This blog wasn’t my first attempt at documenting events. Went and dug out the word file and here is part (but not all) of it. This was written with Kevin being the only person I ever expected to read it. But hey,…might as well (after some minor editing) let is see the light of day!
(one of the best pictures ever)
December 10th, 1995.
Obviously, I didn’t write more later that night! I’m sorry I haven’t written in almost a month, but, it’s been a hectic month. I’ve worked an awful, lot of overtime, enough so that your mother and I are expecting a very big check early in February. We’re thinking of spending it all on you!
Tomorrow’s the big day! The doctor is going to induce labor, so, you will in all likelihood be born on your due date. We’ve been scrambling around this week trying to make sure we have everything ready for your grand entrance. I have no idea how your mother and I are going to be able to sleep tonight, knowing that at 7:15 am tomorrow, we have to be at the hospital, and probably by 6pm that night, we’ll have a new baby.
It’s exciting, yet frightening all at once, our lives will never be the same as they are now. We went to our ‘last’ movie yesterday, or certainly the last movie we’ll see on opening night in the next 2-3 years.
Your mother hasn’t worked this last week, so she’s been busy doing those things that need to be done before a baby is born. She’s feeling pretty good, she was really sick about 2 weeks ago, she had a horrid fever and cold, she ended up slipping and falling on our deck, but there hasn’t been anything to really cause any alarm. All of the doctors visits have been encouraging, Suzie is continuing to dilate (she’s up to around 4 cm by now), all we need is a few contractions, and viola, instant baby.
We think you like it in there, and are going to be unhappy to be out with us in the real world!
We keep speculating how life will be with you in it, what we’ll do (the big question is “What do we do with the baby once we come home from the hospital?”) with you, what we’ll do with you here, etc... It’s a really big step, and we’re both happy to be taking it, but, there is some trepidation involved.
It’s been pretty cold this week, and it has rained an awful lot in the last few weeks. We think it will be in the 50’s and raining tomorrow....
We went to the hospital last Tuesday, my friend Jeff and his wife had their second child, a baby girl. They went through the same thing we’re doing tomorrow, they had labor induced starting Monday morning, and didn’t have the baby until 2:15 Tuesday morn. But Jeff’s wife wasn’t dilated at all, so, we’re hoping that Suzie being 40% of the way there will help.
That’s about it. I’ll try and write early next week, to write down the whole birth experience while it is still fresh in my mind. I hope you are ready, you hit the big time tomorrow.
See ya soon!
December 16th, 1995
The first sign of how busy your parents have been is the date above, I wanted to write ASAP after your birth, but...you know how babies can be. I’m going to try and go into some detail about the events of the last week, so, I imagine that this will be a rather long entry into the annals of Kevin.
I can finally start calling you by name. Kevin. I like the sound of that.
Surprisingly, your mother and I did get some sleep on Sunday night, but not any great amount, and me more than your mother. We woke up at 5:30 am on Monday morning, and began to get ready to go to the hospital. You know, the showering, the daily morning maintenance, that kind of thing. We took a few pictures of your mother in front of the Christmas Tree before we left, as a record of how large she had become. We left for the hospital around 6:50 am. We got there, and ended up in room 2-124 of Evergreen General Hospital, in Kirkland, Washington. The facility is really nice, the hospital rooms are more like luxury suites. I can’t imagine what they will look like when you and your wife, whomever that might be, decide to have a child.
Anyway, right away they got your mother comfortable and prepared to put in an IV. Remember, we were inducing labor this morning. It took the nurse 3 attempts to get the IV in place on your mother’s wrist, for some reason, she kept missing the vein. They finally got the IV in, and starting adding Pitocin, the synthetic form of Oxytocin, to your mother at a level of 2.0. This level was scheduled to increase by 2 every 15 minutes until labor had established itself and Suzie’s contractions were a) lasting for a full minutes and b) occurring every 2 to 3 minutes, as measured from the beginning of one to the beginning of the next.
And we were off, and labor was pretty uneventful through about 11 that morning. Suzie started to have contractions that she could notice, although they weren’t very painful. Ultimately, we ended up at a high Pitosin level of 18.0, which backed down to a consistent 12.0 - 14.0 for almost the rest of the labor.
