The PausHaus

Time flies and Blake is already at home fro more than 24 hours. Today at 13:00 we had a doctor’s appointment with Blake at MIT in Cambridge. Ana had a bad night, of course, and Mum and I dressed the kids had breakfast with them and went to the playground at Brackett (the one with the long slide). Before going there we check out the roman catholic church of Saint Agnes. The path according to google.maps is about 1.2 miles (~1.9 km, 23 min walk). Mum thought that she could walk there easily. We will drive her of course if it is cold or she does not like the exercise.

After the short trip to St. Agnes we continued to the playground and noted that the place was completely deserted. After we got out of the car we quickly understood why: It was amazingly cold (at least -8 C) and there was a stiff wind blowing over the playground which is right on top of a little hill. Even with a very decent wrapping of everybody and some running we were not able to stay longer then 20 mins when everybody was glad to get back into the car. We decided it would be a great day to enjoy the jungle book from Walt Disney, which we did.

Ana had meanwhile recovered well and gotten some Zzzzs to help her over the rest of the day. We let the kids watch the movie and minded our own business for a while. Cleaning the kitchen, printing some photographs and reading e-mail.  Jodie came by and left us a pre-cooked dinner — spaghetti with cheese to be just put into the oven — how nice of her. At 12:15 we got everybody ready to drive to MIT medical, where we arrived in time for our appointment with Blake. Blake is in excellent shape, he had turned slightly yellowish, as babies usually do in the first days, but otherwise everything was fine. The little murmuring heart noise the pediatrician heart on the first visit was also gone, as expected.

For lunch we went to Chipotle which has recently taken over the first spot in kid preferences over McDonald. The lunch was great, with the usual complications of who wants what 🙂

Afterwards we went home, Mum got a good rest, the kids played Didj, Leapster and dressed the dolls. A relaxed afternoon everybody minding their own business without much interference of conflicts. I have to say, having your own house, which has lots of room for minding ones own business is fantastic and keeps family peace. In the course of the afternoon I finished a large fraction of the photo album for my parents and I made some nice photos like the one below of our FOUR kids.

Here is the short description of our little quartet.

This morning my alarm watch went off at 7:38 and I got up between Markus and Ivan which had cuddled with me a good fraction of the night. We had the cleaning crew come in this morning at 8 and after setting them up and getting the kids dressed, Mum and I put them into the car and went out to Jam’n Java to enjoy a royal breakfast. It was awesome: great orange juice, muffins, cinnamon swirls and croissants.

As we were planning to pick up Ana and Blake around 11:00-12:30 we needed to ‘do some time’. I took Mum and the kids to MIT. We got out of the car and at a -7 C with gusty winds we were very glad to get onto the infinite corridor inside the main building. The kids enjoyed the big white board for some serious drawings while Mum and I got a great espresso out of our machine at the office. Finally we walked back through the gusty winds to the car and made our way to the hospital. Ana was already ready for about an hour (since 10:00) and was not very happy with my choice of clothes for Blake, as I did not have any serious jacket for our new family member. Anyway, he got into the warm car through the 30m walk in the cold just fine.

Each of the kids brought a little present for Blake and they were all very excited to see finally see him in person. They had seen him on my video and the photos from the delivery, and they really loved him. They all received a little present from Blake when we arrived home an were very very happy. So, this time it looks like we have succeeded in setting up the family extension properly. As a small reminder, that did not come over well at all with Markus when Gisele was born.

We prepared our bed room to make sure that Ana can smoothly deal with Blake. I also cleaned up my act in our bedroom and the office, just for the hack of it, I guess. So, we are now all home, Ana feels great and everybody had a great rest of the day. A little siesta, a late little afternoon coffee and some good conversations.

I am a proud father again: Blake Unai Lothar is born. Mom and baby are in terrific shape. See for yourself at http://cpausmit.dyndns.org/~paus/baby/blake/blake-unai-lothar.html

Allright, I think I send all the e-mails and of course I must have forgotten a bunch of people but I think I will leave it at that…. but I am not yet really tired. Here is a little movie I made of Blake.

