Shane is here!

Our son is born!  He's healthy, and looks great. I was an ugly baby, so he obviously takes after his mother (and he has the dark hair to prove it!). I cannot describe how happy I am to be a father...partly because it still feels surreal to me. I look at Shane and it's hard to believe he's mine. Oh, he's got my chin, but it's still going to take time to sink in. I'm really happy and looking forward to being a father.


If the beginning of the last post didn't make it obvious, it was a rough delivery. Carrie was in labor for 11 hours, but never dilated more than 1 cm. The doctors said that it was a sign the baby was too big and Mother Nature was trying to tell us that the baby was going to need to come out another way: Cesarean style. It wasn't what we'd hoped for, but I have to give the hospital credit for how quickly they acted. Our doctor made the decision, left the room, and within a couple of minutes I was handed a set of scrubs, and a few minutes after that we were out the door and down the hall.

If that was all that we had to deal with, it wouldn't have been such a bad experience. However, Carrie's epidural failed. Hours into the process, Carrie decided to go the epidural route. It didn't work. We found it out the hard way when several procedures that should have been painless made Carrie miserable (and I learned a new vocabulary term: sacral sparing). The second epidural looked like it was doing its job correctly until they put Carrie on the operating table. The needle moved, hit a blood vessel, and the catheter filled with blood. Poor Carrie started to feel a lot of pain. They tried dumping more meds into her system, but she cried out because she could feel what was happening to her. At this point, they told me "you have to go outside" and dumped Carrie under general anesthesia. I like to think I'm a brave man, and I can count the times I've teared up in the past years on one finger (once). It's really scary worrying that you may lose both wife and child. When I heard Shane cry out and they dropped him in my hands I did tear up. It was one of those odd moments where it felt like my mind and body weren't on the same page. I was thinking one thing, and my eyes were thinking something else. When Carrie started to wake up from her drug-induced sleep, she was annoyed because she's never gotten to see me cry before.

Rough story, but it doesn't end there either. When Carrie started to become more lucid, she was in a lot of pain. The narcotics in her IV (the good stuff) weren't cutting it, and the anesthesiologists kept upping the doses. Eventually, they started using a key to unlock the safety procedures on the little toy pumping the medicine into my wife. Shane was born at 8 PM, and we didn't end up getting out of the recovery room and settled in our new room until midnight. Then, the pain meds ran out and the dispenser started beeping incessantly until it got examined and changed out. Sleep for me came around 1 AM. At 5 AM, the nurses came in with Shane for some bonding time with Mommy and I found out Carrie had been unable to sleep for the second night in a row. She was in pain, sleep deprived, and becoming more and more distressed (especially when there was an hour gap in the refilling of her pain meds). The situation didn't get better until Carrie was given a shot of some sort of intramuscular shot of a different pain reliever. Around noon, she was able to sleep for about three hours and things have been much better since then. We've seen Shane, the parents saw Shane, and Carrie is now on Percocet which is proving much more effective.  I've heard my wife crying and sobbing more than I ever wanted to in the past 36 hours. It leaves you feeling helpless, because there's nothing absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

Even with all of the difficulties, both mother and child are healthy and in no danger. It's amazing, and I can't help but feel so grateful. Carrie was able to get up out of bed when the nurses made her, and she's been acting like she feels much much better. Thank you to everyone who was praying for us. I started making calls to people when I could, and I'll be making more calls tomorrow. Thank you to the nurses who were patient and very helpful. Debbie, Audrey, and Munja all stick out as being exceptional. Thank you God for giving me a happily sleeping son!

All right. Memory preserved and I want to try and get a couple of hours of sleep before they bring in Shane for the next feeding. Good night to all, and to all a good night.

Still waiting on Shane....

It's been a long day and we're not there yet. Carrie and I woke up at 7 AM. I say "woke up," but Carrie apparently never fully fell asleep. I was a lot better off, but the couch "made-of-what-feels-like-wood-boards" wasn't very helpful.

The day started off with an Oxytocin drip for Carrie. She's been hooked up to what I've been calling her "portable Christmas tree" ever since. Our nurse, Debbie, has been excellent. Very friendly, and always positive. The day has been far from easy, though. I think both Carrie and I went into this thinking that an induction would be much quicker than going into labor normally. The average labor time is 12 hours (I think), and somewhere in my brain I was expecting to be holding my son around the time school normally lets out for me. Instead, it's 7PM at night and we're no further along than when we started.

For the first four hours or so,Carrie resisted asking for pain meds. When she gave in to getting an epidural, it was with the thought that she could relax and maybe even sleep. So began the problems. The position of leaning forward to get the epidural was very painful for Carrie. When it went in,


time out for c-section.

Everything is going to change...

