Two Weeks Old

Evan is two weeks old today! What does an enterprising two-week old do to celebrate the occasion? He takes the dog for a walk WITH ONLY ONE PARENT!

Steph was finishing feeding the boy just as I was preparing Peekay for our normal morning walk. Since he's normally pretty calm after eating, and Steph needed to get some sleep, I figured it was time to give a uniparent dog walk a shot. So I dressed Evan in an outfit with sleeves and feet, loaded him up in the BabyBjörn, grabbed the dog's leash, and away we went. It's true that this is a violation of One Day, One Outfit, but I chose to suspend the rules for a few hours since this clothing change was of my doing, not his.

Here's a picture of us in a similar situation to give you an idea of what Evan looks like in the BabyBjörn:

You may think he is missing out on seeing the world, but his eyes can't see much of the world yet anyway, and he says he appreciates the feeling of comfort he gets from knowing he can plop his face forward at any moment and take a nap on my chest (a privilege of which he avails himself pretty much the whole time he's in the carrier). I say this picture is of us "in a similar situation" because I was alone on this walk, so there are no photos of the actual event. Fortunately the whole family had done the walk a day or two earlier and we brought the camera then.

We had a lovely jaunt around the perc ponds, and we got to see several turtles, a family of ducklings, a whole bunch of swallows, and a few hawks among the wildlife there. The first few minutes of the walk were a little harrowing, particularly when I had to crouch down to pick up dog poop without dumping the baby (the key is to squat instead of bending over), be we figured it out. Evan even gave me a hand by helping to hold Peekay's leash.

He's Not a Fish

Evan is not a fish. Deep down, I'm sure Evan knows he is not a fish. There are times, however, when it would appear that Evan believes himself to be a fish:

Maybe I was wrong thinking he was dreaming of baby sheep.

One Day, One Outfit

We're trying out a new policy here at the Metz household. We call it "One Day, One Outfit". We felt that Evan may not be showing the proper respect to his wardrobe, nor the care with which his parents choose clothes that flatter his complexion and figure. He sometimes goes through five or six costume changes a day, which is downright excessive. So from now on whatever ensemble we put him in in the morning is the same one he's wearing to bed. After one day things are going swimmingly. Here's a picture of the inaugural outfit:

We'll see how long this lasts...

Tummy Time

Apparently it's important to give a baby some time on his stomach so he can start practicing holding his head up and crawling. Evan is just short of two weeks old in this video, and he's working hard on the pushing himself up and controlling his head part:

So That's How He Fit

Evan often likes to fall asleep on your shoulder after you're finished burping him, which is what happened this evening. Whenever he zonks out this way he likes to pull his knees up really high, to the point that his feet are right below his bottom. It doesn't look the least bit comfortable to me, but I'm not a baby (at least not about most things).

When Steph came over to check out the situation she had an epiphany -- that's how he fit inside her! She often remarks that it doesn't seem possible that anything that big could have been living in her belly. (Isn't it funny that sometimes the baby seems so small, and sometimes he seems so big, and it all depends on the context?) After seeing this picture it makes more sense, though:

Eventually we'd like to do some Photoshop magic to superimpose the curled-up Evan on the extremely-pregnant Steph, but that will have to wait for a bit - Steph's the Photoshop wiz, not me, and she's got other priorities right now.

Me and the Boy

Steph thought Evan and I were looking especially presentable today, so we hurried outside to take a picture before one of us ruined the moment. I'd like to think she felt the boy was the more likely source of trouble, but it's hard to be sure. Anyway, here's one of the pictures we took in the front yard:

When we got back inside Evan was kind enough to cooperate and look straight at the camera. That doesn't happen very often, so I had to include it too:

Marketing Maternity Bras

Did you know that a maternity bra also performs quite admirably as a spit-up retention reservoir? Surprising, but true. Let me explain...

