Ewan James Strider Humphries was born on 5:44am on April, 20^th 2009. It was good timing because my parents were already in town to attend a grandparents’ day at Will’s school on that very day. Around 11:30pm Sunday night, Malin started to have contractions, and we headed to the hospital.

It was an even shorter labor than with Will – which is typical from what I understand (meaning that labor for second child is typically shorter than first).

I suppose it was lucky that it passed quickly because Malin had the horrible misfortune of getting a complete a-hole anesthesiologist. He was not very personable. He was short with us and mildly derisive, too. Malin had just been given Stadol (a pain-killer that doped her up solid) and was irritated that she was having trouble sitting straight up (which was due to the aforementioned medication). Then he f’ed up the epidural. After it was obvious that the epidural was ineffective (several hours with noticable lack of pain relief), he then insisted that the epidural catheter was properly placed (which it wasn’t) and decided not to re-do it. Several nurses and the nurse anesthetist were witness to it and said they would put in a complaint. Prior to being discharged from the hospital, Malin retold the story to the midwife, who was sure to get the doctor’s name to put in another complaint. (He may not have a job at the hospital for long…)

What followed was a heroic endurance of labor pain on Malin’s part. At 5:44am, the doctor showed up just in time to catch the baby as he was finally ejected from the womb. Ewan was free at last.

Mercifully, Malin’s medication-less labor was at its end – the product of which was a healthy-sized 9 lb. 3.2 oz. baby boy that measured 21.5 inches long.

The nurses cleaned him up and gave him the usual quick inspection:

And then they handed him to mom and dad:

The nurses took Ewan up to the nursery to give him a bath. Shortly after that, he started to breath faster than newborns usually do. After a few hours, his respiration appeared to slow to normal and his oxygen-saturation was okay, so the nurses decided he could finally leave the nursery and come to our room in the hospital.

While Grandma and Grandpa Humphries were hanging out with Will at grandparent’s day, Ewan’s other grandmother, Annie, came over for a visit:

And shortly after that, the other grandparents made it over:

Ann returned with Will in tow, and he seemed to take to his new little brother pretty well:

Will, hamming it up as usual:

Will was a little bit sheepish at first, as he often is. When Ewan cried for the first time, Will got scared, covered his ears, and ran for the door to get away!

After everyone left, Malin, Ewan, and I tried to take a nap. During this time, we noticed Ewan’s breathing seemed to be labored. He was breathing very quickly and heavily, and his nostrils were flaring. We called the nurse, who took him to the nursery to examine him.

Unfortunately, he was then sent to the NICU because his oxygen saturation was lower than they like to see. All sorts of scary possibilities were presented; but, even early on, the doctor thought it was probably bad reflux: stomach acid made it far enough up Ewan’s esophagus to get into his lungs and cause the distressed respiration.

We had been through the NICU experience before with Will. This time was a little easier because the symptoms were not nearly as severe as Will’s extremely low platelet count. Nevertheless, it was not easy to have to visit the NICU in order to see the new boy and to see him hooked up to to so much (machines that monitored his breathing, pulse, and oxygen saturation; oxygen supplied to his nostrils; and an IV drip to provide him fluids).

Luckily, some of the scarier sounding possibilities (like cardiac/heart condition and pneumonia) were slowly stricken from the list as results from tests rolled in. Ewan’s breathing was quite intense and difficult during his first night as he recovered from his earlier breathing troubles. He also got a little bit of congestion in his nose and sinuses, which doesn’t help at all since newborn’s only know how to breath through their nose (except when they are crying).

After that, he seemed to recover quickly. The nurses and the doctor continued to see signs of severe reflux though. The NICU doctor is great – very thorough and extremely protective of all of the babies that end up in his care. But apparently Malin and I seemed like a responsible couple, so he made a deal with us: we follow all of his instructions to the letter, and he would let Ewan go home. We finally left the hospital with Ewan on Wednesday, 4/22.

We have been struggling to follow the doctor’s orders because they require putting Ewan on a strict feeding schedule that is timed compatibly with his medication times. We are still figuring it out. Ewan occasionally appears to have reflux symptoms – wincing and swallowing an hour or so after feeding – but there have been no severe episodes, and hopefully there will be none. His medicines, Reglan and Zantac, seem to be helping.

So we’re finally all at home, and there is a great measure of comfort for all of us in that. Thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes during these past few days. We will no doubt be getting even more pictures of the little guy and will post them here soon!

The 11^th, one day before his due date, was when Willem decided to show up. He is continuing his papa’s tradition of being born on one of his grandparents’ birthdays – January 11^th is my dad’s birthday, and I was born on my mother’s mother’s birthday. It was quite a drama. Unfortunately, my prose is not dramatic, so please bear with me as I recount the tale:

At 5:00am Tuesday morning, Malin woke me up, doubled over in pain with a piece of toilet paper in her hand, crying, “Does this smell like pee?”

