The Number Field

Grandma Nancy plays with Elena.

Granny Annie and Grandpa Dana watch Daddy Mark try to make Elena smile.

We were happy to see (almost all of) Elena's grandparents last weekend! They all did a good job of holding her and playing with her; we were thankful for the helping hands. And of course, it was good for us to see them, since they're not just her grandparents, they're also our parents.

Grandpa Kevin makes eye contact.

Grandpa Tony helps Elena work out a burp.

A couple of weeks ago at rowing practice, Caroline and I were talking about parenting. She commented: "Kids never realize how tough their parents really are; just the act of raising a baby toughens you up." Jenny and I have more appreciation for what our parents must have gone through with us. This weekend, I took the chance to ask my parents about what I was like when I was a baby--things I never thought about or paid attention to before, but that I notice with Elena. Maybe some of those thoughts will make it into a future post.

My sister had her baby last Thursday. According to a report by Ringo , the blogging dog, she went to the hospital at 4:30 pm, and the baby was out by 6:30 pm. By contrast, at 5:00 pm on the day that Elena was born we had been at the hospital for more than nine hours, and had several more to go. To pick up where I left off, I eventually woke from my nap. Among the snacks I brought to the hospital was a package of generic Oreos, and after eating a few of those I was wired up and ready to go again.

Jenny woke up too, and realized that her labor pains were coming back--somehow, the epidural was wearing off. She noticed this because, when rolled to one side, the other side would hurt; when she had the nurse roll her over, the pain switched. A new anesthesiologist had started his shift, and came in to try to figure things out. He upped the dosage a little more, but it had little effect. He assured us that a properly working epidural would cause Jenny to feel no pain at all, and we agreed to his proposal of more aggressive measures.

At first, he said that he wanted to make the epidural "reveal itself," so he injected a new combination of drugs; if the epidural was in place and effective, this new medication should have immediately relieved the pain. It didn't, but it had the side effect of causing Jenny to shiver and shake almost uncontrollably. The anesthesiologist told us that this was a known side effect, that Jenny shouldn't try to resist it, and that it would eventually pass. I don't think the nurse heard this, but that part comes later. All of this took time, and before we knew it evening was upon us. I forget the exact chronology, but at some point Dr. Cherry came to check on Jenny. She apologized that she wouldn't be able to stay, since she had to go home and take care of her own children. Her colleague Dr. Lockey was on call for the rest of the evening, and she would take care of the delivery.

Near the same time, the anesthesiologist administered a new epidural. It started to work, but never really took full effect. Even if it was working to a certain extent, the shaking induced by the previous medicine ensured that Jenny was not relaxed. I could tell she was still in pain by the tightness with which she gripped my hand during each passing contraction. While I was focused on Jenny, the labor continued ever faster--they told us that once she was dilated to a certain point, things would pick up speed, and they certainly did.

As the final stage of labor was imminent, our nurse gave us instructions. She was our second or third nurse--we had been there through at least one shift change--and seemed much stricter than the previous nurses. Because of that, I tried to insert myself between her and Jenny as much as possible. For one thing, I wanted to appear confident and competent in the hopes that the nurse would soften up. For another, I wanted Jenny to focus on my (hopefully) kind and helpful approach, and tune out the mean nurse. Here's an example of how strict she was: whenever Jenny made any sounds while pushing, the nurse told her that any noise was wasted energy that should have gone to pushing. She just kept telling Jenny to push harder and harder; but when all was said and done, Jenny had a comparatively short pushing period, all the more surprising because of Elena's size.

My small part in the process played to two of my natural strengths: coaching, and counting to ten. I try to steer away from comparisons between childbirth and sports (rowing in particular), but during the moments between contractions, I tried every trick in the book to help Jenny relax, recover, and prepare for the next contraction.