I'm not as nervous as I thought I'd be. It's not that I'm not nervous, it's just that I don't feel a crushing weight or anything like that. I suppose that's because largely I'm a spectator here. Carrie's the one feeling the pressure. My job is going to be moral support for Carrie and acting as calm and collected as possible for her sake.

We checked into the hospital just before 8 PM. Carrie dropped herself off at the emergency room (she wanted to drive) and then I drove off to hunt for parking. We signed in, and we've been parked in the room ever since. The hospital has done it's best to make what's clearly a hospital room look homier (if that's a word). There's cabinets, a rocking chair, and even a (fake?) wooden headboard attached to the hospital bed. If it wasn't for all of the high-tech monitoring equipment, baby care station, and hospital bed they may have even pulled it off. We've spent the last three hours talking to the nurse, setting up monitoring, medicine, and drawing blood (Carrie's least favorite part). The Ravens - Steelers game has been going on in the background since 8:45 or so. It's been a great time-killer, and I've been making sure to keep Carrie updated on her fantasy stats. Hopefully the sleeping pill will take effect soon for Carrie. It's after 11 PM now, and I think they said they were going to give us a 6 AM wake-up call.

I've spent a lot of this weekend thinking about how different life is going to become. There will be no more "give me five minutes to see if this game finishes" or "I'll just sleep in/roll over/hit the snooze button and get up later." The world is going to shift from Mike-time to baby-time. I got a sneak peek at what that feels like when I shifted to married-time, but baby-time is going to take things to a whole new level. I don't know what sort of sleep pattern Shane (and therefore Carrie and I) is going to have, so I don't know how many extended activities will be possible. While folding and putting away baby clothes today, I decided that I should try and write a journal of every day. Nothing big, but maybe just something I can show to Shane later or to keep people informed. I don't want anyone to feel left out. There's just so many people to call, and supporting Carrie takes up most of my time. I'm writing this in the dark as she's trying to sleep. It's too dark to read any of the parenting books I brought with me (last minute cramming), so I think I'm going to try and get some sleep for tomorrow. After all, who knows when I'll get another chance for six glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep?

Two days until BBDay

Two days until "Baby Birthday" and counting.

I'm going to be off work for the next 8 weeks or so thanks to FMLA leave. I have the sick leave saved up so that I'll be paid throughout (nice!), but I'm still worried that my classroom is going to explode while I'm gone. Logic tells me that it won't, and maybe it's just pride that makes me think I'm that integral to how things work, but the feeling remains. I stayed late Thursday and Friday trying to make sure everything was ready. I know I forgot things, and I hope Mrs. Mitchell will be able to improvise. One of my students has been DREADING her impending arrival. He even wrote down "Mrs. Mitchell" for the answer to his bonus question on a quiz yesterday. The Question? "When does the nucleus disappear and when does it reappear in mitosis?' Clearly, his mind was on other things!

Last night, I couldn't really focus on much. I watched some TV and played some games (lost), but I kept thinking about BBday. I think a lot of it was also just worrying about my classroom/job. Today, we slept way in (later than I wanted, but Carrie sleeps better if I hang around), and we've done a ton of work since. Hours and hours of laundry, cleaning, cat pots, and trying to make sure that the house will survive on its own for a few days and be ready for us when we return with Shane in tow.

My wife has decided to hover over my shoulder at the moment. She's been trying to entice me to watch SG-1 while I've been writing this. First, she started singing the song, then she prepped the PS3 and has been watching the back of my head, and now she's hovering behind me. Do you think she's looking forward to it?  Thankfully, I happen to love SG-1 as well, so I'm off for now!

Induction is scheduled

Carrie's induction is scheduled. If the baby doesn't show up this week, we report to the hospital at 8 PM Sunday  to overnight and start in the morning. I'd wanted to write, but I've had a hugely hard time focusing lately. The baby is near.

I'm really looking forward to being a father.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Happy sleep off the food day!

I was really glad I got a chance to see my family last night. I've been seeing a lot of Carrie's family, but next to nothing of my own lately. Everyone gathered at the Jeffers' house (my other family) for pie and company. Everyone just has a zest for life, is full of energy and ready to tell a good story and laugh. Kathleen's story took the cake (poor Stu).

Kathleen just recently got offered a new job after sitting in an interview for two hours smiling and nodding. The interviewer spent the whole time talking about hunting, the parts of the deer to eat, and boiling the kidney or brain in piss (or something along those lines). Ka said he never once asked about anything on her resume or her credentials. At most, she was asked if she was easily offended or couldn't handle diversity. She said "no," they called the next day, and she started the following Monday. That's not where the story ends, though.

On Ka's third week, she got to go on a business trip for a week. While on said trip, she managed to leave behind the car keys! Stu's been forced to ride the city bus until the keys get mailed back. Apparently, the people on the bus call him "Whitey," because he's the only one on the bus. The bus also starts and stops every few feet giving everyone whiplash (which may be why they're so cranky and less than nice). As Kathleen is telling us the story, she's smiling the whole time. "I feel so bad!" Ka said. Bill replied "Yeah right! You've been laughing the whole time! You think [Stu's] misery is hilarious!" Everyone started laughing at this point and started apologizing to Stu about Kathleen.

