Let’s try this again…

I have been absent from updating my blog for quite some time…a year and a half to be exact. Since my last post, I got a job in sales management, I have become a lot more involved in my church, and I still watch Lilah on my days off, amongst other things. Though I never was able to fulfill my Resolution in the allotted time, I still write whenever I can and have completed a first draft of my short story I was working on a while back.

I can also say that there is a collaborative ‘project’ that just started up a few months ago that I will be ‘working on’ (cue the Dr. Evil air quotes) indefinitely. Perhaps this video will better explain it:

This is a Halloween video I made to get in the spirit of my favorite holiday. I also wanted to show off my (almost two and a half year old) daughter’s Halloween costume, which I also made.

For the record, she liked the makeup and patiently waited the six or seven minutes it took for me to put on her. Throughout the process, I talked her through everything, and even paused a few times to take pictures on my phone to show her. She was fascinated.

I also taught her how to walk like a zombie beforehand, but I guess she got camera shy. She was so captivated by the makeup on the backs of her hands, she could not stop looking at them. This is what she is doing in the video, but it’s the best shot I got.

My wife and I took her to a ‘Halloween Carnival’ on the 29th, where she won third prize in a costume contest. Her prize: a cupcake. Most of the people there, especially the kids, loved her costume. There were a few parents however, that gave us looks…but I couldn’t care less.

My wife and I figure that this will probably be the last year we’ll be able to dress her as we like. Our hope is that she will grow to like Halloween as much as we both do and that she’ll be extremely creative with her future costume ideas. And if she’s not, that’s fine too. Right now, I just enjoy holding her hand along the way.

Be safe out there tonight!

“This is the way the world ends; not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.” – Amanda Hocking, Hollowland

A New Chapter: The Birth of Lilah (Part 2)

Not knowing how things were going to play out with my wife’s labor, I felt a rush of emotions. I felt excited that our daughter was going to be born shortly, worried that the birth plan was falling apart, awful for Charlotte because things were not going as she had hoped (also because she was in pain) and extremely grateful that my mother in law was present. I forgot to add too that Charlotte was given pitocin, the night before she had her water broken, in order to intensify her contractions. She was given the least amount possible at the start of the pitocin drip and by the time her water was broken the next morning, the dosage was maxed out.

Once Charlotte’s water was broken, at around 10AM, the contractions started to get much stronger and closer together. At around 1PM, 24 hours after arriving at the hospital, the pain became too much to bear and Charlotte wisely opted for and received an epidural. Right after receiving the epidural, a staff member came in and joked with us saying that she could accurately guess the time of birth just by looking at the mother. I challenged her and she thought for a second, saying that our baby would be born at 6:21PM. Charlotte and I chuckled about it and wondered how close she would come to the actual time.

A little while after she received the epidural, Charlotte started shivering uncontrollably. This worried us, but the doctors assured us that this was typical. Extra blankets were brought in to keep her warm and though her contractions were getting even stronger, Charlotte took a nap. This is when I left to get some lunch for myself and a much needed caffeine fix. I also went out to our car to get some last minute things.

When heading back into the hospital from the car, I remembered thinking that the next time I left the hospital that it would be with our daughter. I could not believe it took this long to finally hit me. Once I got to the lobby, I phoned my parents to give them an update of the days events. In the middle of this I received a missed call or two, as well as a text message, from Charlotte’s step dad. It was time for Charlotte to start pushing. I rushed upstairs to be with my wife.

Originally, Charlotte and I agreed that I would stand up by her head so I could hold her hand and give her words of encouragement. In the moment though, I stood by her side and held Charlotte’s left leg as she pushed. Her mother held her other leg on the other side of the bed. It was one of the best experiences of my life, as I watched the first sight of Lilah – a long curly tuft of hair, then her little swollen face and misshaped head. Her shoulders came out and then the rest quickly after. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice and once around her body, but the doctor was not worried because she had been monitoring the baby’s stats throughout the delivery. I cut the cord when I was instructed and the doctor handed me my daughter, still slippery and squirming. I was afraid I was going to drop her but I managed to pass her off to her mother.

From the time Charlotte started pushing to the time Lilah was born, was only around 45 minutes. Lilah Arsenault was born on Tuesday May 8th, 2012. She weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and measured 19 inches long. She was born at 6:31PM, exactly 10 minutes after the prediction (pretty impressive). I was the happiest I could ever remember being, watching my wife hold our newborn daughter.

Needless to say, there were plenty of photo ops in the hospital room and afterwards.

A New Chapter: The Birth of Lilah (Part 1)

On Sunday May 6, my wife complained of some strong contractions and we headed down to Emory University Hospital Midtown. Though our baby’s due date was May 23rd, my wife was already dilated three centimeters. The doctor had her walk around the maternity wing for an hour to see if that would get things going. It didn’t and we were cleared to go home. We left the hospital after being told that it should only be a few days before our baby would make her way into this world. We were excited, to say the least.

That Sunday night we walked all over our neighborhood, right up until a thunderstorm popped up and we had to head back to the cover of the house. On Monday morning, May 7, my wife advised me that again she was having strong contractions that were even closer together. I showered, we grabbed our already packed suitcase and headed back down to the hospital. At this point, I was figuring that this trip was going to be like the one the day before and we wouldd be back home in a matter of hours – maybe because the trip down to the hospital was nothing like the ones portrayed on television. I always pictured myself flying down the highway at breakneck speeds while Charlotte screams uncontrollably in pain with a sense of urgency that the baby will be arriving literally at any moment. Our trip, was the opposite of that.

(Since the dry erase board in the room was missing a goal, I decided to add one.)

We (Charlotte, her mom and I) arrived at the hospital around 1PM and for the second time in as many days. Frustratingly enough, we find out that Charlotte is still sitting at “three to three and a half centimeters.” This time however, there would be no going home after only a few short hours. Charlotte’s extremely high blood pressure would keep us at the hospital (legally, they could not let her leave.) At this point, I was thinking that her blood pressure would return to a safe level and we would be returning home…still pregnant as ever. So we stayed at the hospital overnight, both of us not getting much sleep. I slept a few hours on the couch, while Charlotte’s mom retreated to the waiting room to snooze for a bit.

(Charlotte, with her Mom anxiously staring at the clock.)

The next morning, the doctor came in to check on my wife only to find out that labor was still not progressing the way it should have been. Charlotte’s blood pressure was still high and she was barely dilated any more than she was the day before. This news was given to us around 6AM, and this is also when the doctor blurted out that dreaded ‘C’ word. I immediately felt saddened and helpless, since my wife had a specific birth plan and it seemed to be going quickly out the window. All I wanted was the experience to be perfect for her, or at least as close to perfect as it could have been. Charlotte wanted a natural birth – no pain medication and to deliver vaginally. A c-section would eliminate both of those options from the plan (obviously) and there was nothing either one of us could do about it.

(The dress we wanted to bring Lilah home in, served as a focal point for Charlotte during labor.)

At around 10AM when things still were not progressing (about 4cm dilated), the decision was made to break Charlotte’s water in order to facilitate the birthing process. This meant that the baby had to be pushed out fairly soon so not to risk infection, or a c-section would have to be performed. At this point we (I) started to really worry…

TO BE CONTINUED