The whole truth, part 3, post-labor

Catch up on either of the two previous tales here, pre-labor and at-labor. Now for the finale, over a week and two days later.

September 4th, 2008 2:00pm - I had a chance to go and tell all of the proud grandparents he was born and did quite well at holding back tears of joy. It was especially tough when I hugged my own father, knowing that I myself was a dad. Pretty good moment. We had to wait a while as Katy wanted to feed him before he was whisked away to the nursery for some cleaning up and weighing.

2:30pm - After a successful feeding and (a term I am now way too familiar with) latching, the grandparents were all able to come in and see their 1st (for my folks) and 2nd (for Katy's) grandson.
This promptly led Nick having to go to the nursery for a Vitamin K shot (with a horse-sized needle), temperature reading, blood sugar reading, weighing, measuring, bath, and other stuff. All fairly traumatic, not for him, but for me. His blood sugar was a bit low so they ended up having to give him a tube of formula which, as I found out, they shoved down the back of his throat because babies don't have gag reflexes. Crazy huh? He didn't even flinch as they rammed the little piece of tubing down his esophagus. I gagged a little for him.


It was pretty sweet being in there with him, but bittersweet at the same time as I knew Katy was in another room being worked on. My dad and Katy's mom came with me but had to stay outside and look from the window, but, their cameras were only picking up the lines in the window so I ended up taking 3 cameras with me into the nursery to snap shots...of the same thing...three different times...in an age where we could have just shared the same SD card afterward but hey, I wasn't going to argue about it then.5:30pm - Katy got wheeled into a recovery room and we left a super nice towel she used for the shower in L&D and it mysteriously disappeared into the linen vacuum at Cottage. Sucky. Oh well, they got a towel, we got a kid. Fair trade I guess. Anyway, we initially got put into a four-person recovery room that had no pull out chair/bed for me and I would have had to go home had it not been for the super nice nurse that put up with both sets of parents saying, "What the crap??? Where's the private room?" Glad we don't live in urban Mexico. Katy's brother Brian arrived around this time which was awesome since he drove down from Vacaville to spend the weekend supporting us and visiting his 2nd nephew.
So about 3 hours later we were moved into a private room that some (our parents) said was small, but Katy and I thought it was perfect. Very cozy, enabling us to sleep in between Nick; Katy on her gurney, Nick in his bassinet, and me on my pull out chair/bed. It was awesome. He pretty much stayed with us the whole night except for a midnight check by the nurses. All in all, it was great being first time parents. Tiredness included. He did get a Billy Ribbon test which checks for jaundice, negative, and a genetic screening test which checks for all kinds of genetic stuff that we'll find out about later. Having a healthy baby boy is extremely precious and Katy and I felt truly blessed. One last thing. He pooped. It was awesome and gross at the same time, if at all possible. And me being me, I captured such an amazing incident on film. Here it is, check out the stickiness. I pulled the diaper apart so you could see the low viscosity levels found in what I now know as "marconium."September 5th, 2008 Day 2- Nick's life continued going on without a hitch. He was feeding well, all the folks came by during visiting hours, and he was well taken care of by his nurse Deb, a very sweet and knowledgeable lady.
Oh yeah, and an unfortunate incident took place which you can read about here. All I can say is, guys, don't ever even think about watching your son's get circumcised. Trust me. Katy's old bosses Laurie and Mark and their kids came by for a visit, the ones she nannied, which was very sweet. They brought some felt cardboard marker picture of butterflys for Nick. Also very sweet.Rest of the day and night went off without another hitch. Nick slept better, got checked out a few times by the nursing staff, and another day down.

September 6th, 2008 - My brother Jon and sister-in-law Natalie came up that night but we didn't get to see them until the morning. Very cool of them as well since they came on a whirlwind tour arriving at about 2am on Saturday morning and leaving early Sunday. It was also Natalie's first time on the central coast so they got to tour Santa Barbara for a while, so double bonus! And, knowing Jon who got me my first pair of Vans, they bought Nick a sweet little pair of Vans as well!
Jon already has one nephew, Natalie's brother's son, but this was his first blood nephew and, as far as I know, his first time holding a less than 3 day old baby. He was a little nervous at first, holding him pretty far away from his chest and as awkwardly as is humanly possible, but once he sat down he slipped right into holding him great! He even let Nick suck on his pinky to soothe him (Nick, not Jon) down a bit (well, maybe Jon too). I think it weirded him out at first, not really believing how hard Nick's mouth could work, but he seemed to think it was pretty cool too. Quite a proud moment for me, both as a father of Nick and brother of Jon. Very glad Nick has his Uncle Jon. A few hours later I took a picture of Katy, Nick and Dr. Nomeland as he came by to check on Katy. A birth certificate lady came by to get the appropriate paperwork and then put Nick's footprints on a birth announcement.
After all that, we finally got to take him home! Granted it was to a home filled with 4 grand parents, 2 uncles, 1 aunt, and 1 beagle, but home nonetheless!



So there's the story of Nick's birth. Long winded, true, but fairly complete and mostly accurate. Stay tuned for the rest of the updates as I try to write a story a day. I know, I know, quite the bar I'm setting, but I did say try!