and perpetuities and the like. So far it’s mostly been review. I had to buy a calculator since my graphing one isn’t what the book is based on. I’m not really that pleased with the BA-II calculator as it’s kinda janky in the way that it requires input. Then again, I didn’t want to use the graphing one because it too has a bad input method for uneven cash flows and other finance items. Stuff like this, but longer since this is a small example: NPV(12,0,{100,200,300,400,500})*1.12^5. Yeah, I don’t want to do that on a test.

Marketing Management: I’m enjoying this class more than I thought I would. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I recently received the outline of the final project and started compiling data for my company, Urban Outfitters. Everything is group-work based in this class so far, it seems. As a veritable hermit, that’s challenging.

Integrated Business Experience: SAP. So we’ve started to use the industry leading Enterprise Services product. I’m actually very excited about this class. Good experience with this product is very marketable.

Week 30-31

She now weighs about 3 pounds, and is starting to become quite the boxer. I can now sit back and watch Jolene’s stomach’ jump’ at me. She’s regularly kicking, both her brother in the head as well as my hand. The baby is gaining weight still, and this is making Jolene more uncomfortable. She’s dealing with it well, however. We also got a new Pack n’ Play (thanks mom and dad!). It’s got some rather unique features. Putting it all together felt like I was a soldier putting together an M-16 for the first time – it was harder than some of the content of the classes listed above. It comes with a vibrating device and a light as well, plus changing table, plus a napping pad. This is really what we need, given our little area we have.

Beasties 1st Week at School

The other two beasties had a successful first week at school.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever David, I’m off to school…”

I didn’t get to hear much from the kids since I’ve been going to school during the times that they’ve been getting out. All of the exciting news gets simmered down by the time I hit the house. I missed both of the orientations because of school too. Things seem to have gone well though, and adjustments have been successful: Ben for not having his sister at school with him for the very first time, and Maddie for going to a new, more grown up school.

More pictures here…

Overall, everything is going exceedingly good, but also exceedingly busy.

Week 28-29, Camping, First Week at CMU

Posted on August 28, 2009 by David

Lest you think I have been remiss about posting on this blog, I have an excuse: I have been quite busy! Last week we went camping. Of course, there was no internet, so there was no way to make the normal posting

More pictures here

It was wet, and not just because we were on Lake Michigan – it rained nearly the whole time we were there. Still, it was nice to end the summer. On the last night there, the clouds finally cleared off just as bedtime hit. We were able to see tons and tons of stars. I used an application for my iPhone to locate items of interest, and we were able to find Jupiter and other constellations.

Week 28-29

During camping the baby was spending her time developing wrinkled brains. Apparently, they start off smooth like a rock on the shores of Lake Michigan, and later develop the wrinkly look that we think of when we think of brains. She’s also getting fatter, and should be head-down now. Some people say that during this time the infants start to get REM-sleep patterns, which means that she might be dreaming. Not sure what she’d have to dream about. I don’t think there’s any movies being screened in there or anything.

My First Week at CMU

Everything went pretty much as planned. Parking wasn’t an issue. I found my classes ok. I am pleased with most of the rest of it.

BIS 228 – COBOL Python Programming

This class was intended to be COBOL programming, a language that’s from the stone age. Nobody but big banks really use it anymore, whereas Python is actually actively used. The professor in this class seems nice, and on the first day he told us that we could do the entirety of our classwork online and didn’t need to show up. Also, he refuses to teach COBOL, hence the switch to Python. Sounds good to me.

FIN 302 – Integrated Financial Analysis

An interesting professor and class, we started off with a chapter on ‘what is finance’ and have finished the rest of the week off with some Net Present Value of money equations. All review, basically. I don’t have the calculator he demonstrates things with, but my trusty TI-84 has all of the functions. I just need to figure out how to best use them.

MKT 304 – Integrated Marketing Management

A very friendly professor from Romania. The book is, as you would expect from a marketing book, slick and to the point. This class will be very involved with active participation, I think. I’m not really ‘into marketing’ so it’ll be interesting, for sure.

MGT 303 – Integrated Supply Chain Management

This class hurts my brain. What I’m being told in here goes against what I’ve learned in the past.

BUS 301 – Integrated Business Experience

This is where I’ll learn SAP, work on simulations of running a company, and more. This takes place in the DiamlerChrysler computer lab, which is one of the nicer ones. I’m not going to enjoy how late at night it is, though – I will be getting home around 10 PM on Thursdays.

I’m told at the end of my integrated business experience I am going to have to present my company to 90+ people in an auditorium, including the dean of the business school.

Week 27 – Cauliflower, or a Boot?

Posted on August 16, 2009 by David

Cauliflower.

Yup, the baby is apparently the size and weight of a 2 pound cauliflower head. The baby sites always, always seem to concentrate on the fruits and vegetable stands at the supermarket.

I’m not the only one to notice this.

Thankfully, someone has taken the time to setup a new, guy-friendly measurement metric.

I present to you, this weeks guy-friendly fetus-equivalent:

A boot. A 13 inch work boot.

Ok, I can jive with that. However, he doesn’t go into much more detail (nor should he) about the development during the weeks. So I’ll still have to look at pictures like these…

… which (I assume) is what our baby would look like if they were a who from whoville.

Anyway…

This week the baby is beginning it’s slow turn around. Soon, she’ll be loaded into the chamber and ready to be fired!

Sorry, got carried away with this ‘guy’ stuff. She can fully breath now, so she’s more viable now than ever.

We started registering at babies-r-us, and are getting all the final stuff in place for the arrival. It’s getting exciting!

The Cooke Family Website

Category Archives: Baby