Initiation

Okay, so for those of you who were greek in college and not yet parents, I have to say, the greek system has nothing on initiation like babies, my master as I am now refering to baby Jeffrey is putting me through mommy I-week/month as well as Brian with sleep deprivation. We also have encouraged him to put his activisim roots to work and file his complaints directly with the baby commission as he seems to feel (lots of hollaring) that wearing diapers is crule and unusual treatment.
Christmas was wonderful this year despite the sleep deprivation as we do have the best present ever, he is cute as can be and much less yellow than he was last week.
Take care and all the best to all of your families, much love Allie and Brian

Homeward bound !!

We Are Going Home!!

Jeffrey's last blood test showed great improvement. He has been eating and pooping to make up for lost time. Allie is getting her staples out in few hours then it's home sweet home. We are all so relieved to know that his janundice is clearing up. I must say that the Nurses here have been amazing, especially Kellee. They helped us through our first crisis and kept us calm and reassured. This after noon Granny Beck comes to town to help out and meet her first grand son. Let the spoiling begin!

I just did the coolest thing ever!!!

For all of you Mom's out there I just found out what it is like to feed your child. Now being a man and not having the correct plumbing to feed my child made things a little interesting. So we have seen the picture below of Jeffrey catch'in rays. Well feedings have been put on a time limit of sorts so he can stay under the "sun" for as long as possible. Allie's milk has started to come in. To encourage this we have been pumping after feeding. To speed things along tonight the nurse (an amazing woman named Kellee) had me tape the end of the supplemental nursing system (sns) to my pinky. My little man sucked down 20 ml of breast milk in 7 min. I see pie eating contests in his future! What a cool feeling it is to know that you are providing your child with the nutrition that he needs to make himself better. Men if you have the chance I highly recommend it.

Jaundice- 1st parenting worries

So our little man is having some jaundice, not sure if you can tell in the photo below, which means SNS treatment (a supplemental feeding tx) and light therapy, apparently he will end up with some pretty good racoon tan lines. We are told its not too serious and that we may still go home tomorrow. But we shall see, it is making for more work and poor little guy hates the light box.

Hes HERE! the story

He's Here!!!
Jeffrey Hideo

was born Decembeer 12th

weight:8 lb 2 oz
height: 20 inches

Name Story: Jeffrey, is after Brian's best friend, who he worked with in Montana. He is a wonderful man who currently lives in New Orleans, and Brian apparently feels as Jeffrey jr is his name sake, Jeffrey snr is responsible for helping him get out of fure mischif. I figgure it means Jeffrey jr is going to hear about all kinds of dad's mischif in years past and has a wonderful mentor.

Hideo- is after my grandfather, who was a wonderful man who fills my early childhood memories, including swimming at ala moana beach each morning, easter egg hunts, taking care of my pet rabbit together, introduced me to the love of shoes, former shoe salesman, and was such a good man.

Birth highlights: This birth tale began as follows - sorry I go on a bit here

8 AM on Sunday, my water broke, while doing some yoga, it started as a trickle and so we opted to stay home until contractions grew stronger

11:30 To start contractions, a walk around, which lead to a gusher of amniotic fluid and we were off to the hospital. Unfortunatly we were met by a rather unpleasant OB who b/c I had not thought to bring in my soaked pants and other accutrimants, decided I had imagined that it broke as he couldn't find ferning ( a lab test for amniotic fluid), aparently appeared to be someone who normally wets her pants while walking down the street and didn't know what she was talking about. We and our doula were all very upset by it all. So w/ instructions to return if we had more symptoms headed home.

11 PM Back at home the contractions reved up and within minuites were 3 min apart, and we were back to the hospital, where the same OB was unfortunatly on call. After several hours of laboring and observation were were admitted. Laboring was progressing nicely at 2-4 min moderate to strong contractions. Unfortunatly I wasn't dialating all that quickly.

Monday and around 1 PM -Now working with new OB, and another gusher of water came on and the contractions in turn reved up, I was starting to get pretty tired at this point. But I was able to labor on, drawing on some amazing relaxation skills and meditation.

3 PM -OB checked on things (we were now at around 17 hours of labor), and I was still only 4 CM and pictosin (strengthens contractions) was started (still no pain drugs for me).

6 PM- Brian in cahoots with a nurse suggest I consider an epidural, pictosin was at 8 ml/ hr, and due to pure exhasution, I went for it, good thing too b/c the pictosin was increased eventually to 22 ml/ hr, which is above what some consider the max dose, this lead to me basicly sleeping through the next 2 hours of labor.

8 PM, OB decides to monitor contractions internally, which showed we were having major contractions and should have been at a 8-9 cm.

9:30 PM, its been 36 if not 40+ hours since water broke, and we are having a c-section as it looked like I wasn't going to get any bigger. Wont go into the c-section but it was so hard, likely due to my exhastion of labor, and scary for me and Brian.

10:05 Baby arrives, needed c-pap due to wet lungs, initally looked like a purple baby gorilla, I thought I was going to have one of those babies w/ character. Baby ot cleaned up, I got a little less drugged up, not that you can tell by the picture below, breathing was stabalized, Salem has a power outage, little scarry when you are in the hospital with the lights out, lights back on 15 sec later. Baby looking great, all are relieved, we start being parents.

Our friends Ginny and Isaac
trying to get the perfect style Maybe a Mullet?? Scrub a dub dub Jeffrey's in the tub (well sink but that doesn't rime)

If You look down a few entries you will see the birth announcement that Allie drafted back in November. The fact that this was done a head of time should surprise none of you. Along with the fact that I can't make it post like it was just done. It looks like we will be leaving the hospital on Friday. Beck (Allie's Mom) is coming up to help out with things on Friday afternoon. Feel free to give us a call once we get home.

HE"S HERE!!!!!

Our New Family
One Hour old with his happy mom!

Well it felt like this day would never arrive. On Monday 12/12/05 Jeffery Hideo Kato-Dilks was born!!

Jeffery came in at 8lbs 2 oz and 20 inches and looks just like his Mom. After almost 24 hrs of hard labor Allie had to have a C-section to help welcome our son into the world. All are doing well. Feel free to call Allie's cell to say hi.

Still Waiting

No News Yet!

I wish I could share some news, but all I can say is that cohosh, pineapple, and some of the other suggestions of inducing do not work. (To be fair we aren't due to the 11th, we were just hoping to be on the way by now) Apparently this little guy is a happy camper and not yet ready to greet the world. So we have no new news to report other than me getting increasingly uncomfortable and ready to be done, but on the plus side it does make me a little less concerned about the anxieties of being new parents and just being ready for the next step. So thats the latest, hope you are all well, Allie & Brian