At 11, Dr. Burk showed up for the first time, and broke your mother’s water. The contractions were much more noticeable after that event, although, your mother thought they were pretty bearable, she described them as strong menstrual cramps (I know, Kevin, how do you expect to relate to this? But, your wife, and possibly your sister, might be interested later on, and I think that I should right it down now, we will forget the details later on...) This continued on throughout the afternoon, the contractions increasing in strength, but not being too unbearable. Until around 4pm. Dr. Burk made another visit, and after doing another examination of Suzie, the contractions were definitely harder. Suzie was now a little more than 5 cm dilated, and pretty soon would be able to get the epidural, the injection into her back that would numb most of the pain and, according to everyone, make the rest of the pregnancy a breeze.
Well, I have to say, from 4:30 to 6:30 that night was one of the most painful things for me to watch, and participate in, in my life. The contractions steadily got stronger and more painful, at first, Suzie was able to keep deep breathing through them, and after it got too painful to do that, she was still able to take small, short breaths, but they eventually got so strong that we were just trying to hang on. Your mother is reluctant to ask for help for pain, and Monday the 11th was no exception (which, in hindsight, is a really good thing). About 6:30 pm, she finally asked for the epidural, and the doctors were brought in to do that. Some people (certainly not me!) would say that your mother chose 6:30 pm because the Dolphins were on Monday Night Football, starting at 7. But, I think it was more just a matter of timing. Very suspicious timing, though...
So, they brought in the anesthesiologist, who proceed to start the preparations for the epidural. Which were very painful, and that came as a big surprise to your mother and I. They got it in, and with about 3-4 minutes gone in the first quarter, your mother, very relieved and relaxed, settled in to watch the Dolphins (7-6) play the Chiefs (11-3).
Dr. Burk returned around halftime, and examined your mother, who was now dilated to 8 cm.
The nurse had moved the uterine monitor inside of your mother, so now the contractions were recorded with no uncertainty, and as they plotted it out, you could see the strength of them as the game marched along. The nurses also moved the fetal heart monitor from the exterior to the interior, to keep a little better track of you. You were a very difficult baby to keep track of, you kept moving around, and the monitor would ‘lose’ you for periods of time.
Trying to play “Hide and Seek” and “Peek-a-boo” at an early age.
The difficult part of the labor began around 10:30 pm. For most women, once you get the epidural, the initial dosage will last around 6-12 hours, and you can get more after that that will extend the numbing sensation. Your mother is in a small percentage of people that start building a tolerance to the drug (Lydacaine). The result is that the initial dose didn’t last as long as it should, and that additional doses would not be as effective and last for smaller and smaller periods of time. Around 11:30 the pains started to increase again, until the next dose of Lydacaine appeared, and about 12:15 am on 12/12/94, Suzie was finally fully dilated and effaced, and ready to begin pushing.
Most babies, once the mother is fully dilated, are situated much lower in the womb then you were, you were still waaaaay up there, and the result of that was that Suzie had to do a lot more pushing to get your little butt out in the real world.
For a long time, because of your position, and because of Suzie’s tolerance to the Lydacaine, the doctors and nurses thought that we would be having a c-section. But, Suzie started to feel pain in her back, which meant that you were working your way down...the entire process was very painful, the pain relief was sporadic at best, and Suzie had to do a lot of pushing to get you out.
I held your mother’s leg and held the back of her neck, and hopefully was a source of encouragement for your mother. As the labor came to an end, I was located on Suzie’s right, around her midsection, and was able to see what the Doctor was doing. The first indication that you were getting close was when the nurse was able to shine a light and see that you had dark hair. The nurse asked if I wanted to swing around and see you, but I choose to wait until I could see you from where I was. Around 2:10, I finally got to see your little head as Suzie pushed you further and further down the road to the ‘outside’.
At 2:25, I could see that you were almost to the point called ‘crowning’, where you head took up the maximum amount of space in Suzie’s vaginal canal. I watched the doctor get a set of forceps out to help with the birth, I also saw the doctor perform (what seemed to me to be a very large) episiotomy to help get you out.
I finally saw the doctor pull your little head out, and my first impression was that you had an awfully big head to be coming out of that little opening. I saw your face from the side, and my first impression of that was that I thought you looked like a boy. The doctor maneuvered your shoulders out, and pulled you the rest of the way through, and I couldn’t believe how big and long you were! I saw your testicles as you passed by, and I have to say that was one of the best moments in my life, when I got to turn to your mom and tell her “It’s a Boy!”
You were born at 2:28 am. You were 9 lbs, 4.5 ounces, and 21.5 inches long. Your Apgar scores, when you find out what those are, were 7 and 9.
The next half an hour is a blur. The nurses took you to give you oxygen to help you to start to breathe. They also performed various tests on you, and made sure that you were a perfectly healthy little boy. The doctor helped to work the placenta out of your mother, I had been pretty good on the ‘gory’ side of things to that point, but, after the placenta, I really couldn’t watch any more. I’m not going to elaborate on what exactly it did that got to me.....
