A new life; same as the old life?

It is 12 hours into our new baby's life. She sleeps very, very well. Those who have children of their own will know that they are supposed to feed every 2-4 hours, but we have to keep waking her up to feed her, and even then she doesn't seem hungry. I have already changed my first nappy (diaper for the Americans). Steve it was easy, a piece of cake. I am home posting this and a bunch more pictures. I know everyone says so, and it is probably obvious with it being your own little girl, but she is gorgeous. Check her out in technicolour glory. Be warned though, Steve esepcially, there are some fairly graphic pictures, including one of the cord itself and one of me cutting it....so don't look if you are squeamish. Also they are not all in order, but they are all from yesterday and today.

has arrived. Born at 4:19pm Central Daylight Time. She weighed in at a whopping 8lb 7oz, and measured 19.5" She kept her mother waiting for over 30 hours, but she is very, very cute! Lorraine is exhausted and needs her sleep. Addison is asleep in the nursery, and we are settling down for the night. I will write more and post more pictures, but there are a few here for you to check out. In the meantime, here are a couple of choice quotes from the experience. "Where the he** is that doctor?", "Can't you just reach in there and pull it out" were heard loud and often..other expletives have been removed to protect the guilty.

Lorraine & Jan came into hospital on Friday 28th, around noon, for a check up and suspected waters broken. Sure enough that was the diagnosis, and around 2pm she came into her new home for the next 30 hours where she eventually delivered the baby. Contractions had been going on all afternoon, but started in earnest around 9:30pm. We went for an hour, only one centimetre dilated, when she decided that she needed the epidural for the pain. It was administered around 10:30pm last night (28th). Just about the same time the Cubs were clinching the pennant for the National League Central Division. Lorraine had a much easier night once she got used to not having any legs and we all managed to get some sleep for most of the night off and on between rotations and checks. We woke up around 6am proper and the dilation was almost complete. As I write this however we still have no further motion. So we are about to turn down the epidural, and see if that moves things along. In the meantime, her...

Please see new posts below. No that doesn't mean it's raining babies, although with a lot of our friends right now either delivering, recently delivered or being pregnant it could well mean that! I guess we are at that age. In the UK we don't do baby showers, or at least no-one I know of does. However they are all the rage here in the US. At home we still give baby gifts, but usually after the baby is born and I don't know that we would normally even register. Having said all of that, when in Rome and all....so we have registered at two places. One of them only has three or four items, the other has a huge assortment. If you would like to buy us a gift, please feel free but not obliged. Babies 'R' Us or Galt Baby

Time is marching on with only 3 weeks to go to the "official" due date. We are on weekly visits with the OB/GYNE. I have managed to miss only two or three appointments throughout the pregnancy, so I feel pretty confident that I know as much as Lorraine does about the technical side. I have been to the classes for "Preparing For Childbirth", and for "Caring For Your Newborn". Still to come are "Infant CPR" and "Boot Camp For New Dads". Of course I have no idea what is going on inside Lorraine other than what the books tell me. Every time we go to the doc we get to hear the heart rate on portable monitors, and lately on the full on fetal monitor, which prints out a chart like that to the above. The top line is the heart rate, the little notation in the middle means that the baby moved right at that moment, cos Lorraine pressed a special button, and the bottom line is the contractions, which, fortunately at this point, are non existent. Lo...

I had been to the Shedd Aquarium many years ago on my very first corporate trip to the city. It hasn't changed much! We had decided this past weekend, having spent a lot of time getting the baby stuff sorted, the house a bit more in order and the with the baby on the way, that we would take some time out on Monday to chill out together. We threw around some options, cinema, mini golf, real golf, trip to the city, etc, before finally settling on the Lincoln Park Zoo. We got a lazy start, and headed down there in the truck around 11. It was a gorgeous day, in the high 70s, sunny and clear. When we arrived down there, the traffic and parking were horrible..it seems everyone decided that the Lincoln Park Zoo would be a great idea. We drove around for a while but gave up after about half an hour and no parking becoming free, deciding instead to head to the Shedd. As you can see from the pictures, I was snap happy, lot of fish, penguins, and lizards (they have a special exhibit right now...

Well actually it is mostly receding water now. A couple of weeks ago we and many other areas of the US were hit with significant storms. The rivers rose, plains flooded, basements leaked, and some people worse off that us, lost power for days at a time. The golf course across the street from us tends to flood, as it is right on the river and has little or no bank to stop it. As you can see from these pictures, the rise was at least a good four feet, if not more. The last time it was like this was in the spring as all of the snow melted, but it wasn't this high even then. Most of the 4th fairway and all of the 4th tee, including the bench, sign and ball washer were completely under for about a week! There's a couple more pictures here .

When we first adopted Reggie, she was overweight by some 20lbs. She didn't get much exercise, lived most of life in her crate (cage), and had a reputation for being bad with children. She also seemed to be scared of men a little bit, often shying away from me. With much loving care and attention and copious walking (4 times daily) mostly with Lorraine, she had slimmed down to just over 90lbs, recovered from her general fear of men and showed no signs of any issues with children, babies, or pretty much anyone. She is not the most sociable with other dogs admittedly, despite her frequent trips to the doggie park. One of her favourite things when I get home is to stand up on her hind legs, with her front legs on my lap getting some attention and hugs, something she was not strong enough to do when we first had her. All in all she is a happy dog, her coat much improved, weight is better, fitness too, although stamina continues to be a stretch for her. We are looking forward to raising...