I dont know if anyone is sitll reading this blog, but if so, here is an abundant supply of photos of Ariela as well as other random moments from my life:
Friday, March 20, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Cold turkey
Sorry not to put up any posts today. I know that a few of you had been reading the blog very often the prior two days. At least one person I know says they are in withdrawals. As you might imagine, I've been busy.
Stephanie and I are staying in a maternity ward at the hospital, just one floor up from labor and delivery. The room has a bed for Stephanie (the patient) and a cot for me. Ariela is sleeping in a crib in our room. We have the option to leaver her overnight with the nursing staff in the nursery, but that doesn't feel like the right thing to do. So we have an cute little alarm clock in the room with us -- that is my problem tonight because mom still has trouble moving around due to the the surgery. We will be here until Sunday evening.
It is interesting to me that this hospital seems not to have that many fathers. I've seen only three other men who appeared to be fathers since we got here last night, but I've seen at least a dozen mothers. I guess if there are older kids in the family then dad might be at home with them. Still, I think there are a lot of single moms here. Perhaps as a result, they are a little confused about what to do with me. No one has enforced it, but I'm considered a visitor, and I'm supposed to get a new visitor's pass each day I'm here. I realize I'm not a patient, but it seems like there should be a special status for dads to distinguish them from other visitors. No harm done, but it sends a funny message.
We had a huge number of visitors today. Also lots of medical visits from doctors and the like. I filled the forms for the birth certificate. Someone came to get blood for state mandated genetic testing, I think for PKU and other rare stuff. I'm not worried. Some of our friends were unlucky and came just at the wrong time, I felt bad about that. Stephanie was pretty run down and doped up, especially in the morning. In the afternoon her stomach was very upset. The pain seems surprisingly manageable for her after she turned a corner at about 4 pm this afternoon. All the visits and phone calls and emails were really appreciated. They almost completely consumed the time I had been spending writing blog entries. All out friends and colleagues have been really kind and generous and we appreciate deeply, even though our responses to the attention might not always be what people expect. We are still pretty tired.
Stephanie's parents will be here tomorrow (assuming the snow storm doesn't close the airport). We expect 4-8 inches in the next 24 hours. It will start any minute now and continue until 6 pm tomorrow. Bummer for people who don't live full time in a hospital.
I have posted this video! I'm told that a picture is worth a thousand words. I don't know the conversion is for a video, but I suggest the following: we multiply 1,000 by the frame rate (frames/sec) times the number of seconds. I don't know the frames per second, but this video is a minute long and must be at lest 4 fps (maybe 30?), which would imply that this video has more information that all the rest of my blog combined. Unlikely to be true, but I challenge my readers to identify the error in my calculus.
Stephanie and I are staying in a maternity ward at the hospital, just one floor up from labor and delivery. The room has a bed for Stephanie (the patient) and a cot for me. Ariela is sleeping in a crib in our room. We have the option to leaver her overnight with the nursing staff in the nursery, but that doesn't feel like the right thing to do. So we have an cute little alarm clock in the room with us -- that is my problem tonight because mom still has trouble moving around due to the the surgery. We will be here until Sunday evening.
It is interesting to me that this hospital seems not to have that many fathers. I've seen only three other men who appeared to be fathers since we got here last night, but I've seen at least a dozen mothers. I guess if there are older kids in the family then dad might be at home with them. Still, I think there are a lot of single moms here. Perhaps as a result, they are a little confused about what to do with me. No one has enforced it, but I'm considered a visitor, and I'm supposed to get a new visitor's pass each day I'm here. I realize I'm not a patient, but it seems like there should be a special status for dads to distinguish them from other visitors. No harm done, but it sends a funny message.
We had a huge number of visitors today. Also lots of medical visits from doctors and the like. I filled the forms for the birth certificate. Someone came to get blood for state mandated genetic testing, I think for PKU and other rare stuff. I'm not worried. Some of our friends were unlucky and came just at the wrong time, I felt bad about that. Stephanie was pretty run down and doped up, especially in the morning. In the afternoon her stomach was very upset. The pain seems surprisingly manageable for her after she turned a corner at about 4 pm this afternoon. All the visits and phone calls and emails were really appreciated. They almost completely consumed the time I had been spending writing blog entries. All out friends and colleagues have been really kind and generous and we appreciate deeply, even though our responses to the attention might not always be what people expect. We are still pretty tired.
Stephanie's parents will be here tomorrow (assuming the snow storm doesn't close the airport). We expect 4-8 inches in the next 24 hours. It will start any minute now and continue until 6 pm tomorrow. Bummer for people who don't live full time in a hospital.
I have posted this video! I'm told that a picture is worth a thousand words. I don't know the conversion is for a video, but I suggest the following: we multiply 1,000 by the frame rate (frames/sec) times the number of seconds. I don't know the frames per second, but this video is a minute long and must be at lest 4 fps (maybe 30?), which would imply that this video has more information that all the rest of my blog combined. Unlikely to be true, but I challenge my readers to identify the error in my calculus.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
It's a girl!
