Sunday, January 31, 2010

Day 11: Captain's Log.

Captain's log, 31/01/2010  23:50, Madd-O Quadrant.

The wonder of Jude's new life has quickly become a sleep-deprived reality :)  I'm so glad that I wrote those first few posts when the amazement of it all was still sharp as he has become a little bundle of joy at 3.00am in the morning. Ruth wakes me up with a beaten look and Jude already in my arms, ready to be settled.  I then employ one or more of my three "baby settling" techniques to ensure we all get a good night's sleep:

a) "The Godfather": this is a tried and true traditional Italian technique that was shown to me by Nonno Giorgio.  It involves the settlee upright on the settler's shoulder.  The settler then twists and bends, creating a calming motion.  The technique has a high difficultly though and incorrect application of the technique can lead to further unsettling.  The technique has been demonstrated to settle a baby within 5 seconds (the current record).
b) "Baby hustler": this technique involes the settler walking a circuit jostling the baby up and down with quick repitions.  The settlee is again in the shoulder position.  This has had much success but does take at least 30 minutes and may require more than one attempt at the final "put down", which results in the technique needed to be re-applied.
c) "Beaten Settler": this techique is by far the easiest on the settler.  The procedure is to simply give the baby to the other spouse.  This has mixed success.

Jude has already become quite the crowd favourite :)  He slept through the entire meet and greet at church but we knew better.  On the way home in the car he woke up and made sure we knew he was hungry.  During the day its not so bad, but at night when you're trying to sleep too, it is a little like torture.

Cry baby!

Sometimes all you can do is try to remind yourself about better times..

better times.

Captain Quirk out.

Friday, January 22, 2010

According to trav...

I have been itching to put fingers to keyboard to tell the humble beginnings of our young Jude while it's all still fresh.  I hope that in future we can look back at each birthday and say "Well, at 4.17 this morning, you were born..." with some level of certainty in what actually transpired leading up to his birth.  Also, people are still saying to me that it was so unfortunate that Ruth had a c-section (cos we wanted natural!), and I was like "what you talkin bout willis?"  Ruth had a totally natural birth!  So, I give you "The First Epistle of Jude According to Trav".

Chapter 1.

