Okay, I organized the photos a bit, and threw them up. Enjoy!
Well, it’s been an exciting 7 plus days since the birth of Tomi. We’ve finally gotten a fairly decent schedule down, with me, Amani and my mom taking shifts (although Amani ends up being up at least every few hours to pump out milk). Tomi’s color is getting better, she’s gaining weight well and it seems every few hours she becomes more and more aware of her environment.
Although I already have a son, I didn’t get to see him until he was 5 months old, so all this is pretty new to me. I was pretty old when my brother Micah was born, so I remember some from that experience, but I’m still surprised at times. First off, breast feeding is not easy. Especailly when the mom has quarter size nipples and the baby has a nickel sized mouth. And I know for sure I’ve never been so estatic about bowel movements and urination – it seems right now to be the only validation that we’re doing anything right with her. She smiles in her sleep sometimes, but hasn’t developed much past the look of open wonder, crying, and some odd eyebrow arching that I think indicates disbelief in the sensations she’s experiencing for the first time.
Of course one of the absolutely hardest parts has been watching my wife slog through sleep deprivation and discomfort from the episiotomy and nipple trauma. It’s gotten better in week 2, but week 1 was a real bitch. It looks like she’s finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun just sitting with her looking at our daughter together.
Here’s looking forward to week 3…
Tomi Hokumalu Krischel
girl
7lbs. 3oz.
19″
Born 9/20/2005 7:39am
Pictures to be posted soon.
Okay, quick update…we’re just about completely done moving into the new place (I have a few trophies and a mirror to put up, and gotta move boxes of clothes to the garage). We’re celebrating with a BBQ this monday, for which I purchased a relatively inexpensive gas grill. Welcome to suburbia.
There are two more ultrasound pictures I haven’t scanned in yet, but I’ll get around to those soon…the baby is coming along well, and mommy has been dragging daddy back to the gym.
My brother has offered me a pool table (since he just bought a new house and doesn’t have room for it…despite the fact that the new house is humangous), and I’m hoping to fit it in the garage. I still need to vacuum and carpet the garage (I have left-overs from when the carpeting guys re-did the carpet before we moved in), and if it all works out, we’ll have a pool table, dart board, and working fridge in there. I guess I’ll need to decide if people shoud lomi their shoes before going on the carpet…
Cameron has been doing well in school (it’s almost over), and will be going to 3 weeks of YMCA camp, and 3 weeks of Huntington Explorers camp (www.huntington.org…check it out). His latest thing is Zelda & The Minish Cap on Gameboy Advance (don’t buy him games without consulting first please, we’re using that as motivation for good behavior in school).
Anyway, that’s the 5 minute wrap-up…when I’m feeling like ranting, I’ll write more later.
According to the OB/GYN, it might be a girl…
Believe it or not, it has now been an entire year since I first met my wife in the flesh.
According to the eharmony site, our match was created 3/19/2004. Amani answered my close-ended questions that very day at 5:07pm, and I answered her questions 3/23/2004 at 5:22pm (either that or I sent her questions the very first day, and she didn’t ask me questions until a few days later…the website doesn’t make the chronology clear).
We shared our must haves/can’t stands on 3/24/2004, 9:55pm, and answered eachother’s open-ended questions that very same night. I can’t seem to access the first open communciations we sent back and forth anymore, but needless to say, we had our first date on 4/3/2004 at the huntington gardens, with Jane Goodall in attendance for her birthday celebration. The rest is history.
It’s been by far the best year of my life, although I must admit I’m sure it will pale in comparison to the years ahead with my dearest love. Marriage suits me I suppose, or at least it particularly suits me with Amani
Well, as amazing as it sounds, Amani managed to stop taking anti-nausea medications today. She apparently still feels occasional waves, but it’s no longer the chronic debilitating kind of nausea she experienced for the first few weeks.
Haven’t gotten the video back from James yet, but once we get that I’ll post it too. The little bugger was doing spins and backflips…really cool stuff!
Zofran. 8mg/8 hours. $992/30 pills. $0 copay because we’re double covered by Kaiser Permanente.
Essentially they forced Amani to suffer through a rough night before they gave her the good stuff. The reglan and the suppositories didn’t do enough to keep her from throwing up a single bite of pancake, but this Zofran stuff is gold…and probably worth more per ounce!
Today we ate at the Hill Street Cafe, went shopping at Costco, and then had dinner at the Olive Garden, with only minor reports of the hints of nausea from Amani. Hopefully this will continue to be effective as we reach week 13, which supposedly is the peak for HCG levels which correlate with morning sickness.
Well, it’s finally come to it – suppositories.
We came in for a 11:20am appointment, and by about 1:00pm Amani was admitted to the FCC (Family Care Center) ward. They got her hooked up to an IV with a saline drip, she’s taken 10mg of reglan in pill form, and got one suppository of some other drug. She’s managed to eat a bit of jello, drink some juice, and eat a few crackers.
We watched a couple of episodes of Smallville and Alias, fresh off of bittorrent, but my damn Lois & Clark episodes apparently have some sort of codec I haven’t gotten installed on this box…which is odd, since they work on my desktop, and I pretty much installed the same crap in both places. Go figure.
We’re listening to the Police on amani’s laptop, just chillin’ now.
Cameron is over at Dick and James’ for the night (thanks you two!), and I’ll probably end up missing yoga tomorrow, since checkout is probably going to be right around 12:00.
So who ever would’ve thought you’d have to put something in your ass to keep yourself from throwing up? I mean, who was the first guy to think of it? I guess people have been doing odd things to their bodies since the first time we developed the opposable thumb, but jeez, horse pills in the rectum? Eesh. (As you can tell, I just can’t wait until my first proctological exam…)
Let’s see, in other news I got my performance review today from kaiser, and scored an eye popping 3 out of 5. Apparently this is par for the course for high achievers in the organization, due to a firmly denied yet strictly enforced curve. As a courtesy to the line staff in our organization, the managers “give up” their 4’s to allow them to be awarded to non-management staff. My manager was actually quite cool about it, and I certainly agree that it’s good policy to sacrifice one’s own rating in order to reward the people doing real work, but it still stings a bit. Hopefully upper management will start to realize just what a joke their performance management regime has become, but until then we just grin and bear it. Or we’ll just end up with under-rated over-achieving people leaving…what a wonderful strategy for improving performance and increasing morale, eh?
On the other hand, I can appreciate that fairly judging people across an organization is tough to do…one manager may be more lenient, another more strict…but if the problem is on that level, that’s where it should be addressed, by replacing the managers that don’t have teams that produce results.
Well everyone, Amani is feeling much better now. It seems like the combination of constant Gatorade and 10mg of Reglan every six hours is doing the trick. She’s keeping food down, is generally up and about, and I’ve even gotten her to laugh again.
In other news, Cameron’s momma J (as opposed to momma A) is visiting, and he’s getting spoiled rotten. We just saw the triplets of belleville (trippy movie, pretty cool), and are just starting Chicken Run.
Reglan (metoclopramide hcl) 10mg, and two hours worth of saline solution IV.
With the help of Amani, I’ve endeavored to catch up on popular culture by downloading tv shows and watching them without the commercials. I’m almost done with all nine seasons of Seinfeld, and have managed to keep up with Smallville and Alias this season.
Of course, I’ll slit my wrists before watching Survivor or American Idol.