Evan doesn't return very much of his food, but every once in a while he coughs up a doozy. Well, today was one of those whiles. Usually when one of these Vesuvius events happens it is a struggle to contain the eruption before it reaches clothing (yours... keeping it off his is pretty much hopeless) and furniture. It's not so much an issue of dispersal patterns and flow rates, at least not at first. The problem comes down to hand quantity - you only have two - and baby wiggliness.

As for your hands, one of them is holding the baby, and it's really in everyone's best interest if you don't try and do anything else with this hand. If there's one thing I've learned so far it's that moms do not approve of baby juggling. Anyway, the other hand is probably heavily involved in whatever you were doing with the baby at the time. If that happens to be burping him, you're usually in pretty good shape. Your second hand is whacking the baby, so it's mostly free, and you've already got some type of absorbent rag around (we use cloth diapers for this). Furthermore, you were already trying to make something come out of the baby's mouth - you shouldn't be too surprised if you get more than just air (thus the absorbent rag).

Here's where the second factor - baby wiggliness - comes into play. As most of you know, babies are phenomenally wiggly creatures. This is why giving an infant a sponge bath can be such a terrifying experience ("Let's take our tiny baby who likes to make sudden jerky movements and douse him in soapy water while we hold him over the kitchen sink" sounds like the premise of a Bad Idea Jeans commercial). So when you burp a baby you try to position the cloth where you think he's pointing, but that can change rapidly and without warning.

This is exactly what happened to Steph. Evan had finished eating (or at least he was resting - he often goes back for seconds, sometimes thirds), so Steph draped a diaper over her shoulder and started burping him. And it was working just fine... until Evan threw his head to the side and emptied his stomach onto her chest. Maybe he didn't find this meal to be up to his standards and he was sending it back to the kitchen. More likely it was just a convergence of random factors. Whatever the reason, it was a mess.

Or rather, it should have been a mess. Normally you'd be flailing around for an extra burp cloth, receiving blanket, or dish towel (the one you had prepared for this being pinned under the baby on your shoulder, and we've already discussed the prohibition against baby juggling) to try and keep the spit-up contained. Before doing this Steph took a moment to assess the situation, though, and to her pleasant surprise what did she find? With the exception of a drop or two on the baby's chin all of the effluent had been trapped inside her maternity bra! And this was not just a delaying action. She had time to pass the baby off to me, stand up, walk calmly through the house to our bathroom, and dump the spit-up down the sink. This took at least 20 seconds, and there was no leakage whatsoever... a truly remarkable performance by the bra.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that there were no losers in this game. The bra clearly had to be laundered, and Steph was... how best to put this... taken aback by the whole affair. But in balance, I have to declare this event a major victory for the Metz family. No other clothing had to be cleaned (and as you may know, we've become a little sensitive about laundry issues), not even the baby's, no furniture had to be cleaned, no one got hurt, and everyone had a good laugh (although in Evan's case it may have been more of a sinister snicker). We had to pay no real consequences for being caught woefully unprepared for a baby explosion, and we owe it all to a maternity bra.

Which brings me to my main point. Why don't the bra manufactures highlight this feature in their advertising? Steph has looked through a number of specialty maternity catalogs (I peek over her shoulder sometimes, but I just read the articles) and they never mentioned anything about spit-up. I think they're missing a major opportunity to expand into new markets here! Had I known a maternity bra could help deal with spit-up so well I might have been persuaded to buy one of my own, and I don't think I'm the only guy out there who would feel this way. OK, maybe I am, but I think this issue could be addressed with the proper marketing campaign. After all, there are apparently some men who like to wear women's undergarments when they get no real utility from them, so the barrier isn't quite as high as you might think. Just imagine who else might consider it if you could show off the practical benefits. They could sell them at The Sharper Image (The PIDI - Pectoral Infant Discharge Inhibitor), claim it was of European design, give it some kind of masculine logo. I don't know, I'm not a marketing guy, but I think this could work.

Do Infants Dream of Baby Sheep?