For some reason, the nurse waited a long time to call the doctor--she kept telling Jenny to push hard, so that we could "show off" when the doctor came. It almost seemed that she wanted to deliver the baby herself! However, the doctor stopped by, just making her rounds, and asked if Jenny was getting close to the final stage of labor. The nurse surprised the doctor by reporting that the baby was almost out. Although the doctor didn't seem to approve of this, there wasn't time to waste with a discussion of the finer points of when she should have been called. Instead, she called in a delivery crew of several more nurses and attendants. They reconfigured the bed, and pulled a huge, bright spotlight down from the ceiling. At some point, they told me to count to fifteen on each contraction, instead of ten. I tried to count a little bit faster, so that it came out to less than one and a half times as long. I stayed up with Jenny for most of the time, but did take a few looks when they said that Elena's head was visible. At no time did I feel that I was in danger of passing out.

Jenny would probably say that the labor felt like it had gone on forever, but I was surprised with how quickly time passed; I focused on getting from one contraction to the next. Then, all of a sudden, Elena's head was out. The rest of her didn't follow quite as quickly as they had hoped, because her shoulder got a little bit stuck. The doctor and nurses addressed the situation quickly, and seconds later they placed Elena on Jenny's stomach.

My first thought was: "There's no way that baby fit inside Jenny's tummy." Needless to say, everyone was amazed by Elena's size. At first, they said "she must be at least ten pounds," but after her official weight came in at 11 pounds, 6 ounces, their amazement grew. They called Jenny a superhero. Jenny was not in much of a mental state to listen, because the doctor was still taking care of the post-birth procedures, many of which involved pushing on her stomach, which seemed just as painful as parts of the labor. I was still by Jenny's side, but the nurses called me over to take a look at Elena, and hold her for a little bit before they took her off to the nursery. The activity in the room eventually died down as the staff cleaned things up and headed off to their other responsibilities. And then came the moment of peace and quiet .

Even though she hasn't met all of them yet, Elena loves her uncles and aunts and cousins. She likes spending time with Uncle John (on mommy's side) and his family, and thanks them for the wonderful crib. She already likes sleeping in it!

She was glad that her other Uncle John (on daddy's side) visited Central Texas for a job interview and gave her parents some great advice, including instructions on proper swaddling and how to help her fall asleep. She's happy that he accepted the job here and she'll get to spend good time with Aunt Emily and the boys in the upcoming year. She is a little bit worried about keeping the two Uncle Johns straight.

Elena enjoyed wearing the cute Shamrock dress that Aunt Heidi sent for St. Patrick's day. She's also excited for Aunt Heidi to have her baby. Elena hopes that she will get to spend some fun time with this cousin that will be the closest to her age!

Six weeks have passed since our sweet little girl was born, and I hope that the baby amnesia has set in enough that I won't include in this account any of the more gory details of Elena's birth. At the same time, I think all the important parts of the story remain fresh in my mind. Here's how it all happened: As Jenny's due date drew close, I made plans to have other graduate students cover my classes for a few days while I tended to my wife and baby. I had asked my office-mate, Kim, to coordinate things for me, and sent her an email with some information on Monday, February 9. At the end of the email, I commented that Jenny was showing no signs of labor and that I should be around to teach the following day. The next morning, I started my normal routine so that I would be able to leave at about 7:30 and arrive at school in time for my 8:30 class. Jenny got up shortly after me and started to get ready for work. At 7:15, I was in the bedroom when I heard her gasp in the kitchen, then say "Mark, I think my water broke!"

Spontaneous ruputure of the membranes (i.e. water breaking) only occurs in about ten percent of pregnancies, and Jenny's water was dripping, not gushing, so it took her a few minutes to be sure that everything had started. Still, we leapt into action. She navigated to the bathroom so that she wouldn't make too much of a mess, while I called the doctor's office. They told us to head to the hospital, which we did shortly thereafter. First, though, I emailed Kim to tell her I had been wrong in the previous night's email. I also called Jenny's mom to let her know the process had begun, and collected our mostly-packed bags and the few other things that we wanted to take to the hospital.