Apparently her water had broken, but she wanted me to verify that she hadn’t just urinated on herself. Sure enough, it did not smell like pee. As I got up and got dressed she called the midwife on call at the hospital. They told us to come on in.

Her contractions were pretty strong – much stronger than the faux labor she had experienced before. And they were regularly 3 to 4 minutes apart and about 45 seconds in duration. When we arrived at the hospital, the midwife wasn’t in a hurry to see us because she had only been laboring for about 40 minutes; and first-time mothers typically labor for 12 to 16 hours. The nurse in triage suggested she walk around a little. One lap around the bottom floor (the Labor and Delivery section), and Malin was in too much pain to try another. We went back to triage, and the nurse called the midwife down. The nurse did a litmus-test on the pad Malin was wearing to see if her water had really broken. The test showed negative, but the midwife showed up to examine her shortly thereafter. The cervical exam had the midwife spooked, saying “Wow, you’re dilated to seven centimeters.”

There was a rapid blur of people moving around as she was hurried to a labor and delivery room. While the nurses were preparing the room, one of them opened up an armoire and pulled out a bassinet with a warming lamp. During our previous tour of the facilities (which we did in our birthing classes), they had said that when you see them pulling out the bassinet, you were getting close. Malin brought this to the nurse’s attention, and the nurse mistakenly tried to reassure Malin, “Oh he’s close alright”. At this point Malin was really freaking out. She was terrified that the pain-killing drugs wouldn’t arrive before the baby did. We made several frantic requests for the anesthesiologist, and a nurse informed us, “He’s currently in the OR – one of the other mother’s this morning had to have an emergency C-section.” All the while, they had to take blood and give Malin an IV – something she was madly afraid of, but made it through without too much trouble thanks to her desire to do whatever it took to get the epidural as quickly as possible.

The 7 cm exam occurred at about 7:00am. We didn’t see the same midwife much after that because they changed shifts at 8. The new midwife on duty visited with us, and she was very friendly (we had seen her a couple of times before during the OB office visits). The epidural finally showed up around 10:00am, and Malin was very, very thankful. Once the real pain-killer was running through her veins almost all anxiety left her. The midwife didn’t bother doing any other cervical exams. She seemed confident that Malin was likely already fully dilated. “Let me know when you full a lot of pressure and need to push.”

That happened just before 1:00pm. At about 1:00 the pushing began. At 2:40 the pushing ended. Little Willy had finally escaped his mother’s wicked embrace! (just kidding). At that point, we were told he looked healthy, and we took some pictures. The grandmothers were in the lobby waiting, and they came in to see the new baby boy and get pictures.

And that was the calm part of the day. The real drama began shortly thereafter. A nurse informed us, as they moved the new mother upstairs to the after-delivery rooms, that Will had to stay a bit in the Special Care Nursery (aka the NICU). That really had us worried, and at that time Malin asked everyone to leave – everyone being her mother and mine. I was allowed to stay. She was understandably upset – she’d had a long and eventful day, and was not allowed to see our newborn baby.

A little later the doctor in the NICU spoke to us. This worried Malin further because he spoke with a very strong Puerto Rican accent that she couldn’t understand – she heard only “Doom! Disaster! Terrible Things for you baby!” and was crying considerably in fear. Luckily that is not what he said. He explained, albeit less effectively than perhaps an English-as-first-language doctor may have, that Will had some symptoms that would keep him in the NICU at least overnight:

1. His breathing was very rapid – 100 to 120 breaths per minute. This is actually common. It is only a problem when it comes to feeding the baby. If he is breathing too quickly, he may have trouble swallowing without choking. They had done a chest X-ray and found that the cause of the rapid breathing was extra fluid in his chest cavity that creating pressure on his lungs. Again, it is not uncommon, but until it resolved itself, Will was to be tube-fed (as you can see in some of the first photos).
2. The bigger problem was that Will’s blood was not clotting properly. They noticed this because he had petechiae on his chest and back. Petechiae are little red spots on the skin where capillaries under the skin have broken. It is common for newborns to have petechiae on their heads, but its presense on the chest and back indicated a potential problem. The results of a blood test showed that his platelet count was incredibly low. A typical platelet count is around 150 (I don’t know the units – perhaps 1000s of particles per ml?). Willem’s was 32. Because of this, we could not even hold Willem. The doctor said that with a platelet count that low, any contact could result in bruising or spontaneous bleeding.