1 It all began in the early hours of a summery Tuesday morning in Perth, in the "new West Perth" suburb known as "Maddington" or "The Maddeaux" (pronounced "Maddo").  The date was the 19th January, one day after my bet that Jude would be born (I lost a lot of money on that, Jude..).  It was so hot that night that we were sleeping under the air con on the couch in the living room but it was playing up a bit and turning off in the middle of the night causing Ruth no small discomfort.  I had probably played some fifa 10 or modern warfare 2 for a couple of minutes before bed to sooth me into sweet game filled sleep and I believe we had both fallen asleep around midnight.
2 Jude was, by this stage, overdue by 5 days (14/01/2010 was the expected date) and Ruth was heavily pregnant and getting uncomfortable.  It's a weird feeling when the due date passes because you have this date that you're expecting a baby to be there by... and it's not there... and every day that passes is another day you're wondering why this "expected date" was getting further into the past without a baby - what are we doing wrong!?  Perhaps like when it's your birthday and you're expecting all these presents on the day, but nothing comes!  Then they come days later and were wondering if you had been naughty?  PS mum I still remember the time that you went to josh's school camp in Rotto and noone remembered it was my birthday and I got up, had breaky alone, rode to school and came home without such much as a "happy birthday" on my birthday :)  I forgive you, Josh was your favourite, but it's anyone's game these days and I think I have the upper hand ;)  Where was I, ooh also the family birth centre (FBC) has a policy that they will only take natural births there from 3 weeks before and 2 weeks after the expected date otherwise they send you on to King Edwards so we were desperately trying to make sure it would happen, although there was very little we could do!
3 At around 2.30am on the 19th, a slightly excited but distressed wife woke me up saying it had started!  She had had some contractions and super travio husband mode kicked in and I quickly downloaded a stopwatch app for my phone (making sure it had at least a 4.5 star rating, there were a couple with good stars, but bad comments that I steered clear of obviously) and started timing the contractions using the "lap" function of the stopwatch (ingenious you say?  elementary my dear readers...).  We called up the FBC straight away and got Naomi who told us to just monitor them for a while and see if they were building.  At the start, we were clocking them around 7 minutes apart, then 6, then 5 but they kinda petered out ("Peter, just Peter.." only a select few would have heard my "Peter" rendition of MJs "Beat it" and understand that) so we called up the FBC again and they told Ruth to try to get some rest and see how it goes on the morrow.  We were pretty disappointed because the contractions had gotten to the stage where we could have nearly come in to the FBC, but then had just fizzled.  We took their advice though and tried to get some sleep but it was pretty hard.
4. I remember waking early the next morning excited that it would all be oooon but Ruth was only having sparse contractions, nothing in the 5 minute apart zone, so we were bitterly disappointed.  We had no petrol (well, gas) so I quickly ducked out to the gasso just in case, refilled, picked up some twisties and salt & vinegar chips and some iced teas on request, then grabbed a maccas breakfast for us both and headed back.  I called in sick to work saying I was looking after Ruth, nothing more and stayed with Ruth all day but the contractions were few and far between.  We hadn't told a soul at this stage that Ruth was starting labour as I didn't want to put any pressure on her, having the chinese whispers combined with the fully operational church grapevine (is "chinavine" offensive?  do I have to call it a Grass Tree Vine?) calling us congratulating us on birth of our new baby elephant before we even knew.  And no, it was a regular baby boy if you are confused at this point!  Mum had even used her spidey senses and messaged asking how Ruth was going, but we coyly replied that we were still just waiting.  I get the feeling that there are emotional things that effect childbirth so I was trying to give it the best chance even though we were screaming to tell people it was starting!
5. Night fell on the 19th January and by 8pm, the contractions had started taking hold again.  We were later told this was the real start of her labour.  I helped Ruth get through the early ones by breathing with her and keeping absolutely still (they can smell fear).  She later had a spa bath which kept her relaxed and was quiet enough for me to have a few rounds of 20 minute a side fifa 10 which I never win on professional.  I look back on the early contractions with fondness as it only gets much worse from there :)  They seem like playful tickles by the end of it, but you find the strength to get through it all!  We kept in close contact with the FBC and by 11.30, they told us to come in for a checkup to see how things were going.  I was excited but I thought it probably wasn't the night and was just trying to keep a lid on it just in case we had to go home.  We had prayed that the labour would be quick and that everything would go alright.
6. The drive in to the FBC in Subiaco was really exciting.  I tried not to get too anxious or excited driving, but I was probably doing 10 over most of the way on albany highway and ran a few (safe) red lights although this is totally denyable in a court of law as I am currently under duress and under the age of 18.  I think we dropped off two videos on the way in :)  Fan Boys, terrible 1/2 star and Simedawg Millionaire 4 1/2 stars.  We may have gotten flashed by a speed trap just where that ferris wheel is but it looked more like the flash of a camera trying to capture Jude moments before he was born.  In any case, we're not paying for the photos, thankyou!
7. We were so happy when we reached the FBC to find that Naomi was on shift that night!  She was one of the midwives we had during our first visits and we actually secretly wanted her to deliver the baby.  Don't get  me wrong, everyone at the FBC are great but there are people you just click with and are really comfortable with, and she was one of them.  At this stage it was about 12am on the 20th Jan and Ruth was about 4cm (yes, tall...).  Ruth was comfy in the shower which is where we ended up having our little boy.  So after an 8 hour labour or so, our boy Jude was born at 4.17am.  Naomi was excellent, so calm, helpful, friendly and professional.  She was kind of my strength which is why I can't praise them enough, and I was Ruth's strength.
8. Ruth ended up needing some repairs which made it necessary for us to be moved to King Edwards instead, which is unfortunate, but ended up being a bit of a blessing as Ruth was able to stay for a couple more nights and I was able to get some rest and blogging done ;)  I feel privilidged to have had the opportunity to have Jude for at least 2 afters while Ruth was in theatre, that was very special.

Hope you enjoyed the read and I'll be putting more pictures up when I have them.  I've got a video of us putting Jude into his carseat and taking him home today (well, yesterday) which was really special.  Josh will have something of when we arrived at home with him so stay posted.  Really enjoying this time with our little boy! :)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hey Jude!

On Wednesday 4.17am 20-Jan-2010 my little boy, Jude, was born.  I went through the whole birth close by my wife and am proud of her beyond words.  She amazingly got through the whole thing with nay but warm shower water on her back and my soothing voice wafting in her ears :)  She got through it without any pain relief and when it was all done and dusted and Jude laying against her, she was smiling and crying and saying "ooh that wasn't too bad".  I think it had been raining a little on my face too so to an observer it probably looked like I too was crying (easy mistake).  I'm no Mark L... no, too obvious... I'm no M Lauthier :)  Perhaps the labour I saw that's now etched into my memories was different to her "not too bad" one she was at ;)  Perhaps the "tagging out" WWWF-style and "can I go home now?" was all but a figment of my imagination :)  In any case, she's all well now and we're both so happy.