Normally, they give the baby to the mother, but Suzie was still in a lot of pain from the after-birth, so, I got to hold you first. Your eyes were barely opened, and your eyes didn’t track in the same direction. You cried a little, but not very much. There were some marks on your head (mostly around your eyes) from the forceps. I held you very close, rocked you, I think I sang a little bit, and mostly became very emotional about the whole event.
I gave you to Suzie when things finally settled down for her, and proceeded to make the calls to the relatives. I called my mother first, she had woken up at about the time you were born. She was convinced that you were going to be a little girl (if you look at the history of your two grandfathers, my father has 1 boy out of 3, and Grandpa Dayton went 0 for 3), so she was pretty surprised. I called my sister next, woke her up, and she was as surprised as my mother about your sex. I then called the Daytons, and they were really excited, especially to hear that you were a little boy. The last people I called that night were Jeff and Julie Fassett, they wanted to be called, and they were surprised at how long it took, as I said earlier, we all thought that giving birth to you would be easier than Julie’s labor the week before, but, it actually went longer.
After the excitement died down, the equipment was rolled out of the room, and we were left alone, I think I slept from 4 am to 7 am, and Suzie slept from about 5 til 7.
The next day, as are much of the next 3-4, are pretty big blurs. I’ll try and hit the high points of them, though. On early Tuesday, Suzie and I called some more of our friends to tell them the happy news. You and Suzie were learning how to breastfeed (and you were remarkably good at it, there weren’t many problems). I know that I left for a time during the day to go and run some errands, I think it was from about 12:30 to 2 pm. I know that I took the first roll of film to be developed, I know I went home to check on the cats, and to brink back some pillows and a blanket to sleep with, and I brought back lunch (Chicken Teriyaki) for Suzie....
You were remarkably quiet, but most newborns are. You slept for the most part, when you were awake you didn’t cry too much, and you slept in the cradle. When Suzie and I ate the teriyaki, you were lying on your side, eyes opening, just watching us.
You were pretty cute until 10 pm that night, and that’s when the first difficulties started. We couldn’t get you to settle down. A major wind storm had blown through, and the hospital was operating on it’s emergency generators. The Cable TV was out, and we turned the TV off, which, in hindsight, was a big mistake. Suzie and I wanted to go to sleep, but you wouldn’t sleep by yourself without crying. Around 11 pm, I got up and walked the hospital corridors with you, while Suzie got some sleep. It turns out we were making some mistakes, but, we were new parents, and still had some lessons to learn. Newborns want to be held, and really, the closer you can make their environment to the one they were just in, the happier the parents life will be. Suzie and I had heard horror stories about children who slept with their parents too long, and how hard it was to break them of that, and I think we went too far with that. One of the nurses helped us get you settled, and you slept with me from about 1 am to 2 am, but then got fussy again. We tried to quiet you down for the next few hours, tried to feed you, changed your diapers, etc., but still no luck, so we again asked a nurse for some help, and while we were talking with here, lo and behold, you feel asleep, and we discovered something else.
You like to have noise on around you. There hasn’t been a day, or probably even a minute, that the stereo or TV hasn’t been on around you. We’ll have to try and do something about that one of these days, but for now, your shell-shocked parents like to sleep a little bit.
We left the hospital on Wednesday morning, around 11 am (12/13/95). We went to a class that morning that talks about breast-feeding and what to look for in baby care. Your doctor, Dr. Kelley, came by for the second time to discharge you (he was there while I was running errands the day before), and after some last minute instructions from the nurses, we were off for home. You were in you infant seat, Mom sat in the back, and I drove the 91 Dodge Spirit home. You were very quiet. We got home about noon, and after a little bit of adjustment, you settled in and fell asleep.
I’ll continue the story tomorrow. I need to check on you. Bye Kevin, I love you.
December 17th, 1995.
Let me see, where we. Oh, yeah, Wednesday, the 13th. It was good to finally get home, I think we were both tired of the hospital, I know that Suzie felt that she couldn’t get any ‘good’ sleep in the hospital bed. That day and night were mostly uneventful, you were up every 2.5 to 3 hours feeding, and your mother and I worked around whatever schedule you decided to be on. Thursday I went back to work, I was there from 6 am until a little after noon, work is *real* busy, and I didn’t, and couldn’t, ignore my work for the next week. As it turns out, up through the second week of January, I’m going to work one day and take one off, along with the holidays, I should be around with you and mom for a large amount of time.
