This is a less interesting post than the last one, if only because the point of it is only to put another one of our little web cam videos on this blog, so that others who aren’t on Facebook can see it (e.g. Lesli’s mom - hi Lesli’s Mom!).

So, without further ado, here’s yet another video of you being silly.

You are…  a little ham.

In this video, you and I, we just, I dunno.  You’re my foil, something I’m sure you’ll be for the rest of your life.

The craziest part is that, well, I’m not the one who stops the video rolling.  You are.  And, your mom watched the video, and while she was, you actually managed to do all of the tricks I was asking you to do, when I asked you to during the video.   That’s not fair - in fact that’s actually kind of devilish and cheeky.

I assume this’ll be a trend in our future dealings…

-oz

So, here we are. Adjusting, just as you are. You’ve gotten used to us, seemingly. You watch, observe, and tolerate your mother combing your quickly shedding hair and styling it in ways that belie your gender, along with me insisting I teach you the A-B-Cs and how to count to 5 even though you pretty much have zero to negative 8 idea of what I’m talking about.

You kinda freak us out sometimes with the fact that you’ve seemed to have mastered smiling since the day we took you home. You give us wry half smiles when we give you a good cuddle or stroke your hair. You’ve also proven yourself ridiculously strong for such a little cub: strong enough to actually crawl up my chest one afternoon as I sat there watching TV trying to shush you to sleep. You also have managed to turn yourself over on numerous occasions, which is that much more terrifying as you not only shouldn’t be able to do that yet, but you can get pretty far turned over even in a full swaddle.

But you’ll fill us with surprises, I’m sure.

Anyway, for those who might want a glimpse into our day to day, here’s a snapshot - a parody if you will - of what it’s like to be your parent. Below, the easy stuff. The stuff that makes things worthwhile. Take a gander.

-oz

You see, this site’s tag line is, “little. potentially brown. different.” Now that you’re born (as of the tail end of April, and is back home, you see), we can truthfully state you are in fact little. You are also in fact different. The degree to which you are potentially brown, though, is up for debate.

More accurately, you’re white. White as Lesli, which isn’t horrifically white but certainly a more fair coloring than my genes might have implied you could be. This is not a bad thing, of course - but does that mean that we still can state the tag line with seriousness? Not sure. At the same time, changing that requires effort beyond that which I believe, as The New Parents That We Are, neither Lesli nor I have the time or energy to expend.

That’s life.

Anyway, so this is obviously a far cry from where we were but a week or so ago discussing the desperate awaiting of your arrival. In some ways we’re still recovering from the fog and haze that was those few days (yes, Casey, days) of labor (that I’m sure your mom will delightfully bring up when you mouth off as a 13 year old) followed by the somewhat bizarre, surrealist destination that is the Marin General Hospital Birth Center. Nonetheless, this is a story, and this is a story I might as well mention now.

Things started to get shifty with your labor at around mid-day on the 26th of April (a Saturday). You had let us have one more date night, where your mother and I managed to get ourselves out of the house briefly and engorge ourselves with something, I’m not even sure at this point. Heck, for all I know, we didn’t actually go out and instead I had driven home and picked up some burritos from a local burrito place. I kinda feel that isn’t too accurate though, and frankly, that’s the least important aspect to this story, so if it suits the cub I’m going to keep rolling on here.

On that Saturday, Lesli began to notice something… “odd”. A cramping, pinching feeling that started coming on at somewhat irregular intervals, but quickly made itself known like clockwork every 30 or so minutes. She had felt similar things before, but they were never regular at all. This began like clockwork, and we knew something was up. The frequency increased from a half hour to every 8 minutes, and continued that way for hours, until settling back to every hour as the evening approached.

We thought everything was… “done”, towards the end of Saturday, and simply went to sleep. Foolish.

At about 2 or 3AM, things started picking up, labor-wise. The pain became uncomfortable to the point where Lesli woke up with a yelp. We timed, and the contractions were getting closer and closer together, and stronger and stronger. After a few hours we called Marin General’s Labor and Delivery area and asked if we should come in. We felt we met the criteria to make the trip, so we hopped in the car all frantic-like and moseyed on across the bridge towards Greeenbrae, where you’d be born.

Just not yet.