You can imagine that this last bit of news was very depressing. Not being able to hold him meant a very long, sleepless night for us. The doctor didn’t think it was that serious and that it would probably clear up on its own. But until more test results came in, they didn’t know for sure the cause of the problem, and thus the extent of how bad it would be. They call this condition Thrombocytopenia. They said there were four causes for it (in order of most likely to least likely):

1. Bacterial infection: They were doing bacteria cultures to determine if this was the cause, but those would take 48 hours before results were available.
2. Iso-Immunothrombocytopenia: This would be an incompatibility between mother’s blood and baby’s blood. Even though their blood doesn’t mix, some antigens and antibodies do pass from mother to baby through the placenta. This incompatibility causes mother’s antibodies to attack platelets and other cells in baby’s bloodstream. Even though both Will and Malin are type O-neg, there are hundreds of other factors that go into one’s blood type (O/A/B/AB and RH-neg/pos happen to be the two biggest factors).
3. Viral infection: The doctor said this was very unlikely because Will showed no others signs of the virus that causes this symptom.
4. Problem with Will’s bone marrow: The doctor mentioned this possibility though he felt it was remote. It would also be the worst case since it could indicate lifelong problems (like hemophilia).

Willem was being given an IV drip of antibiotics (in case the cause was bacteria) and immunoglobulins. This latter item consists of man-made blood particles that any of Malin’s antibodies still in Will’s blood could attack instead of attacking his platelets – in case the cause was the second item above.

01/12/05
Luckily, there was good news the next morning. His platelet count had jumped to 57. That meant that whatever the cause (most likely number 1 or 2 above), it was clearing up and that he would be able to go home soon. It also meant that we could hold him. My dad had flown into town the night of the baby’s birth (also his own birthday) and was able to visit the new guy the next morning.

01/13/05
Unfortunately, the day after that was the last day that Malin could stay in the hospital since she was fine. And Will’s platelet count barely went up – it was 60 on Thursday morning. We visited him frequently and so did his grandparents. But we did eventually have to leave. Another long, sleepless night…

01/14/05
The next day we drove back to the hospital and visited with him much of the day. His platelet count had risen to 80. This was good news and the doctor would have even considered letting him go home, but he wanted to first give Will one more dose of immunoglobulins. But the good news was we were taking our boy home the next morning (Saturday the 15th).

01/15/05
Little Willem was finally released from the hospital and came home with us. And we lived happily ever after…

So you are probably wondering where we have been. Yeah I would like to know that, too. We have finished off our basement, put the finishing touches on my work projects, and closed shop for now. We’ve even finished Willem’s room. Yay, us! We also sludged through the holidays.

Willem’s been keeping us on the move, though. Dec 22: 1 cm dilated, 50% effaced. Dec 29: 2 or 3 cm dilated, 70% effaced. Jan 1, 2:00am: Contractions 1 min long and 2 min apart for 2 1/2 hours – go to hospital only for contractions to cease and have to go home at 5 in the morning. What a great way to start off the new year. We have an appointment tomorrow morning with the midwife, so I guess we will just have to wait some more.

This is the room, mostly done. I have a few other things I would like to do but may not get to!!

Josh had been home for almost two weeks for the holidays but is now back to work until the baby comes. I really don’t care for being alone all the time or really just without him during this time. I never expected for these final few days to be so difficult. I am used to having a lot to do but since mostly everything is done, I am left with just TV… Which has anyone seen daytime TV lately? WOW! Humanity is, like, on the brink!

Okay, so I am adding on to this post the day after it was published: so shoot me!

We went to the midwife this morning, and everything went well. They are shocked I am still walking around at 2 or 3 cm for this long. We got an ultrasound because I am measuring small, but that is due to the fact that I am tall. I know, I know – you probably had not noticed. Anyway, he is 7 lbs. 6 oz. and ready to come out, so we will just wait some more. The midwife has her money on tonight, but we will see.

This is the father, for those of you who have never met him. We really hope Will gets daddy’s horns.

Me again, getting bigger. I over estimated how much candy we would need for halloween - now we have so much left over. Darn!

Well, I am really looking forward to seeing those of you who can make it to the shower – you can see the belly move in person! I have been working on the nursery and hope to have it done by the time Will is 3. It has been a busy few weeks but no real doctor visits. We are managing the blood clot and switching meds soon, so I can have an epidural at delivery. Yes, that is another needle. We have been trying to get as much home improvement done as we can, which includes getting the basement finished off. This is what I have been doing instead of updating – they are down there now banging around. Next we are going to paint a couple of rooms and I think we will be done for now. I am going to go eat something.

• Dr. Yeagly – Paranatolagist. Great doctor, bad office – it’s decorated like a state farm. The baby is good, the fluid around the baby is good. There is a little extra fluid in the kidneys but nothing to really worry about. We will go back at 34 weeks to do another ultrasound and to switch prescriptions from lovenox to the heparin. It’s still two shots a day, but this is the only way I can get my epidural. And we all know I am a weenie and need all the pain relief legally allowed.
• Dr. Bonser – Ob-Gyn. Moved to new office, and it’s quite spiffy. I am measuring on schedule, weighing on schedule, and the baby’s heart rate is perfect 140’s. I had the glucose testing done and another rogham shot in my butt (and that is no small needle either).
• Dr. Levy – Vascular Surgeon. Appointment is next week – I will let you know.

Dr. Yeagly gave us this pic last friday. It’s the profile of Willem’s face. Some think he looks like me, others think Josh. I guess we will just have to wait and see.