It's hard to tell in this video if Evan is making sounds in his sleep or if he's just wheezing as he breathes. Regardless of their cause, I think the sounds are pretty funny (as you'll see):

Steph and I have discussed the dream vs. wheeze question, and neither of us can remember what we thought was going on when we recorded the video. Evan certainly makes various squeaky sounds when he breathes quite often, so it's likely this is just another such case. Current medical research seems to indicate that babies do dream, though, quite a bit in fact. We both like this idea better, anyway, so we're declaring this the first documented case of our child dreaming.

But what is he dreaming of? Baby sheep, maybe? That seems logical enough (those sounds could even be an early attempt to imitate a lamb's bleat), although you have to wonder how he'd even know what a sheep is. We do have a couple of baby books that mention sheep (including a nice Touch and Feel one that I'm sure he'll love), but I don't think we've read any of them to him yet. Maybe humans are born with an innate ability to count sheep. It's something to think about.

Three Generations of Metz Men

Mom had the bright idea to get a picture of all three generations of Metz men, and here it is:

I normally wouldn't wear a baseball cap for so momentous an occasion, but I don't think I'd showered in a couple of days so I didn't feel like my normal, photogenic self. Besides, I chose my new "Rookie Dad" hat to make it easier to determine which Metz is which (Evan is the undersized one in the middle).

Neighborly Visit

Evan is one week old today. To celebrate our next-door neighbor Carol came over to visit for a while. Here she is with Steph and Evan:

OK, Carol didn't actually come over specifically to celebrate Evan's first septedieiversary. She's been waiting eagerly for us to tell her we were ready to receive visitors, so she jumped at the first chance we gave her. Fortunately Evan cooperated by being awake almost the whole time, which is by no means a given. We're very lucky to have some great neighbors and friends we can turn to for help when the last of our family leaves after this weekend.

Another Hiccup Video

I recorded another short video of Evan hiccuping:

I know, I only shoot videos when the kid has hiccups. It's not my fault, though... he gets the hiccups all the time. Besides, there are some non-hiccup videos in the pipe, I just haven't posted them yet. Be patient.

In the meantime, this is a unique piece of cinematography. The video is of absolutely atrocious quality. In fact, when you watch it you'll think something is wrong because there's nothing there. If you stared at the original long enough you could just barely make out images that looked kinda like one of those 4-D ultrasounds. You'll have to take my word for that... after being uploaded to YouTube and recoded there really is nothing to see at all. The video isn't the point, though. The reason I recorded this is for the sound, which is classic. Before Evan's hiccups were just little baby squeaks. Here they sound like the fully-formed hiccups of a tiny little person. My little boy is already starting to grow up.

Grampy Arrives... Finally

Almost all of the grandparents were in town when Evan was born (both grandmas were there for the delivery, as I mentioned earlier, and luckily Grandpa Jim was working in San Jose at Adobe the week before). My dad, however, was only going to be able to come for a weekend, so he waited until the boy was actually here to arrange his flight. If only having a plane ticket was enough by itself to transport one across the country.

I'm not going to relate the full story to you here because, quite frankly, I got confused and lost interest about half way through. Suffice it to say that between Thursday evening and Friday afternoon the only people who called our house were one of my parents to tell us that Dad was arriving later than the last time they called for one reason or another. If you're interested, maybe he can explain how hard it is to catch a single direct non-stop flight to see your one and only grandchild for the first time. (Actually, there were some extenuating circumstances, but it's more fun to ignore those and give him a hard time about it.)

Eventually everything worked out, though, and early Friday afternoon Evan completed his grandparent quartet. Here's a picture of my dad with my son:

Later on in the weekend I got a better picture of the two of them. This may be the only documented case of Dad directly helping with baby duty:

He could be persuaded to help burp the boy, but he said it was not a grandfather's role to change diapers, only to observe and critique. Fortunately when Mom cajoled him into helping with a change a little later Evan had the good sense to immediately pee on him.

