Grand Finale

So the baby arrived, in good health and with already imposing lungs. Born with girl parts, her name is Evie Noel. She’s 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and was born about 7:30AM.

The delivery was complicated towards the end, as Sara’s epidural started to lose its effectiveness. She kept pressing the pain button, but it never delivered enough goods. Her delivery looked excruciating, and from her screams I’m pretty sure she’d say the same.

That said, the baby’s taking its first nap on Sara after her first bath. 

Sara just ordered her breakfast here, so it’ll be fun to see how that turns out. I got lucky and ended up taking Nate to Chick-Fil-A. We’re trying to break the new sibling to him really easily, but it’s going to be tough since he’ll be spending most of today and tomorrow with grandparents.

8cm!

So, after a much needed nap, we’ve woken up to find that Sara’s 8cm dilated. 

In other words, baby incoming!

Even though she’s had the epidural, her contractions have gotten fairly painful. She’s having one about every 2 minutes.

On a fun note, I called Sara’s sister to tell her the situation and that she should probably come up with the hospital, and was met with an off-put, “are you joking?” Nobody likes being called at 6:15AM. Also, if I’m ever rich and am buying a hospital, I’m going to invest in guest-beds. This is 0 for 2

Oh, and Sara was put on pitocin at about 5AM this morning because she had only progressed to 5cm.

Zzzzzzzz

We’re going to try to sneak in a little sleep. We’ll see how successful that turns out. 

I’ll check back in when I’m woken up by a nurse. Which happens a lot in these places.

Epidural deployed!

Sara’s now 4cm dilated, 70% effaced, and the epidural is kicking in. That’s good news for everybody.

I stayed in the room this time for the epidural, but was careful not to look while it was being inserted. Afterwards, I got to peek at the needle. It’s easily 4″ long. I’m not sure how much of that we stick in, but I’d prefer not to think about it.

Also, turns out I was mistaken about the 24 hour limit on baby delivery. The nurse explained that now, as long as Sara doesn’t have a fever and the baby seems healthy, they’ll wait as long as possible.

That said, labor time decreases geometrically (usually halves each time), so we’re expecting baby#2 before lunch. 

Water breaks!

Sara’s water just broke, and she’s saying her pain scale is up to about 8 of 10.

So, after asking for pain meds, the nurse just suggested an epidural. Sara’s all for it, so, after the doctor comes in, hopefully that gets started.

Also, since the water’s broken, they’ve started hydrating her so we can start pitocin (induction agent). 

The exciting news about water breaking is that, because the baby’s exposed to the outside world, doctors won’t let it stay in the womb for more than 24 hours, since the risk of infection rises rapidly. So, at the *very* latest, we’ll have the baby by 2AM on Saturday.

Verdict’s in if it’s a boy…

NOT getting circumcised. After reading the WHO and AAP (lack of) recommendations, and seeing that the evidence doesn’t show unquestionable benefits, we’re opting to keep the baby (if it’s a boy) from its would-be first surgery.

Of course, if the baby’s a boy, when he’s older, he can request a circumcision, and we’ll happily oblige.

And we’re off to the hospital

We were set to come into the hospital on Friday, November 28th, at 5:30AM, for Sara to be induced. We were looking forward to this, as it was a set day that the baby would arrive (at the latest). So, like responsible parents, we made plans for Nate, packed our bags, and got in bed for one final last good night’s sleep at about 11PM.

Unfortunately, the baby had other plans. Starting at 10PM on Thursday night, Sara started having contractions, and joked that we might not make it to 5:30. Turns out she was right.

So we’re in the hospital, Sara’s in a hospital bed, and both of us are facing the prospect of an entirely sleepless night. Our first in a long, long time.

Sara’s been checked, and is about 3cm dilated. She’s having contractions pretty regularly, and they’re painful, so we’re thinking about pushing the nurse for some drugs for Sara (not the epidural … yet).

After 17 months of changing diapers

…you can still get surprised.

Poop doesn’t gross me out anymore. I’ve changed loose poops, pebble poops, stinky poops, green poops, blue poops, black poops, mustard poops, etc.