Well, it is the first movie I upload, so please take it easy with your comments that it does not work 🙂

After the first excitement over Blake was over Ana felt nausea and had to through up a number of times. It got worse when she wanted to go to the bathroom. While the nurse was taking good care of her I went to the nursery with our little sweety and got him a sugar blood test, a vitamin K shot and a hepatitis shot. He took them rather calmly, only short crying and back to sleep.
We also took his measures and he came out to have the same size as the other three (21 inches = 54 cm). His head circumference was 37.5 cm.
The eye lotion opened his little eyes and well of course you cannot really tell but he seems to be dark eyed as all the rest. The nurse told me that he really cleaned up well and I agree after the vernex was gone from his body and his hair he really looked fresh and jolly.

I wheeled him back to mummy in the delivery room where Ana tried to recover. She threw up some more and got some more medicine which seemed to do the job. After about 3/4 of an hour, at 22:30, I had to go back to do the second blood sugar test which came out great.
I wheeled the little one over into room 518 and waited for the arrival of his mom. Of course I was getting the Web pages setup meanwhile. When Ana came she was a bit better but it was clear she really needed some rest. I packed my stuff, got Blake to the nursery and left to go home and send e-mails and write blogs…. of course sucking on a obligatory cigar and rounding it off with a little whiskey.

Wowwww!!!! A bit before 19:40 the dilation was complete, the cervix all gone and after two pushes, the little Blake was out and that was at 19:41. Very smooth! He was covered in the whitish-yellowish stuff (vernex) more than any of the other three, and that after over 41 weeks. He is 4.062 kg which corresponds to 8lb 15.2oz. We did not measure him but he was quite a tall kid. I remember that he is more like Ivan, than Markus, a more lean physique.

A real charmer. He had his eyes all closed for quite a while. He docked on mums breast at around 20:05 and  calmed down rather quickly. He is a gorgeous little kid, slightly curly dark hair and big hands and feet.

Mum has done great, no stitches needed all healthy looking. Doctor Wassermann commented: ‘This is my normal smooth delivery today.’ All the others (3) were kind of complicated as he explained to us. Anita our nurse did a great job (she has been on the job for 40 years). It was a lot of fun to work with her.

All right, we are over 8cm now and the room is being prepared. I called Grosi and told her how it is going (great) and that I might be home by around 22:00. The doctor is now in the room, the nurse does not leave anymore either. We are ready for the delivery. The pushing up is going to come up…. Gotta close now 🙂

I left the hospital to pick up my mother from the airport at 14:40. It turned out that the airplane pretty much landed around that time. I arrived at the airport’s arrival pickup at 15:10, but it took until 15:45 until my mom came out. She was in pretty good shape and very happy to see me, of course.

We quickly went back to the car, I briefed her on the way for what was going on at home. Manuela can stay a little longer to make sure she is all comfortable. We had a great quick ride and were there by 16:05. I quickly paid Manuela and made mum a coffee, showed her the minimum things to not get lost and off I went to the hospital. I was worried to be too late I had said I would be back by 16:15-30. Due to the light Sunday traffic I was actually back almost precisely at 16:30. They were just doing the epidural and I could not enter right away, but well nothing really had happened. Excellent!

Now, Ana is already at 7cm and she got some Petosin to make the contractions more regular and stronger. She is feeling fine. We ordered dinner at 17:40  and are now watching some TV to relax.

Everything is on track and they tell us by 20:00 the baby should be there. That would be perfect!

Finally we decided that I can go to pick up ‘Grosi’. The flight is scheduled to arrive for 14:45, I will leave in a few minutes and bring her to our house. Ana has few but strong contractions. Also asking the nurse it seems ok if I leave and get back within the next one and a half hour. Leaving now….

We have just changed into the delivery room. It is a nice big room, where Ana and I are quite comfortable. We will get something to eat in half an hour or so, all included in our health insurance. At this point Ana is dilated to 5cm but the contractions have gotten less.

We are pretty convinced that the baby has decided to show up when ‘Grosi’ arrives at the airport. We are trying to find Steve Nahn to pick her up… We found his son Adam at home but Jen and Steve were supposed to show up pretty soon. We will call again a little later.