Once at Marin General, we explained the situation and were admitted right quickly. Lesli was hooked up to various machineries and left to get readings. Her contractions were seemingly strong, and very regular (5-7 minutes), and shortly after a midwife checked her out: no dilation. In other words, Casey, you were not ready to come out yet.

We were sent home, but home seemed like a bad idea - we had no idea how much longer this could take, and to us, it seemed perfectly conceivable that Lesli could go into labor later on that afternoon. We called her Aunt Sue (whose daughter, Taji, had a baby named Savia but a week and a half before), and asked if we could spend some time there. We also asked that nobody be informed of our stay, as we’d like to make sure there were no visitors or pressure put on Lesli since there was no clear timeline.

We made our way to Sue’s, after a quick pit stop at Jack in the Box, and by 9AM we were lounging about trying to see what we could do to encourage Lesli’s contractions. The answer, seemingly, was nothing. We walked about, we had her sit on a “birth ball” (nee, Yoga Ball purchased at Target), go up and down stairs, etc. Nothing. The contractions were neither less frequent nor less painful. Eventually, Lesli needed to rest, so she took a nap. As her body relaxed, the contractions nearly faded away entirely.

As the evening whispered in, though, they returned stronger but more irregular. We spent a few hours counting contractions, and again, we reached a point where we felt we should come in, and again Lesli was hooked up to machines and had her vitals taken.

Again we were told she was not ready to stay. Lesli was livid - she was in intense pain, and felt that it was wrong that they’d send her back home because she wasn’t properly dilated. She had reached a 1cm dilation, and unfortunately, studies had shown that admitting a patient before 3-4cm dilation had a huge increased incidence of complication. We asked what could be done about the pain and the answer was simple: morphine - a small enough dose to provide some comfort without hurting you or your mom.

We took the morphine shot and headed back to Sue’s, as we were told often time the shot relaxes the body and pushes the mom into active labor within 4 or so hours. Lesli’s contractions became unnoticeable to her and she faded away in one of Sue’s spare beds. I joined her some time later, and spent the majority of the night alert waiting for something to happen.

It never did that evening.

In the morning (if you want to refer to the time that Lesli decided to get out of bed - it was really more like 3pm as the morphine put her out for around 18 hours), the contractions were pretty much stopped. Aunt Sue had some chores to run and things to do but encouraged us to stay as long as we needed. Sunday had screamed by, and we were well in to Monday, and we worried about imposing for too much longer so we decided that if the contractions weren’t solid by sometime in the early evening, we’d depart back to our homestead.

The contractions started again but not with any frequency. Unfortunately, while they were irregular, they were causing Lesli masses of pain, and there was still some lingering concern about the use of the morphine, so we made our way back to Marin General to make sure you were doing alright. They measured you and your mom’s vitals. Everything was fine, and they checked your mom for dilation again just for the heck of it. This time, she was all of 1.5cm after almost 24 hours, so once again they recommended that Lesli and I go back home. They gave her yet another shot of morphine for the pain (this time a dose almost a third less than the first) and sent us on our way home.

The way home included Taco Bell / KFC.

When we got home, Lesli was near comatose. I watched her for a few hours and slowly we started counting contractions. I lay in bed, Lesli on one side, my cell phone (Treo with a “notes” function) on my other, marking the time each contraction took. This started at about 12:30am, and at about 4:30am on Tuesday they had gotten so painful and frequent we decided to just go back to Marin General. At this point, Lesli was in so much pain that she was incomprehensible for at least a minute after a contraction. I helped Lesli into the car and we were on our way.

The trip to Marin General was more hectic than before. Lesli’s screams were louder, peppered with the words, “Help me, help me”, and I was utterly incapable of doing so. No words of mine would be heard, no techniques from the birthing courses would solve these problems: we simply needed to get her to the hospital. Even then, the effects they could have were questionable: it seems easy for us to say that the hospital could help but certainly we were both despondent after having been turned away three times.

We got there approaching 5AM, and all the nurses knew who we were and rushed us into a triage room. They took her vitals for a few, and yours as well, then did an exam. She was a bit past 3cm dilated, and decided to admit her and give her an epidural ASAP.

Note, for all paying attention: an epidural generally lasts ~4 hrs.

As they ushered her in to an actual delivery room, her contractions began to spread apart and lessen somewhat. The meters all registered them but Lesli’s reactions were dulled and almost non-existent. She had tired herself out and had no more in her to emote.