Mom Returns to the World

The baby was almost a week old, and Stephie's only venture outside of the house up till now has been yesterday's trip to the pediatrician. Given that she normally walks the dog a mile or two twice a day she was starting to go a little stir-crazy. Plus her nether regions were starting to hurt more from being sat upon all the time than from birthing a baby a few days ago (her words and sentiments, not mine).

Fortunately for us a group of our dog walking friends were going on our not-quite-regular-but-not-rare-either hill climb Friday evening, so we mustered the troops and joined them. I've drawn a map of our route, if you're interested (I just love Google). According to Google Earth it's about a 2.5 mile round trip hike with 600' of elevation gain, although it always feels like more than that to me because almost all of the climbing is concentrated in 3 steep sections. I don't know if this qualifies Steph as a pioneer woman or not, but I was impressed that she was up for it.

Here's a picture of our intrepid band at the beginning of the walk:

Pictured here are Marge and Dusty, Me, Sue, Evan (in stroller), Spencer, Peekay, and Steph. My mom joined us as well, but she was taking the picture, and Spencer and Sue's dog Machie could not be troubled to sit down for a photo (he was too busy peeing in someone's yard off-camera right).

Here's another shot of most of the group, already on the way back down at this point:

and here's the little man himself, sacked out in his stroller:

This was about as awake as he got the whole time, by the way. You can't really tell from the look on his face, but he had a great time.

Most of the walk down Mom and I both kept a hand on the stroller, just to make sure we didn't develop a runaway baby problem:

I did some quick experiments on some of the flatter sections, and I'm pretty sure that in the steep parts if my hands slipped off the stroller handle Evan would be gone before I could do anything about it. I thought he'd probably get a kick out of the ride, but Steph disagreed in such a way that I felt it best not to argue. I think next time we do this walk I'll bring an extra dog leash and use it as a backup tether, just in case.

Poopsplosion!

At Community Hospital of Los Gatos they use Pampers diapers (Pampers Swaddlers Newborn to be exact). It should come as no surprise that this was a good decision on the hospital's part. (Have I mentioned how pleased we were with the care we received at the hospital? We were extremely impressed with everything about CHLG, including the little bit of experience we've had with them outside of Labor & Delivery. Everyone should have their babies there.) Sure, they probably picked Pampers because they got a sweet deal from some rep, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a good decision.

Why do I say this, you ask? How could I have developed such strong opinions about diaper manufacturers in such a short amount of time? Well, first there is my propensity for developing strong opinions. But even more important are the statistics. Evan was born on Saturday, and between the supply of diapers we brought home from the hospital and another pack we'd been given we were able to keep him wrapped in Pampers exclusively until sometime Thursday evening... let's call it five and a half days. In this time we had absolutely zero diaper integrity breaches. The Pampers absorbed pee. They gobbled up meconium. They contained poop of all colors, shapes, consistencies, and quantities. In short, if Evan could produce it, the diapers could cope with it.

Unfortunately, our supply of Pampers was finite. When they were gone, we had to fall back on a package of Huggies someone had given us. At the time we didn't view this as "falling back" at all. We just thought "This baby's butt is now clean, I should cover it so the things around him can also be clean. Oh look, a diaper." Why wouldn't the Huggies perform the same? They were Newborn size. They had extra gathers around the legs. They had Baby Shaped Fit® (what a joke). They even had a scoop-front top so we didn't have to fold the edge of the diaper over to avoid the monstrous scab that is the remains of Evan's umbilical cord. Sadly, what they didn't have was the ability to absorb, contain, or at times even impede the flow of baby urine and feces. Between sometime mid-afternoon Thursday and mid- to late-morning Friday we had to deal with three peesplosions and two poopsplosions. We had to wash Steph's robe three times. THREE TIMES! In half a day! The kid's stomach is the size of a large walnut. Even if you allow for the possibility that he only produces waste once for every two feedings (which, by the way, is totally not the case) how can it be that the amount of urine rendered in a single emission is great enough to overwhelm the resources of a product ostensibly designed exclusively for the management of said urine to the point that it comes spurting out the back of the diaper? That's right, it didn't just leak out at the legs (that would make sense... it would almost be excusable), it spewed up his back. Let me say that again... with the aid of a Huggies diaper my son peed on his own back. It's not like there's a spigot back there. Trust me, I checked. The only spigot is in the front, where it should be. I'm not even going to try to describe the poopsplosions. The horror. Oh, the horror.