All along we were glad that our hospital was only a short trip away, along the only major freeway in Austin that doesn't suffer from terrible congestion during rush hour. We were doubly glad for that as we started our drive in the middle of the morning rush. Before we turned onto the freeway access road, we noticed a familiar car in the next lane; a friend from church who lived nearby was on her way to work. We contemplated honking and yelling at her to tell her where we were going, but decided that would just cause confusion, and left our windows up.

When we got to the hospital, a kind volunteer put Jenny in a wheelchair and took us up to the maternity ward, where they sent us to a labor and delivery room. We met several different nurses, and answered the same administrative questions several times, while they performed all the preparations, such as hooking Jenny up to the monitors and IV drip. At one point, when Jenny was worried about a long labor, a nurse promised us that the baby would be out that day, which at least put an upper limit on things. Little did we know that the nurse's guarantee was because they were pumping Jenny full of drugs which would soon cause powerful and painful contractions. Dr. Cherry also came to visit us, but only stayed for a few minutes because she had other things to do and everything with Jenny was fine.

Eventually, things quieted down. We did have one visitor--Jenny's brother John left work to come visit her. Together, we gave her a blessing that all would be well for her and the baby. After that, Jenny settled into the contractions, while I tried to remember everything I learned at our Lamaze class. Mostly, though, we just watched TV, including John and Kate Plus Eight , thankful that we weren't having sextuplets.

By noon, Jenny's contractions were extremely strong. I was watching the monitor, but nobody had told me that the monitor doesn't accurately show the strength of the contractions, so I didn't understand why she was in such pain when the monitor didn't show big peaks. Only later did a nurse tell us that every time Jenny shifted, the monitor would get different readings; the only important part was the frequency of the peaks, not the amplitude. In any case, Jenny was ready for an epidural, and we called for the anesthesiologist.

Eventually, the doctor came in and put everything in place for the epidural. I could hardly watch as the needle went in her back, but the doctor reported that a small anomaly might have occurred, and he was worried that there would be negative effects if he immediately put her on a full dosage. He proposed a low initial dose, and said that he would come in to increase the dose until it eliminated the pain. At first, the low dose seemed to work, and Jenny was able to take a nap. I was also exhausted, and fell asleep in a chair next to her bed. Over the next few hours, I have only hazy memories of the doctor coming in a few times to check on her dose.

Lots of excitement remained ahead of us, but I'll leave that for the next post.

We've been in our new apartment for ten days, but our internet hasn't been connected yet. Yesterday, I resorted to stringing all of our USB extension cables together so that I could put the TiVo network adapter by the open front door and leech off a neighbor's network long enough to download the next two weeks of program guide data. I've spent long hours on the phone with AT&T customer support to try to fix the problem. Eventually I got so frustrated that I sent an email to the CEO and other executives. That got some response--someone from the executive offices called me today and said that they're going to help. I promise more regular posts once our service is connected, and hope that will happen soon.

In other news, Elena celebrated her one month birthday yesterday, and Jenny and I have our third anniversary today. I made waffles to commemorate the occasion. Check the pictures to the right (if you haven't already done so) and you'll be able to deduce clues about the topics of some upcoming posts.

Some people have noticed a common thread in Elena's pictures so far. It isn't just a coincidence--she does enjoy letting her tongue * get some air. Then again, what kid doesn't want to be like Mike? I do have photographic proof that her tongue fits inside her cute little cheeks:

Wardrobe courtesy of Carrie and Matt.

* The claim that the tongue is the strongest muscle, while common in compendiums of strange facts, seems dubious on closer inspection.

My three girls.