Everyone was in a jovial mood, so it was a great time. We watched some football, told stories, and poked at each other. Good times! Today started off with some traveling and work but it's been otherwise uneventful. We had a marathon five hour cleaning session yesterday morning, so there's not too much left to do. Honestly, I feel restless. It's like there's something important I should be doing but I'm not. I've played some games, read some, watched some Avatar episodes...., but there's that feeling that I should be doing something more. If anything, I should just be enjoying the quiet time that will soon disappear when Shane arrives, but I'd prefer if he was already here. Carrie was sick last night and kept moaning and acting like she was dying. She feels better today, but she's been passed out on the couch for the past two to three hours. I think I'll go read some Acts and then some Terry Pratchett and try to figure out what to do with myself. Hopefully, I'll get some writing or even grading done.

Bye for now.

Football!

Originally, it was supposed to be a surprise, but my father-in-law, Tony, took me to a Penn State football game this past weekend. Carrie let it slip about a week early to make sure I didn't run off and make some sort of plans. Tony and the rest of his family are die-hard Penn Staters ("They-are-PENN-STATE!"). I have no loyalty to Penn State, but I was thrilled at a chance to see FedEx field. I watch the Redskins lose their all the time, but only on TV. What Tony was offering me was a chance to see a football game (always good), a chance to see FedEx field in person for a change (even better), and the tickets included an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET (Touchdown!). That's a winning combination!  I wouldn't even have to worry about the skins losing for a change.

The drive to the stadium took around an hour and a half if memory serves. Beltway traffic is dismal at the best of times, and our route took us over to the dark side: Maryland. The land of no turn signals and weaving cars. Thankfully, we survived. The game was worth the trip.

A few notes about watching a game in person:
1) I miss the commentators (at least when they're good). There are no stats, there is no discussion of strategy, there is only the crowd when a play is live. In between plays, the loudspeakers will blast the beginning of a song. The music starts to get in your blood, pump you up, and then they turn if off for the play. I'm so used to watching on TV, it almost felt disjointed for me for most of the game.

2) At the end, when the game was on the line, the whole stadium was pumped and excited. Crowds can be highly infectious. It was tame for most of the game, but around the third quarter, people started getting excited. There's something about an excited crowd that draws me in as well. It's contagious.

3) You can never escape commercials. They blasted them on the jumbo-trons. I could be saving money on car insurance with Geico or protecting myself from Mayhem with All-State.

4) Prices aren't only elevated, they're practically a felony in progress. Eight dollars for a Bud Light. Fifty dollars for a Penn State polo. I wouldn't be surprised if the prices went up even higher for a professional game.

5) Driving out of FedEx field sucks. It took an hour to move out of our parking space and travel an hour on the main road. The first 40 minutes were spent within 30 feet of where I was parked. I do not kid. I couldn't help but think how awful it must've been watching the Eagles destroy the skins the Sunday before in the cold rain, only to then be stuck in a parking lot near midnight (in the cold rain).

The rest of the weekend was spent on plumbing and home improvements. My father-in-law did the majority of the work, but I lugged things, sawed lumber and pipes, and did whatever I could to help. My in-laws have been extremely generous, but I was still glad to have some quiet time after they left on Sunday. I like people, but I don't recharge my batteries without peace and quiet. How much of that do you think I'll get once Shane is born?  Seven pounds, nine ounces. I better enjoy the sleep while I can.

The future?

Today I got videotaped in my classroom for a little bit. Well, I was in a video at least. One of the students in my classroom is involved in a pilot program involving an iTouch. Someone came in to videotape him using his iTouch. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but it really is a useful piece of technology. One of my coworkers showed me an app on her iPhone that simulated all of the phases of mitosis a couple of day ago. You had to pinch the membranes together to activate cytokineses and pull the chromosomes away in anaphase. It makes learning large vocabulary words a heck of a lot more interesting than it normally is.

It's amazing to me the rate at which technology is spreading for better or worse. There's a lot of really awesome application that even I can think of. Look at my student's iTouch. It allows him to communicate when he otherwise would have difficulty. If we hooked it up to the internet, it could be a study aide or even turn boring lessons into something more interactive. Who knows? Maybe we'll have classroom sets of iPads or iTouches in the future instead of laptops! I was psyched today reading about a contest designing moonbases for the year 2069. I want to be alive when that happens!

Information used to be a difficult to obtain resource. What you could learn and recall was a huge part of your education (and it still is). Nowadays, it seems like it's more useful to teach how to find knowledge or interpret what you find rather than teach knowledge itself. Why teach the kids what the population of the United States is when a simple Google search will give them an exact number? Google is on their phones and with the way technology is going, it may even be imprinted on their brains one day (there's an app for that!).

