NICU: A Nice Place To Visit, But...

In our last post we left our hero, Jack the brand new Verhaaren, in the birthing room being weighed and otherwise measured. It was only fair that since Mom had spent the most time with him up until now that Dad go with him to explore the nursery downstairs. This involved a lot of firsts for Jack. His first elevator ride, his first bath, and his first shot. He didn't really notice the elevator, he didn't love the shot but took it stoically, the bath he hated. "Please, just give me shots," he seemed to scream. The nurses tried to oblige him by drawing blood from his arms and heels, and indeed he was much more calm than he had been during the bath.
While all of these exciting things were happening the nurses noticed that Jack tended to moan when he breathed. Their guess was that his lungs weren't working at full capacity yet and so they decided to keep him in the nursery for a while so that they could keep an eye on him.
A few hours later he was still moaning so they called down a doctor from the NICU. He suggested an x-ray be taken of Jack's chest. At this same time the nurses were trying to get a hold of the pediatrician who had been assigned to check over Jack the next day. This pediatrician happened not to be in that day, so they got a hold of his partner who agreed to come in and check things out. In the mean time the x-ray was taken and looked at, and the diagnosis by some was that it might be pneumonia.
It should be said at this time Mom and Dad were becoming more and more anxious. They also found out the the pediatrician thought they needed another x-ray, the first being difficult to read. They finally made some decisions when the new x-ray was taken and the pediatrician got to the hospital. They said Jack's lungs had some residual fluid in them that was preventing them from working at full capacity. This meant he needed a trip to the NICU where they could blow air into his lungs. Luckily, after a few hours they pronounced him healthy enough to breath on his own and so about twelve hours after his birth Jack got to leave the nurseries and NICUs in favor of Mom and Dad's room. Now he has the time to learn how to eat, which he has been looking forward to since conception.
Post Script: Both sides of the family seem to like the name Jack. Also, both sides have asked if Escher is a family name from the other side. Well, Escher is now a family name on both sides although it wasn't two days ago. All family names must have a beginning.

Babies Come from Hospitals

It was early in the day on this the twentieth day of April in the year of our Lord 2010. Hilary, rising up early, found some tightness in her uterus and some leakage. When she returned to bed a little later in that early hour I half jokingly asked, "Did your water break?" I said this full of hope that she would say "Ha ha, no," and we could both go back to sleep. However, her firm reply was, "Maybe."
Maybe indeed. After some preparations we found ourselves at the hospital to let them know Hilary's water may have broken. In order to clear up the maybe they ran some tests. The first was a definite negative. The second a surprising positive. This brought us straight back to maybe. So, how did we deal with this maybe? We decided to run the same tests half an hour later. This time both test unanimously decided her water had not broken, so while she was dilated to three and a half centimeters and was having some contractions we were sent home to think about what we had done. In all fairness, they said we could come back when the contractions were very painful and more regular. In all lack of fairness they wanted these symptoms to continue for two to three hours before we came back.
I was thinking I might as well get some work done so up to campus I trotted, it was nine in the morning. I called home about ninety minutes later to check on the situation at home. From this call I learned that life was becoming more painful, so we planned to go back to the hospital at noon. Half an hour later Hilary called to tell me that actually what with one thing and another, for instance the very long hour of very painful contractions, we needed to go to the hospital right now rather than wait another hour. This being a better option than passing out at home.
Now properly motivated I ran home, we drove to the hospital, and took the elevator to the fifth floor. All this while Hilary was moving slow due to very painful contractions. Another fun side effect was the uncontrollable flow of liquid soaking her pants. This made it very easy to get our old room back. I mean we had already been there once that day and we were making a puddle on their floor, so they guessed we were kind of serious. Once we were situated they checked Hilary and found out she was dilated to ten centimeters. It was then that things got busy.
It was clear to the nurses that the baby would be out soon so we quickly had a room full of people preparing. A doctor showed up and got the epidural going in record time much to Hilary's relief. Once that was working the nurses, who had hooked up the monitors on contraction and baby heart rate, wanted to give pushing a try. So, during the next handy contraction Hilary gave a push and our baby moved far enough that they lost him on the monitor. Now, due to the epidural Hilary had no control over her left leg so my job became official leg assistant when it came time for pushing. This was great as it gave me something positive to do. About one round of pushing later the baby was crowning. A few more rounds of pushing and one nurse decided they should call the doctor while he still had something to do. He showed up quickly and our son, Jack Escher Verhaaren, was born soon after. To give an idea of how fast this was, only an hour a fifteen minutes elapsed from the time we got to our room the second time and Jack's birth. Looks like it tired him out though.