Once the epidural was administered, it became a waiting game. Lesli lay somewhat comatose, occasionally groaning, for hours on end while they registered contractions and listened to your heart beat. As the epidural took effect, though, her contractions slowed even further. Actions were required, and pitocin was introduced, which started up the contractions almost immediately. No more than 2 minutes of having a slow pitocin drip, and they were back full force, but only noticeable as a dull ache to Lesli under the epidural. A new complication arose though: as Lesli’s contractions strengthened, your heartbeat slowed to a crawl. This was called, “distress”. Lesli’s blood pressure had dropped significantly, and they figured that to be the cause.

If they were unable to raise your mother’s blood pressure, the doctors were concerned they may have to actually deliver you via cesarean. The anesthesiologist came up with a new drug cocktail, though, and they were able to raise your mom’s blood pressure enough so that you no longer distressed so significantly at the contractions.

After about 6 or so hours, Lesli was fully dilated but you weren’t quite where you needed to be. As a result, the doctors spoke of further complications - about potentially pulling you down with vacuum suction. Upon hearing that, though, your mother became determined. Come hell or high water, you were coming out as complication free as possible.

The pushing began close to 2:50PM or so.

You were born shortly after 4PM.

You were 20″, and 6 pounds, 9 ounces.

You had tons of hair. Strong lungs, and big, huge beautiful eyes.

When you were placed on your mother’s bare chest (as per most midwifery services suggest), your screaming stopped and your mother became strangely lucid. Her focus was entirely on you and your breathing, your skin, your warmth.

So you were born.

Two nights later at the hospital, we were sent home, and you met your new life. We’ve taken pictures, we’ve taken videos, and will post them in due time. But you’re here now, and you are definitely little, different.

Not quite brown, though. Maybe we just need to get you out into the sun.

Here you are:

-Oz

Nevertheless, we had the sonogram scheduled at almost random for us, for today at 1:50pm (which is somewhat of an odd time). They let us in fairly quickly - a technician named Jane directed us into the room where she started the sonogram process.

That’s the Caramel Cub, Casey. The part at the very end of the video is stunning to me - how crisp and clear you can make her out. She’s beautiful, a perfect little sweetheart.

We were lucky that Jane allowed us to take video in the room. The sound has been edited out of the video, but I assure you it is absolutely fantastic - Jane’s thick southern accent litters the video with exclamations of what a beautiful, cooperative baby she is, and how much Casey moves and wiggles. She even went so far as to proclaim that Casey was “the best baby [she's] seen all day.” Of course, it’s my girl. What would anyone expect?

Nonetheless, the biggest part of taking this video is, of course, not known to everyone. My mother is currently in the NSICU at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, with a mass in her right frontal lobe (as far as I can tell from my sister’s description - I really wish I would have been able to speak to the neurosurgeon as I actually studied neuropsychology in college). She was admitted on Tuesday evening, late, with headaches, etc., and the MRI showed that she has a large mass pressing against her cortex. She’s set to have surgery tomorrow, on Friday - a 5 hour operation that should help them determine the nature of the body and how to treat it. Without treatment, we could lose her within a month.

I went to visit my mother on Wednesday, and she said to me, behind a choked sob and her beeping vitals, that she needed to see Casey, to hold her, and after that God can do what he needed to. At this point I hatched my scheme to bring in the video camera to the sonogram and then bring it back to the NSICU so she could view it.

Jane was kind enough to give us some extra print outs of the particularly cute pictures of Casey, one of which is with my mother, on her bed.

I sometimes rail against technology - about its ubiquitousness in our lives and how much it manages to drive us apart by being too accessible. In this situation, I can’t help but thank… whatever… for the technology that we have. My mother, regardless of what happens tomorrow, has seen my baby girl - she’s seen videos of her smiling and waving her arms and wiggling… she’s got a picture of her to watch over her while she sleeps tonight. Technology has allowed me to share my daughter with her grandmother, and while I know it was painful for both my mother and I to contemplate the notion of not being there to see her grandchild born, it was more special for her to experience her grandchild, ten fold.

Casey, you may not know it yet, but your abuela loves you very much, and thinks you’re the most beautiful little angel in the world.

-oz