Jewel has adapted well to Elena's arrival, for the most part. She wants more attention than we're giving her right now, but that's to be expected. She does get extra attention from Grandma, which she appreciates. We have tried to explain to her that as soon as Elena is a little bit older, she will give Jewel more than enough attention, but Jewel pretends not to understand. Some people are afraid that cats will try to cuddle with warm new babies and end up smothering them, but we have never known Jewel to be a cuddly kitty. Our experience with her and Elena so far bears this out.

There she is!

Jewel does like to be aware of Elena's location. Perhaps this is so she can be far enough away in case of a crying outbreak. Sometimes Elena hides, often under blankets while Jenny feeds her. At times like this, Jewel enjoys a game of "where's the baby." For instance, if Jenny and Elena are in bed in the morning, Jewel might jump up and nose around until she verifies that Elena is there. Then she moves to a safe distance for continued observations. The other evening we came home from an outing and put Elena, still in her car seat, on the trunk by the door. After only a minute or two, Jewel came by, stretched up on her hind legs to check things out, and then jumped up on the trunk to check out the contents of the car seat. For her, it was another succesful round of "where's the baby." Soon we'll have to start finding better hiding places for Elena to keep Jewel's baby-finding skills sharp.

Jedi Master Elena

When we were preparing to leave the hospital, our nurse, Gwendolyn, mentioned that we would eventually be able to distinguish between Elena's different cries. She said the ability wouldn't come immediately, but shouldn't take too long--maybe a week. Jenny has probably caught on more quickly, but to me it still seems that all the cries mean she's hungry. However, on Saturday night we had an incident where a lack of crying disturbed us. All appears to be well now, and it was probably just first-time parent jitters, but we did worry.

After a doctor's visit on Friday, we remained worried that Elena wasn't eating enough, since she hadn't given us anything in the way of stinky diapers since we came home. As it had been more than a week, the doctor recommended that we supplement her diet with a mixture of formula and corn syrup twice a day. The first few times we gave her an ounce of the mixture, but faced with an ongoing absence of results, on Saturday evening we upped the supplement to two ounces. An hour later she was asleep in her bassinet while I was on the computer nearby. A sudden, strange sound came from her direction, and I looked over to find a disturbing amount of spit-up and a baby in distress. Her back arched, her eyes seemed to be rolling around in their sockets, and she was less responsive than usual. Jenny came in and we calmed her and cleaned her up, trying to ascertain if she was all right. After we did all that we could, we laid her back down.

At 2:30 am, I happened to wake up. Elena was still peacefully asleep, but Jenny was awake, and told me that Elena hadn't wanted any food since the spit-up incident, at least five hours prior (which is too long an interval). Even though she didn't seem to be hungry or awake, I put her down next to Jenny and she ate, which was a good sign. I went back to sleep, and didn't wake up again until a more normal hour. At this time, Elena was asleep again, but seemed to be a little bit unsettled. I decided to change her diaper, and was delighted to find it extremely full. (Before having a baby, I never imagined that I would feel that way about a dirty diaper!) Since yesterday morning, everything has been completely normal with Elena. Her appetite does seem to be greater, but that's a development that we cheer.

A few days after returning from the hospital, I went in to school to pick some things up. On the way out, I stopped to say hi to Nancy, one of the department secretaries and the brains behind the whole operation. She's a very grandmotherly figure, all the more so since she has a one year old grandson. Amidst the pleasantries and congratulations, she commented that having a baby really does change people. As her example, she said (paraphrasing): 'in the several years you've been around, I've never known you to be one who discusses bodily functions. However, here you are today, happily discussing poopy diapers.'

Thank heaven for little girls and also for the cute outfits they get to wear. It might still be a while before I post substantial written material, but Jenny says that you really would rather just see pictures of Elena.

Our baby celebrated her first holiday today! We didn't do much except sleep and eat, but her maternal grandmother joined us, and we appreciated the company. Also, when Uncle John brought Grandma from the airport, he brought his boys for some cousin time.

Thanks to Aunt Karina for the new shirt!

Thanks to Kim for the baby rocker, which I put together today.