So, in the final telling, what can we learn from our diaper integrity statistics? Over approximately 132 hours Pampers leaked 0 times. Over around 12 hours Huggies leaked 5 times. Mathematically speaking, that makes Pampers (divide by 12... carry the 2...) infinitely better than Huggies. Fortunately, the majority of our strategic diaper reserve for the next stage of baby growth (size 1) is Pampers, so there is hope for the future. And I suppose I should make the (somewhat obvious) disclaimer that the sample size of this study is one baby. Maybe Huggies have worked great for you in the past. Maybe they'll work wonderfully for you in the future. But for me, in the present, I'm not letting the Pampers stock dip below critical levels again. The alternative is just ugly... and smelly too (and I've heard that only gets worse).

This is not a picture of a poopsplosion. In fact, we don't have any pictures of a poopsplosion. Had I even tried to take a photo during the last incident it is very possible I would not be with you blogging today. This is instead our first diaper sausage. Steph analogizes them to some type of boa constrictor relative (maybe a diaper constrictor?). Think of this as a photo of the distant aftermath of a poopsplosion.

First Doctor Visit

We made our first trip to the pediatrician's office today. (Anyone notice how many posts are titled "First "? I feel funny about that for some reason, kinda like I'm taking the easy way out of choosing titles instead of being more creative. I'll try to do better in the future - my public demands it!) We went to see the doctor inside of 1 week because we chose a pediatrician that was closer to home than the hospital where Evan was born, so we wanted to give him a chance to meet his doctor (they wanted to give him a quick checkup as well). Here he is in the waiting room:

He didn't seem that interested in all the nice toys they had for him to play with, but maybe he will next visit (in 3 weeks -- we like to aim high).

Oh, the doctor said Evan is a healthy little boy. He's actually already back up to his birth weight according to their scale (after only 6 days), but that wasn't really a fair measurement -- Steph fed him while we were waiting. Still, the little bugger is growing like a weed already.

Hangin' With Grandma

My Mom is still in town, but she's been staying with friends in Hayward so as not to interfere with our domestic bliss. Even more important than bliss is having someone to help keep the house in order and the new parents fed (or maybe that is bliss). We persuaded her to come down Wednesday and stay the night (not that it was that hard, Evan being the first grandchild on my side of the family and all), and here she is with the little guy:

First Time in Crib

Evan slept in his crib for the first time Wednesday (he normally sleeps in a bassinet in our room for the time being since Steph is getting up to feed him so often anyway). I thought it was remarkable how small he looks compared to the endless expanse of his 2' x 4' mattress:

Also, look at how nice his crib's bumpers and all are. Grandma She made them herself!

My kid SUCKS!

Since we came home from the hospital Steph's been having some ups and downs with breastfeeding, and was starting to get rather sore and frustrated. So after two days (on Wednesday) we called in the big guns... we had the lactation consultant who taught our breastfeeding class (Judy Long, of Breastfeeding Network) come to our house to give us some advice. Let me just say, this was some of the best money we've spent on the boy yet. We learned the following things during this consultation:

• After only 5 days Evan has the sucking ability of a 2-month old. I never thought I'd speak of how much my child sucks with such pride.
• Evan eats like a pig. Through the course of one feeding while Judy was at our house, which included one big spit-up, he put on 2.5 ounces, which is 2% of his body weight. That's the equivalent of a 150-pound adult eating 3 pounds of hamburger. Since then we've stopped tracking his ins and outs... he's growing just fine.
• The combination of power sucking and voracious eating makes Evan a barracuda baby. Not that this is an official term or anything, but it helps explain why Steph is sore.
  

