May 2009 Archives

Graham sure is a popular little guy. He has had a number of visits already. I just wanted to share a few photos of all the people who have had the opportunity to meet him.

Every now and then something happens that reminds me what a great group of friends and what a wonderful family Danika and I have the good fortune to be part of. The amount of support we have received with Graham's birth and Danika's pregnancy has been overwhelming. Danika's family, especially her mom and sisters, have been over every day since Graham's birth to help out in just about any way we ask. Adria, Danika's older sister, threw one of the baby showers. One of gifts she set up was to organize meals for us since the birth. We had a number of people who wanted to help out by bringing us meals (and one of their rewards is getting to meet Graham ;) ). Adria set up a calendar and has organized visits from all of the volunteers. A few days after Graham was born our fridge (and freezer) was so full I had to get a photo of it.

Everyone has been so generous and supportive. Again I will state, I feel extremely fortunate to be part of such a great group of people, thanks.

So far life with Graham has been good. There have been a few nights where I wish we could have gotten a bit more sleep, but when you see his little face, you forget about all those things. One thing I have had to reassess is how to manage my time effectively. Before he as born, it seemed like I had very little free time, but looking back now, I realize just how much I had, I just filled it all with lots of tasks. It was pretty easy to find an hour here or there to get a task completed.

Since Graham was born I have been wanting to spend as much time as I can with the little guy. There are still tasks that I need to take care of, paying the bills, laundry, yard work, etc, so I have been finding myself doing many of them 5-10 minutes at a time. Most are 30-60 minute tasks, but now it is much more difficult to find that big of a chunk of time. His schedule is still pretty unpredictable. Usually I wait until he starts feeding, I make sure Danika has everything she needs and then I pull myself away (just watching him with his mom is hard to pull away from) and go try to get some work done. I am sure as he gets older and on a bit more regular a schedule it will be easier to plan around him, but for now I am just accepting the change and enjoying all the time I can spending it with him and Danika.

Today was fairly uneventful. We got up and I made Danika some pancakes. I got to go out on my walk and when I got back we put the stroller together. Danika did a bunch of research and we ended up with a BOB. It seems a bit excessive to me, but then again a lot of this baby stuff does. I have to say it is a pretty nice stroller. We had a chance to take it for a test drive tonight, but Graham had a bit of a melt down about a block into the walk, so headed back to the house. Well, my son is crying and I should get some rest... so that's it for tonight.

I did not get a chance to post yesterday, so I have some things to post about yesterday as well as today's activities. Yesterday Graham decided to poop on me while I was changing his diaper, once I had that all cleaned up (he did it twice), he proceeded to pee on me. All I can say is that I am just grateful none of it was projectile :) Danika remains unscathed, so I guess we know who his favorite is.

Later in the day he and Dax were finally "formally" introduce. Graham was in his car seat (getting ready to go shopping for new clothes, more on that later) so we put him on the floor and Dax finally had a chance to give him a few licks. They get along very well, no crying from Graham and Dax is not exhibiting any signs of feeling displaced (or unbridled aggression, see this link).

Graham decided to start eating, so they let us leave the hospital last night. We all got home around 11pm. It was another long day, but was good. We are trying to figure out all our sleeping schedules and Danika and I have been able to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep a day so far. Her family has been really great in helping us out -- her mom especially who has volunteered to stay with us and just help out as needed. I got to run some errands today and didn't have to worry at all about leaving Danika and Graham home alone. Well, I need to go to bed now if there is going to be any chance at all of me getting 7-8 hours of sleep. More tomorrow if I can, and perhaps a few more photos.

Wow, what an incredible couple of days. I followed Danika to bed after my last post. She seemed to be resting well, and for the first half hour or so was, but soon after that her contractions picked up. About a half hour later (around 1am) her water broke. We called Tina and the doctor and then started getting ready to go to the hospital. We got to the hospital around 2am.

Danika's labor was progressing really well up until I passed out around 6:30am. Yep, that's right, I passed out. I was standing behind Danika (who was sitting on a birthing ball) supporting her when I felt light headed and a bit nauseous. I started to ask her to move so I could get out from behind her and the next thing I know I was laying on the floor with the nurse asking if I was okay. They asked me to stay still and told me that someone was coming up from the ER with a gurney. They had me drink some juice and after someone checked me over, I asked if I could sit up. I sat up and eventually was allowed to stand up.

Once they people from the ER showed up they put a neck collar on me and strapped me to a backboard. So, at that point I was standing up strapped to a backboard with a neck collar... and then I felt nauseous and puked. They wheeled me down to the ER and started doing some tests. The whole time all I could think was that I was going to miss the birth and that I was letting Danika down by not being able to be there. The ER people knew that I had come down from the birthing center, so they were extremely nice and put me to the front of the line. I eventually got a saline IV and some anti-nausea meds. My tests all came back negative for anything heart related and in the end they figured I was just lacking sleep and food and that mixed with the excitement caused me to pass out. I finally took me back to Danika (in a wheel chair) around 8:30am and we tried to get her contractions going again.

We kept going and going. Danika did such a great job and I was reminded what a strong woman she is and how determined woman she can be. About 24 hours after it all started we were finally blessed with a beautiful baby boy!

We finally figured out his name, Ingraham (Graham) Smythe Litke (Ingraham is Danika's grandmother's maiden name, Smythe is my mom's maiden name). When he was born he weighed 7 lb 14 oz and was 20½ in long.

We are all doing great and can't wait to get back home.

Well, we had another appointment today and everything went well.  After leaving the doctor's office Danika started having a lot of contractions.  They were pretty close together and lasting fairly long.  I went to pick up dinner, we ate and then went for a walk.  Things seemed to be progressing, but we never got to the point where we felt we should call the doctor.  We called Tina (our doula) and asked her to come over for a while to help us assess our options.  In the end we decided to try to get some rest and start again in the morning.  So, that's it for tonight, and I suspect I get to meet our baby tomorrow.  Have a good night...

We thought the baby was coming yesterday.  Danika had a restless night of sleeping, her contractions started waking her up and continued through the morning.  She stayed home from work (which ended up being a very good idea).  I went into work and around 1pm she called to let me know that her contractions were about 20 minutes apart and progressing.  I called her back a bit later to reassess and the seemed to be continuing to progress, so left work and headed home.  By the time I got home they were getting further apart again and eventually it seemed like the baby was going to wait a bit longer.  We got a few more things on the list done and went to bed.

I talked with her this morning and we decided I should go to work.  We have doctor's appointment this afternoon, so I will meet her there.  We'll see where she is at and what the doctor has to say.

... so, we are definitely getting closer, but it looks like we need to remain patient and continue to wait a bit longer.  We both think it is going happen before the end of the long weekend.

Originally I wanted to set this blog up a while ago and keep track of some of the things we were doing to get ready for the baby. Since that did not happen, my new plan was to create a number of entries and back date them based on the photos I have taken of the various projects/tasks, but I have not had time to make that happen either, so instead, I am just going to make this one post with some dates and photos.