Thursday was also pretty uneventful. We have an infant swing, and sometime in these first days we tried it, and, well, you really liked it. We made a mistake the first time we put you in it, the swing was near the glass sliding door to the balcony, and after about an hour of swinging, you were awfully cold. Oops! You had your first bath on Thursday (apart from the one in the hospital), you didn’t like being unclothed, but, we washed your hair (and you have a lot of it!) and sponged off the rest of your little body.
Friday, the 15th, was a much more eventful day. At 11am, we went back to the hospital for our Post-Partum check-up, where a nurse will look over you and your mother and make sure that no complications have arisen. Your mother and I noticed late Thursday that you were turning yellow, a sure sign of jaundice, but, we weren’t too concerned, we knew that we would see the nurse Friday am, and jaundice isn’t real serious unless it goes on too long. The nurse was really pleased with how you had been behaving, you had been pretty much perfect when it comes to the amount of wet and stooly diapers you had been having, the breastfeeding had been going well, and the only problem was the jaundice. The nurse measured your biliruben(sp?) levels, and they measured 20, 23, and 23. This is considered really high, and the nurse called the doctor to find out what he wanted to do. We ended up going down to the lab to get some blood samples, to confirm the initial readings.
Taking blood from a baby is no fun. They poke the infant in the heel, and the baby cries. A lot.
It’s very hard for parents to watch this happen to their child, knowing what is about to happen. At the lab, to keep you from being too loud, we gave you our pinky fingers to suck on, the more distressed you were, the more you would suck. They took your blood (3 vials, which is a lot) and we went home, you had a bag around your penis, the doctor wanted to get a urine sample.
Here’s where the events of this weekend begin. I had to go back to work for about an hour to resolve some issues, when I came home, you had urinated and I grabbed your sample and went back to the hospital. While I was gone, the lab got the results of your blood test, and the biliruben level was 23. They called the doctor, who wanted you to come in to the office to be checked out before they started you on phototherapy. I got back home at 3:15 pm, and you and your mother were gone, and there was a note saying you had gone to the docs...I hopped back in my car and made it back to the office before you were checked out. They weighed you again, at the nurse’s, you were 8 lbs, 5 ozs, here you were 9 lbs, 2 ozs (for the rest of the weekend you’ve been weighed too, you’ve been around 8-6 to 8-8...). The visit was just to make sure that there wasn’t anything seriously wrong, and they arranged to have a service (pediatric home service) come out and start the phototherapy. The nurse arrived at our house around 6 pm, she showed us how to do the phototherapy, and boy was that interesting. One way to lower bili levels is to use light to make the bili particles bigger, and they will eventually be flushed out of your system in your bowel movements. If the bili levels are serious, they’ll take you to the hospital and set you up under a big light system, putting patches over your eyes. Since you weren’t too bad, they brought a device, much like a slide projector, to our house. A hose was attached from that projector to a harness attached to your back, and the light would shine through that hose into the harness, which would light up your back. This harness needed to be on 24 hours a day until your jaundice levels lowered. The nurse took some more blood (one vial this time) to check your blood levels and we were left alone.
Then the second problem began. You wouldn’t suckle, you wouldn’t eat. And you cried because you were hungry. Oh, did you cry. From about 8 pm ‘til midnight, you cried. We tried everything, changed diapers, took off the harness, swaddled you, tried to get you to eat, nothing worked. Your parents were getting stressed, your mother was blaming herself, we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Finally went to bottles and pumps…and that seemed to do the trick.
This was the pattern for this weekend, the harness always attached to you, so you glow green like a little bug...the nurse would come by once a day, weigh you, take some blood. You mother would keep trying to feed you at the breast (early today, Sunday, you finally decided to try it again, but, as the day has went on, you were more obstinate about it), if not, we fed you with bottles.
You’ve been quite the cute baby the last two days. Your eyes are wide open, you are gaining more expressions, your arms flail about, it’s awfully cute when you are lying on me or your mother, and you are using your arms to move around, and you end up grabbing our faces or pushing against us. I have to say I’ve really enjoyed when you are just lying there staring at me as I hold you, it’s really something special.
We enjoyed our first Steeler game together on Saturday, you were lying on my chest throughout most of the game, I made your favorite Steeler Kordell Stewart (we’ll see if you know who he is later on...) and the Steelers beat the Patriots 41-27, to move to 11-4 on the season.
That brings us up to now. I’m so happy you are here, you’ve really added something to my life that is really special. I’ll try and write every other day up through Christmas.
I love you.