By the way, if there are any moms in Silicon Valley who are having trouble nursing and want some help (information and instruction only... she's not a wet nurse!) we recommend Judy without reservation. Get in touch with us if you'd like her contact info.

This picture was probably taken just after the little guy finished eating, so it's not necessarily so relevant to this post. We don't really have any photos of breastfeeding, though, and even if we did I don't think I'd be putting them here. It is food-related, though, and cute:

Exorcist Baby

I would have embedded a snippet of Tubular Bells here except:

1. Blogger's interface doesn't have a super-easy way to do it (and I don't really feel like figuring out the HTML to insert audio into a blog post); and
2. I have a visceral hatred of websites that automatically play music when you visit them.

I half expected Evan to turn his head the rest of the way around and start talking to me in a supernaturally deep and reverberative voice. That would be totally out of character for him, though, as he's normally a wonderful baby.

The one true thing you can glean from this photo is that mommying and babying are both hard work. Fortunately for me, daddying isn't quite so bad - you get to sleep multiple hours at a time.

Meeting Peekay

The dog wasn't sure exactly what to make of Evan at first. Evan didn't seem to care about her one way or the other.

Peeks is adjusting very well to her demotion to #4 in the pack. Or maybe she still thinks she has a chance to move up in the pecking order. Or maybe she just views herself as "last", so last out of three and last out of four are basically the same thing. Whichever it is, we're very pleased with the state of infant-canine relations in our household up to this point.

Coming Home

Monday morning finally rolled around, which meant it was time to leave the hospital and enter the scary world of parenting for real. We were eager to get back home and settle in with the little guy, but we were going to miss the hospital food, crazy as that sounds. It's not exactly fine cuisine (although the pasta primavera was actually pretty good), but it does show up at a regular hour and you don't have to cook it.

All good things must come to an end, however, so we packed him up:

and headed out:


Evan proved that he is indeed a member of the Goetsch extended family by sleeping the entire car ride home. I didn't take any pictures of that, though. I don't think you're missing anything.

That Father-Son Connection

I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of myself with the boy here yet, partly because most of them are fairly blurry (we don't use the flash very much - an artistic preference - and Steph doesn't have the steady hand of some of the other photographers in the family). This one was pretty clear, though. It's also pretty cute, if I do say so myself:

Touchdown!

Evan likes to be swaddled, but he pretty much insists that at least one of his arms remain free at all times. Sometimes both:

One never knows when an exciting sports moment will arise suddenly, especially when dreaming. He also likes to be ready to fend away unwanted kisses and tickles.

Baby Tree Frog

I know babies are flexible and all, but can you imagine this position is really that comfortable?

This is one of his favorite "relaxing" poses.

First Visitors

Evan received his first visitors (other than both grandmas, who were there to help with his birth) Sunday morning when Grandpa Goetsch and Auntie Megan came by the hospital. Here is Meg holding the boy (I'm afraid I caught Meg slightly pre-smile, but everyone is just looking at the baby anyway, right?):

And with Steph and Sheilagh:

And with Steph and Jim:

As you can tell, Evan comes by his dashing good looks honestly.

First Hiccup (Post Delivery)

Evan had his first bout of hiccups earlier today, or at least his first bout since he left the womb, and I caught it on video:

Given his penchant for hiccuping during the pregnancy I'm afraid he may have inherited his father's proclivity for diaphragm spasms, but I guess you can't choose your family. Hopefully he ends up ahead in the balance. Besides, when he gets a bit older I've got a whole array of tricks to pass on that have worked for me through the years and should help. (Let me tell you, trying to teach a 1-day old to hold his breath and put pressure on his stomach in just the right way is every bit as hard as it sounds.)

