I told you Guiliani wouldn't win the Republican nomination (he withdrew today, in case you're not following stuffs).

I still think there's a fair chance to have Romney and Huckabee run as Pres and VeeP. Though, I think there's a moderately better chance of having a McCain/Huckabee ticket.

She's a double-sneezer, just like her dad :)

A Tale of Three Gookins (and the tails of Cooper and Zoe)

January 18, 2008

So, Renee was having troubles sleeping on Thursday evening. It was her last shift at work and, officially on vacation, she was looking forward to a peaceful evening. She had been having sporadically-intervalled contractions, same as the last couple of weeks. Around 1:30 a.m. (or so) her contractions had gotten stronger and considerably more consistent. Her contractions had had a habit of being within the "call us" category (according the doctor's advice sheet that we received), only to subside within 45 mins, thus leaving us repeatedly short of the hour we needed to drive the hospital. That early morning, however, they never stopped. So at 3:30 a.m. we decided she should call the office and talk with the on-call doctor.

"… and my contractions have been strong enough to wake me up, so my husband and I were wondering if you thought we should come to the hospital."

"You could, or you could wait until the contractions are 3-4 minutes apart."

So much for the vaunted on-call helpline.

"So," Renee says, "he said we could come in now, or wait until they're 4 minutes apart."

"Well," I replies, "if we leave now, we can beat the traffic."

And we were off.

By the time I had taken the dogs out for their morning urination and gathered the requisite goods it was about 4:10. We arrived at the hospital at 4:30. After an hour-plus wait and check-in procedure, they hooked her up to a few different machines and monitored her contractions and the baby's heartbeat for a while. Both were signaling that something was happening. They checked her cervix and estimated her to be at around 1cm and 50% effacement.

"Walk around on this level for an hour or so and we'll check things out again and see where you're at. You can go any where here, just don't leave the floor."

So about 5:30 we started the first of many laps around the maternity ward floor. An hour and 11 contractions later, we met our nurse back at the triage (that's what it was labeled anyway – I know because I read it no fewer than 11 million times this weekend) room. They put her (Renee, not the nurse) back on the machines and it was steady. The walking had upped the intensity of the contractions, so they turned us back out to walk some more. An hour after that we met back. I informed the nurse that the contractions are lasting longer and coming slightly quicker. Now 8:30 a.m., Renee was rehooked to all of the cool-looking line graphs and after a few minutes Dr. Garner (who was the OB/GYN on Renee's last appointment on Monday the 14^th) joined us. He inspected Renee and confirmed she was about 1 cm and 60% effaced.

"Who ever you saw on Monday said they were going to induce you on this coming Tuesday. Since your due date was this last Tuesday, we'll have you walk for another hour and see how you're doing. If you look like you're making any headway we'll go ahead and break your water and get you goin'."

So, full of cautious and guarded hope, we set off on yet another set of laps. Keep in mind that at this point each lap was interrupted by 3-4 contractions, and now they were strong enough to make Renee tear-up (not an easy thing to do). After the hour we met back up with the doctor and Renee's dilation was pronounced as, "one and a wiggle."

Then he broke her water.

And low and behold the fireworks (and phone calls and text messages) began. From 9:30-1:00 was fairly slow going, but she was dilating a centimetre every two hours or so. Between 11:00 and 1:00 she was about 2cm and they hooked up the epidural. After everything was good and numb in went the internal contraction seismometer and a slow drip of some hormone that started with a "p" to get things moving along more quickly. And quickly things moved, by 1:00 she was at 3-4 cm and at 2:00 she was five. By 4:00 she had popped up to 9 cm and hard labor (pushing) started at 5:03pm. At 6:05 Caitlyn Veronica was born. Oh yeah, the calenders in the rooms at Methodist announced January 18th as "Winnie the Pooh Day." Classic Pooh is the theme of the nursery (pictures of which I still need to post).

Well that's the Reader's Digest.

We're all home today (much to the relief of our dogs), and resting. I'm fi'n' to cook up the T-Bone steaks my parents got us for supper as soon as I copy and paste this from Word to Blogger and upload a few more pictures (and yes, she's wearing baby blue in some of the pictures. We don't subscribe to traditional gender roles... also, we don't like the color pink) ;p

Thanks to everyone who served one another with photos and updates. We are both humbled and flattered that everyone was so excited for us.

Love,

Caitlyn, Renee and Eric

Cooper and Zoe.

3Gookins and 2 dogs

6 Hands, 5 heads, 10 legs, 30 toes,

24 fingers, 6 thumbs, 2 tails,

And a whole lot of appreciation from all of us!

Grandpa and Grandma Gookin -- first-timers

Grandma Baker and Cousin Angelina -- G.Baker is one-half of a ten-time grandparent combo

Going home I

Last day at the hospital

First-day, cuddle-buggin' with mommy

Napping at home.

Cousin Angelina christening the baby

Promise update

Renee and I and Caitlyn are expecting to be home tomorrow (hopefully in the a.m.).
I promise more pictures at some point tomorrow.
This week I hope to keep as downtime for mom and baby, just at the house with scant visitors. However, viewing season will likely be opened in the next week. Drop me a line if'n you want to make an appointment.

Lotsa weird stuff going on out there

Man nukes his hand, after seeing mark o' the beast.
Lazarus incarnate.
Kid killer.
Kid Slayer.
Another one involving the death of juveniles.
More death and the threatening of another child's death.

World's ending, think I'll go hide.