Ariela Dulawa Palmer was born by cesarean section at 2:56 pm central time. She weighs 9 lb 4 oz and appears to be in perfect health.
As you may realize, 9 lb 4 oz is big. It is about 4.2 Kilograms. One practical consequence of this is that we will probably not be able to use all the diapers we bought, which are intended for 10 lb and under babies!
Stephanie was a champ during the c-section, in the picture below she is in the middle of surgery, there about about 10 people in the room, and her abdomen is cut open.
Pretty good attitude! Here was the scene just seconds later when I looked over the curtain (I've replaced the more graphic one I had posted earlier).
As Dr. Ismail said at the end of the surgery, "thank god for antibiotics and anesthesia". I had the interesting job, if you can call it a job, of trying to comfort Stephanie, joke with the doctors, and be the first to greet our daughter once she was born. Here is a photo that captures the surprisingly jolly mood of the procedure, Dr Ismail is shaking Stephanie's hand after the procedure is finished.
As you may realize, 9 lb 4 oz is big. It is about 4.2 Kilograms. One practical consequence of this is that we will probably not be able to use all the diapers we bought, which are intended for 10 lb and under babies!
Stephanie was a champ during the c-section, in the picture below she is in the middle of surgery, there about about 10 people in the room, and her abdomen is cut open.
Pretty good attitude! Here was the scene just seconds later when I looked over the curtain (I've replaced the more graphic one I had posted earlier).
As Dr. Ismail said at the end of the surgery, "thank god for antibiotics and anesthesia". I had the interesting job, if you can call it a job, of trying to comfort Stephanie, joke with the doctors, and be the first to greet our daughter once she was born. Here is a photo that captures the surprisingly jolly mood of the procedure, Dr Ismail is shaking Stephanie's hand after the procedure is finished.
More to the point, here is a picture of our new daughter.
Mother and baby are recovering well. Here is a photo from the recovery room less than an hour after the surgery ended.
It has been a dramatic few days. Stephanie and I have enjoyed interacting with people via this blog. I'll have more posts in the next few days with new photos of Ariela and information about how you can visit us at the hospital. Stay tuned!
c-section
We just decided to do a c-section. The will prep Stephanie for surgery now, Dr. Ismail says he thinks he will be making an incision by about 2:15 or 2:30 central time. Not much time for me to elaborate, I'm going to clean up our stuff and get ready to accompany Stephanie into the OR. To say that we are nervous is an understatement, but I didn't think there will be problems.
On my next post I hope to be reporting good news, birth weight and a name. Stay tuned, I doubt I'll post before 3 PM and perhap it will be 4 or even later. I'll be busy.
On my next post I hope to be reporting good news, birth weight and a name. Stay tuned, I doubt I'll post before 3 PM and perhap it will be 4 or even later. I'll be busy.
Sleepy afternoon - no developments
I'd love to provide some news about Stephanie but there really isn't any. Her contractions look good on the monitor, pretty regular and about 3 minutes apart. She is feeling OK considering her situation. Tired and a little weird, but her body is doing a lot of work and so we'd expect her to feel tired.I saw several people at lunch today, Greta, Jason MacLean, Lianne Kurina and Ken O'Neill. Nice to see familiar faces.
We are just passing the time and waiting to be finished. We were told 48 hours and that is beginning to look more and more accurate.
Pisces
Our daughter will be a Pisces. According to the CIA world fact book (check it out sometime), her life expectancy will be 81.13 years, meaning that she can expect to live until the year 2090. Who will this person be? How will the world's history unfold over the course of all those years? Will she be with me when I die?In this blog I've been ignoring what will happen after the baby is born. Writing about this feels too personal and like it is outside the scope of what I'm trying to do. But don't think these topics aren't going through my head. This is a major undertaking, and the details of these few days are really very trivial by comparison.
Speaking of trivial, I'll be at Au Bon Pain from about 11:30-12:30, feel free to drop by and visit if you read this post in time.
Sasha and Malia Obama were born here
No one seems to know what room it was in, but Michelle Obama gave birth to both Sasha and Malia Obama here at University of Chicago -- in this very labor and delivery ward. Signs of Obama are all over Hyde Park, where he lived until last month. Several restaurants advertise that Obama ate there or that he said it was his favorite restaurant. Last weekend I went for a walk and there were cops and plain cloths guys in unmarked cars everywhere. I finally asked one of them and sure enough, Obama was in the immediate vicinity. He was playing basketball with some of his friends at the Lab School, which if the private K-12 school run by the University. For all we know one or both of the girls were born in this very same room.
So, as you can see, there is really no baby news to report. We are going to see how much Stephanie progresses today and make a decision this evening about whether to keep trying or to do a c-section. The boring wait continues. I'm tired and distracted enough that I can't do any useful work, so I'm really just passing time.
Bright sun outside makes our little room cheerful.
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