A quick caveat about the video. We're aware that this snippet is not going to go into his audition tape if he pursues a career as an action movie star (although my sister Hilary thinks that his name has a ring to it that earmarks him for Justin Timberlake-style pop artist stardom, and who am I to argue?). So if you're looking for fireworks or hilarity, sorry. It's still pretty cute, though.

Evan is Here!

Weighing in at 7 lbs. 15 oz. and measuring a full 20 inches in length, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Evan James Metz:

Evan was born yesterday, June 16th 2007, at 4:29 AM (had I realized the hospital had a Wi-Fi network I would have posted these pictures the day of, but oh well). As you can see, he is an extremely adorable little guy (I know I adore him). Steph labored for a little less than 6 hours, plus slightly over an hour of pushing - short for a first timer, but plenty long for us. She and the baby are both doing wonderfully, although we're all a bit tired (go figure). So far Evan is a very pleasant baby (we'll see how long that persists), and I can think of no better Father's Day gift than having such a wonderful child to hold in my arms. It does make the typing go a lot slower, though.

Here's another shot of the boy, this time with his mom (taken about 4 hours after delivery):

Baby Still Ensconced in Belly

It's been a week since we were given the "one week left" prediction, but as of lunchtime we have nothing to report. Steph woke up with a backache a few days ago for no reason we could discern (no excessive activity or strain the day before), which we were hoping was an early sign of impending labor. It didn't amount to anything, though. In fact, I can't fully discount the possibility that it was just a ploy to get a free back rub, although I think that is unlikely.

In the meantime, Steph took some nice pictures of herself earlier this week, so I thought I'd post one of them.

One Week to Go

We had our next baby doctor visit this morning. Based on what she saw and our anecdotal evidence the physician's assistant thinks Fetie will probably make his arrival in about a week, which would make him a few days early. The "anecdotal evidence" of note is that the baby dropped about a week ago (we think last Wednesday or Thursday). Apparently first babies usually are born around two weeks after they drop. As usual, though, she would make no guarantees.

Last night we went to our breastfeeding class (a month later than we tried to schedule it, through no fault of ours), which was a lot more informative than we had expected. Steph has been reading a lot, as she is want to do, so she was feeling like she'd learned about as much as she could without having an actual baby to try things out with. For my part, I thought that my lack of the requisite equipment would leave me marginalized in this focused instructional environment. And while it is true that for the most part I only got to play with the doll during the bathroom break, there was a lot of good information to be had, and I got to demonstrate my spectacular note-taking abilities. For those keeping score at home, we're now trained to:

• Birth a baby
• Feed a baby
• Care for a baby
• Revive a dead baby
  

We're even officially certified in the first and last! Oddly enough, we took those classes in reverse order.

Pre-Baby Pictures

Since we don't actually have a baby yet, I thought I'd start off this blog with a snapshot or two of The Big Ultrasound, which takes place around 20 weeks (halfway through the pregnancy -- over 4 months ago). Unfortunately, if you're not an obstetrician then still shots from an ultrasound are hard to interpret at best... you really need to see things moving to get a sense for what's what. There was one great sequence of his little feet kicking away, but each frame by itself is just a blob of white fuzz.

I wanted to have something to post, though, so I proceeded undaunted (OK, maybe a bit daunted). First, here's the best snapshot I could come up with of the little guy's face:


Maybe you can make sense of that, but I couldn't, even though it was clear as day in the video. So, I tried to add some annotation to help you out... I've outlined his eye and nose cavities, as well as where his mouth is. His torso is obviously the bigger circle just to the left of his face. Notice that he's already developed a wry smirk. I imagine this is but a mere sign of things to come:


A final note: we had another baby doctor appointment today, and Dr. Totman confirmed the baby has dropped, which we've been suspecting (it's hard to tell when you see someone everyday, or you are that someone and you haven't seen the bottom of your stomach in a few months anyway). She doesn't think our little guy is going to come out for at least another week (at least not before our next appointment, which is next Thursday), but she wouldn't guarantee it.