Labour is one of those things in life that once gone through, you feel like you've been initiated into some elite club, "the real world" perhaps?  Kinda like paying for your first bill with money you've earnt yourself (ok, more painful), spreading your wings for the first time when you get your driving licence (less fast, lots of waiting too though so similar in that respect), getting married (less ceremonies, food and generally a lot more uncomfortable).  I look at women with kids now and think, "you, ma'am, you have gone through so much to bring those children into this world!  They better appreciate it!".  I try not to look at women without kids :)

So, I'm sitting at home alone (well, not quite alone... with our hairy "first-born", who was actually adopted and smells like a dog...) while Ruth has one final night at the hospital and am trying to put in words how I feel, but it's very difficult.  It reminds of the hymn "Because he lives" which simply says it all (and now has a feeling attached to previously meaningless words):

"How sweet to hold a newborn baby
And feel the pride and joy he gives;"

I think all of Jude's uncles and aunties and grandmas and grandads are touched the same way we are and we're looking forward to sharing him with them.. and possibly scoring some free babysitting perhaps two nights a week at least and some movie tickets or at least some vouchers (Auntie Julie (Quirk)) :)  So far only family have visited cos we've been too tired and need time to rest and recover, so please be patient, you'll see him very soon!  Carrie and Ava got lucky and had an appointment at King Edwards right when Ruth was in theatre and I was alone, cold, sleepy, hungry (in survivor mode) and nervously waiting for my wife, so I was very appreciative of the company and the lunch.

I drive away from hospital missing him and just wanting to turn back and be with my family but am happy they're all healthy and happy.  When I drive towards hospital to see them I think someone might be making lasagne in the car, cutting up onions or something?  Either that or my eyes are getting sweaty!  Anyway, suffice it to say that I am just so proud of everyone and could not be happier with the little guy, with Ruth and with how things turned out.  Ruth's recovery has been really quick.

No doubt there's photos on friendface or bookfriend or whatever it's called (Ps Simon might be able to help me out with the name...) ;)  But there's some more on josh's blog http://blog.joshuaquirk.com.au; Hayley's flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/25331735@N00/ and probably anywhere you can find a Carrie ;)  Here's some of Giorgio Maria's Casarotto's photos (famous Italian photographer and grandfather, and alledged perth mafia godfather)!  There'll be no shortage of photos with nearly every relative owning a pro camera and knowing how to wield it :)

[caption id="attachment_111" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jude (one day old)"]Jude (one day old)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_117" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jude punching nonno (Grandad George)"]Jude punching George[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_119" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jude and Aunt 'Ayley (Westssidee)"]Jude and Aunt 'Ayley (Westssidee)[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sweet Jude"]Sweet Jude[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_115" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Jude and Meme (Grandma Janine)"]Jude and Meme (Grandma Janine)[/caption]

We're very very appreciative to Naomi from the Family Birth Centre, and all the other staff there of course and to everyone in King Edwards now too who we're finding are also such caring and helpful people too.  I had a quick visit there after the birth (ie the family birth centre) with Ant & Hayley and Josh & Julie to say thanks and show some photos and just in case any of my companions needed some questions answered... although I think they are still at least 3 months away from revealing anything ;)

That's enough about feelings though, so welcome to the family, Jude.  You're already shaping up to be a really cool little guy, we've already fallen in love with you!  Everyone says you're just gorgeous and you've been a very easy little guy so far!  He's very alert and watchful already :)

I'll try to get some photos on my blog in the next couple of days but I have a feeling I'll be sleep deprived and otherwise busy!  Looking forward to all our friends coming to visit... in the alloted visiting times :) ... will see everyone soon.

I have to finish with a programmer's joke that noone will get and people will think my dad jokes are really lame, but Jude says "Hello World!".

Btw, feel free to call me on 0411 780 222 or @supertravio (for twits?) or supertravio@travio.net to say hello and come visit.  Today (22-Jan) will probably not be a good day, but call anyway and we'll see how we're going.

PS:

Nappy count:

Trav 2
Ruth 0

Bathing Jude counts:

Trav 1
Ruth 0

PPS noone's counting

PPPS I think you're going to have to start pulling your weight, Ruth ;)

PPPPS birth notice will be in today's (22-Jan) "The West" or "West Australian" for those that like to keep those things.  We have a copy of his birthday's "The West" from thoughtful Uncle Josh and Auntie Julie.  Did anyone spot the "Do you know this man..?" on the front cover!?  He's on the back page, seriously try it!!!

PPPPPS I was trying to do this today on the internet at King Edwards just outside the cafe downstairs but the 'L' and '.' keys at least weren't working so it was almost impossible to get to anything and proved too frustrating.
Wednesday 4.17am How sweet to hold a newborn baby
And feel the pride and joy he gives;

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

travio jnr update

With the due date looming (tomorrow) I thought i'd update the status of the baby bets.  Sadly only the following bets are still alive!  Looks like no first name rights to you Dad!

Still good..

Mum 14/1/2010
Trav 18/1/2010
Josh 16/1/2010
Julie 15/1/2010
Rach 16/1/2010
Clancy 16/1/2010
Mark 15/1/2010
Brent 16/1/2010

(Losers :) )

Dad 11/1/2010
Hayley 9/1/2010
Rhys 9/1/2010
Ruth 12/1/2010
Ant 6/1/2010
Ishi 8/1/2010
Trista 12/1/2010
John 10/1/2010