Several months ago, while changing Nate, he pooped while I was changing his diaper. I’d only seen a person poop twice before (thanks, internets), but it wasn’t that shocking. It just came out how you’d expect it.

But tonight I was getting him ready after bath, and I noticed he had a little something that needed to be wiped. So I wiped him, and it didn’t move. Again. Nothing.

Then I realized it.

He’s prarie doggin’.

It’s time we have a talk. About global warming.

So, from reading nonsense on the intertubes, to seeing Republican debate watching parties “boo” when a candidate said global warming is (a) happening and (b) caused by humans, to hearing a few family members deny that the Earth is even warming up, it’s time I say something.

For all of you in similar situations (my condolences), I hope that you can use this post as an answer to people who would turn a blind eye to research and science and instead rely on Rush Limbaugh for “facts.”

Look. I know it’s hard to accept that the world is really big, and that there are billions of people in it. I can’t even conceptualize a billion anything, there’s 1, 100, 1000s, and “a lot.” But let’s just think about it. Each of us contributes a little, through our energy consumption and waste, to creating these invisible gases. Burning gasoline, coal, and oil are big contributors to this. It’s ok. We all do it.

Scientists noticed this several decades ago, and had also noticed a trend, that the temperature of the Earth was slowly (but steadily) going up. After tossing the ball around, they realized that greenhouse gases (a product of burning fossil fuels) could refract light in such a way that it doesn’t reflect off most of our planet the way that it should, essentially trapping heat. This has a compounding effect, that over time has the potential to be disastrous and really damn hot.

Now, let’s take a little step back and talk about science before I proceed any further, and why going off a consensus is a good idea for most of us. The goal behind scientific research isn’t to be “right.” The goal is to understand how the world works, and to help us control how the world will continue to work. To this end, millions of competing ideas are offered up every year, and bad ones are shot down, and good ones are tested, and some of those help describe the rules by which our universe operates.

There is no agenda here. Sure, a handful of scientists will have an agenda, but when they offer bad ideas and put them in peer-reviewed journals, they’re torn apart like the rest of us. Keep in mind that there’s always a bright, new guy on the scene looking to not only make waves, but to rip to shreds any ideas with flaws.

The spectacular thing about this whole operation is that it allows people to work into specialties, builds on centuries of knowledge, and means that we don’t have to figure out everything for ourselves. For example, I don’t know much about how the body works. I know what I learned in high school (which wasn’t much), but I wouldn’t advise anyone to ask me for medical advice; I’d advise going to a doctor, who keeps up on research and has several years of schooling under his or her belt.

So, to that end, it’s valuable for the rest of us who work in different fields to rely on scientific consensus. Doctors say “vaccines prevent diseases,” and we go with that (and it seems they’re right). Computer security experts recommend using a router as a hardware firewall, and it prevents lots of problems.

So, back to global warming. People will argue that it’s not happening with a slew of questionable evidence. Like, “the Earth isn’t getting warmer,” or “Paul Harvey said this,” or “Al Gore and the scientists just have a hidden agenda to offer a new religion instead of Christianity” (not joking, I’ve heard conservative pundits spout that bullshit).

You can proceed here with one of two questions. The simple one, “Are you a climatologist? And if not, on what grounds are you basing your alternative theory that you think hasn’t been shot down by the thousands of actual climatologists in the world?” Or the Patented Terrbear Dot Org one: What’s more likely, that you came across a piece of peer reviewed, legitimate evidence that blows global warming out of the water, and that Paul Harvey has the scoop over the thousands of climatologists in the world who study this kind of behavior for a living, and that ALL of academia has gathered up and decided that it’s time to supplant Christianity with a motivation to use less energy, or you’re woefully wrong, the peer reviewed evidence and studies point one way, and the media – once again – isn’t out to get you?

Half a Hundred: Autism

I put up a new post on Half a Hundred. This month’s charity is for Autism Speaks, and also for our photographer‘s son, who takes great photos.

Go donate. I’m friendlier over there, but really, you’re a bad person, and donating to that charity will make you better.

See? I provide easy ways out.