Geek Dad

First off, everyone's ok -- StarGirl's fine, Sue's fine and I'm fine. Or at least, we're mostly fine.

I got a call at 3:30 Monday from Sue, who was in hysterics and was on her way to St. Luke's in Bethlehem. Seems that StarGirl had turned absolutely white -- no color in her lips or her extremities, and scared the crap out of Sue. She called our pediatrician, who told her to take her to the hospital immediately.

When I got there an hour and a half later, Sue and StarGirl had been admitted, and they were running different tests on the baby. Mostly they were trying to pin down her heart rate, which seemed high. Well, one EKG later, and they knew that it *was* high. Way too high. Her normal heart rate should be around 140-160, something like that. Hers was twice that -- it was running around 250 to 280, with spikes to an absolutely horrifying 300.

The cardiac pediatrician was concerned -- heck everyone was concerned -- and they spent an hour or two trying to get an IV started so they could give her medication to bring the heart rate down. When they couldn't get it started -- and when other techniques failed to keep the heart rate down -- they Medevac'd her to Lehigh Valley Hospital, which has a pediatric intensive care unit. That's right. A freaking helicopter.

Jordan turned one month old yesterday, which is a fact I find absolutely astounding. It really doesn't seem like it's been a month already, and at the same time, it seems like Jordan's always been here. Regardless of perspective though, a month has passed and we've learned a lot over the last few weeks.

Baby's Grow Fast: Jordan's growing fast--she's already outgrown one of her outfits, which makes complete sense, yet was very surprising at the time.

Getting to Know You: She's also starting to exhibit a slightly increased awareness of her surroundings, and she's developing preferences. For example, she's much rather fall asleep in bed with us than in her own crib. That's problematic for us because Sue and I don't sleep well when she's in the bed--we're always waking up paranoid that we're going to roll over her.

Before Jordan was born someone--I don't remember who-- asked me if I was going to teach the baby how to play Dungeons & Dragons if it was a girl. The question took me aback somewhat--not because I'd ever considered teaching D&D to a girl, but because I'd never not considered teaching it to a girl.

Jordan’s a little over two weeks old now, and a lot of folks have been asking how we’re doing. The short answer is “good but tired”. Jordan wakes up every few hours, sometimes gretzing, sometimes crying, rarely screaming. Then it’s time to change the diaper, feed her, or just do laps around the downstairs trying to calm her down and get her back to sleep.

Sue’s undoubtedly got it harder than I do right now, since she’s nursing. While we’re bottle feeding for two feedings a day – a task that usually falls to me --,that’s only a slight percentage of Jordan’s overall feedings … and it’s a hell of a easier than nursing. That’s especially true in the wee hours of the morning, when Sue’s exhausted and the baby’s frustrated/hungry.

Jordan's been here for a week. Actually, 8 days. And over that time, while gently rocking her to sleep while doing my Nth circuit of the downstairs, while changing her diapers, while just looking with wonder into her open, attentive and intelligent eyes, I've had a few moments to speculate on babies, fatherhood, and my newborn daughter.

Walking, Rocking, and Singing Beats All: When Jordan's upset, there's one thing that will almost always calm her down: taking a stroll around the house, singing calming songs and slowly rocking her.

We're now two days past Sue's due date and the baby has still not made an appearance.

The midwife gave us some labor-inducing home remedies to try, but whether they'll actually work, or whether they're just to give us something to do, remains to be seen.

So we're renting movies, putting jigsaw puzzles together, cleaning, sorting and generally trying to avoid thinking about the fact that the baby still isn't here.

Sue hasn't had the baby yet. Everyone wants to know, so I figured I'd throw it out there before I wrote another word.

Sue's "informal" due date of March 14 -- which we got from the ultrasound tech � has come and gone and her official due date of March 21 is getting closer by the minute. And let me tell you, we are counting each and every damn minute. Well, maybe not counting, but certainly noticing.

Like the wise man said, waiting is the hardest part. Or at least, the hardest part until Sue goes into labor, which I think ultimately may end up being as hard or harder (or at the very least, a hell of a lot more painful).

Well folks, we're at T-11 days and counting, and still no baby. We had our weekly baby appointment today, and the midwife said everything was going well ... and that we had a nice-sized baby coming. How big does that translate to? Not a clue.

So ... the waiting game continues. We've got our bag packed for the hospital and we're doing all of our breathing exercises on a nightly basis. We're trying all the folk remedies (some of which are more fun than others...) to induce labor, but obviously, we haven't had much luck on that front yet.

Madison has seen the face of the enemy, and it is pink.

Our five-year-old Yellow Labrador was freaked out when Sue began talking to her belly a few months ago, and she started sulking when she saw us loading Sue’s overnight bag into the Cherokee in anticipation of her impending labor (Mad Dog knows that when the bag comes out, we’re going away … and she hates that).

We've got four weeks until Sue's due date on March 21. One week until she's term. One week until Lamaze is over. Yes folks, labor is definitely starting to loom rather large on the horizon.

Exactly how large became apparent last night at Lamaze, and it had nothing to do with the 30-minute video we watched of three women giving birth. No, what really drove it home for me was the fact that we'd lost about four couples from our class, not to snow, lack of interest, or schedule conflicts but to ... birth.