I'm not going to harp on the downsides, but they are there. An innocent Google search can lead to a gut-churning porn site or virus with a simple misclick. Misinformation abounds; tact and moderation are hard to find commodities. People have become so used to easy information that when it's not available they go with the quickest answer they come up with (see "missile launch in CA"). Bullying used to be escapable, but now it can find kids wherever the internet beckons. Every day, I have to listen to kids talk about friending strangers on Facebook as they walk down the hallways. I'm glad all of these tools are going to be available to Shane when he's older. I'm not sure how I'm going to teach him how to avoid all of the disadvantages of the technology, but it is something I've thought about more lately.  You know...seeing as I'm going to be a father sometime in the next few weeks if everything goes as planned (fingers crossed and praying).

I haven't posted anything for a few days, so I wanted to post something real quick but it all boils down to me thinking about my impending fatherhood. It's something I'm thinking about more and more with the due date coming up December 12th.  The doctors said Shane may come early so that's even more to think on. I just hope the kid waits until after next week. There's only 2.5 workdays and I'd rather not have to make up an easy workweek. Plus, I'm going to a Penn State game at FedEx field this weekend with my father-in-law, his brother, and my cousin-in-law. I'm a Cornhuskers fan myself, but it will be neat to see FedEx field in person for once. The Redskins won't even be losing in it!

Ah! A free hour!

Free hours are great. Got to sleep in an extra hour before installing the new door knobs and taking inventory of baby stuff with Carrie.

I also woke up to an odd idea for a plot for a children's cartoon that's probably been done before. A guy wakes up and realizes his clock is an hour behind his watch. He thinks the clock is wrong so he changes it to his watch time. Someone else in the know (the mother perhaps), comes in and sees the clock wasn't set for daylight savings time and changes it back. Re-enter guy who sees the clock moved "back in time!" and thinks he's in a time warp. Hilarity ensues.

I think it was looking at all the tiny socks this morning and yesterday that could barely cover my thumb. I'm thinking up stuff for a lower-age bracket. Not much time left to go...

Daylight Savings

Daylight savings tonight. I've always loved being gifted an hour. Giving it back in the spring sucks, but that's something I'll worry about then instead of now.

Monday marks week 35 of Carrie's pregnancy. We started off the day by going to Home Depot and spent most of it doing cleaning and work on the house (the excitement of married life, no?). I won't bore you with details of painting and trying to put cardboard under door hinges to make them close easier. Instead, I'll tell a short story about moulding.

For those of you not in the know (as I wasn't before owning a house), moulding is a strip of something that runs between two surfaces. Usually, it's where the walls meet the floor or the ceiling. Look around your own home and who knows? Maybe you have some, too.  Anyway, the moulding I'm going to mention is a beveled strip of wood mounted where the top of the walls meet the ceiling in our soon-to-be-born baby's room. It's also a cracked, nail-pitted, chipped paint piece of an eyesore that somehow manages to bend and warp so it doesn't touch the ceiling and/or the wall in some places. We could replace it, but that's a lot more work than just trying to spruce it up. Carrie had already repainted the walls of the room and was working on the trim, so she decided to caulk the gaps and some of the nail wholes. Then she started to slap on a fresh layer of paint. A fresh layer of paint that started to bead and refuse to stick to caulk. Whoops. Silicone is apparently a "no paint on me" surface unless you happen to buy the special "I'll let you paint on me" variety. My first thought was to scrape out some of the caulk (which would've been a lot of work), but that got nixed due to our stucco ceiling. Home Depot didn't offer us many options either. The man behind the counter just winced. His advice: "think outside the box." Our solution: masking tape!  We bought a big roll of tape, and while I was trying to fix doors, Carrie smoothed tape across the moulding and painted it. The wet tape bubbled slightly, but it turned out to look a lot better than we'd hoped. You can't even see the cracks anymore! They're covered with tape! That moulding has probably never been stuck up there better than now. I'll probably have to replace it one day, but at least the baby's room is ready.

No writing productivity to report. I've written an outline for a couple of stories, but no words are penned yet. I had to take work off on Monday for a contractor so I'll try to do more then. Today, I tried to help Bill break his League of Legends losing streak. We failed. The streak goes on.  Yesterday, I played a game as Gargas that went pretty badly as well. His ultimate is to throw an explosive barrel that knocks enemies out of its radius. I had pretty poor timing on several throws which caused a chorus of "I hate you, Mike"s over vent. In retrospect, it's pretty funny. It'd have been even funnier if I'd been doing it on purpose. I could have pushed enemies into retreating teammates for laughs, but hindsight is 20/20. I think I'll just stick to my usual fare.