More Baby

Thought I'd post a few more pictures of Caleb. He's about ten pounds now! He smiles occasionally and is starting to hold his head up more and more (usually when he's upset ;). He's still not sleeping through the night, but most people have told us that he'll start to sleep longer when he gets to be about twelve pounds. So he's well on his way!












His Aunt Kyna came to visit from the U.P. She was a great help, and was excited to see her newest grand nephew. Did I mention what a great help she was? Since I've been in the thick of rental season at work, Kyna has been able to help Andrea a lot when I had to spend late nights at rental shows. Last night was the last one for the year, and Kyna was able to be here for all but that last one. THANKS KYNA!!

























He seems to like taking baths. Here he is relaxing in the warm water.



















I got to feed him for the first time. It was great!

























Andrea took him to get his portraits done. This is the best of the bunch.

Time to Show Him Off

Okay, it's now time to show off baby! We've shown off our cute nephews before on this blog. Now we get to show off our cute son!


Here he is in his Maemae's arms.


















Just forget you saw the pink binky in his mouth.

























Kirby and Caleb get along very well.


















Kirby loves to sniff Caleb, and then lick him. He knows that someday, Caleb will drop many pieces of food on the ground for him to eat up.



















Big Yawn!





Just think: tomorrow . . . he'll be fifteen.














Caleb has gotten back to his birth weight, and has even pushed beyond it. We have our first doctor's appointment on Wednesday, and they like to have them back to their birth weight by then, so he's doing great.

Mom and Dad are doing fine too, though this is the first time I've been coherent enough to type anything remotely intelligent (which just demonstrates how little sleep I'm actually working on here. I like to joke that you could count the number of hours of sleep we've had in the last week on one hand;). I did discover today a V-8 product called V-8 V-Fusion. I drank one at lunch, and I actually had some energy to finish off the day! I'm going to try and find some 6-packs of it somewhere and take them to work with me.

Finally Home

Caleb Jonathan Wallace came home today. He is doing very well after several eventful days in the hospital (nothing bad, but some boys go through a little more...shall we say...stress, than others ;). He is now sleeping contentedly in his Maemae's arms.

Here's how everything went down:
Monday evening, Andrea decided to do some quilting so she would be on her feet and therefore bring on more contractions. It worked, but they were weak, and went away after she went to bed. The next afternoon, she got a call from her sister-in-law, Carol, who promptly scolded her for 25 minutes for not going to the hospital after the contractions had started (Carol has had three children). In a huff, she went to the delivery room to be checked out just so she could prove Carol wrong. She called me on her way there, and told me she would probably beat me home.

I got another call an hour later telling me her water had broken! Apparently it had broken the night before. So I headed up to the hospital to meet her. On the way, the obligatory traffic accident had occurred on the bridge, so I had to try and maneuver around the backup that had spilled out onto the surface streets. I was mostly successful and managed to get to the hospital even before she was officially admitted.

Since Andrea wasn't having any contractions, labor had to be induced. She labored most of the night and into the morning, but she wasn't progressing, and every time she had a contraction, baby's heart rate would drop and not recover soon enough (we found out later that this was because he actually had a hold of his umbilical cord, and had it draped over his shoulder. Every time a contraction occurred, he would clamp down on his cord, thereby cutting off his oxygen supply). Late in the morning, the doctor decided that a C-section would be necessary, so she was taken off the labor drugs. After she got off this drug, her contractions all but went away, and baby's heart rate stabilized. They wheeled her to the operating room a couple hours later, and Caleb was born after an uncomplicated procedure. It turned out he was lodged in the birth canal in a position that wouldn't allow him to go any further. He was a big boy! as you'll see. We stayed in the hospital until this morning after several checkups.

Of course, I took pictures!

Here's our last picture of just the two of us right before she goes into the operating room.



















Here's Caleb only a couple minutes after being born. You can see how big he is!























Mom and baby.





















Thank you all for your many prayers. They were answered in ways we could not have imagined! God is good and merciful!

-The Wallace Family

Caleb Wallace

Caleb Jonathan Wallace officially joined the world on Wednesday August 13th, 2008 at 12:45 in the afternoon. He was 8lbs. 4 oz. and 21 inches long (BIG baby!). It seemed that he didn't want to came out. So after about twelve hours of labor, and no progress, the doctor decided that a C-section was necessary to get him out with both him and mother healthy. They are both recovering nicely at Southwest Washington Medical Center. We should be home on Saturday, and I'll post pictures and more details(no, not those details) at that time. We're so happy to hold him in our arms!!

Where's Baby Wallace?

He apparently had been detained. Baby Wallace is now scheduled to be induced 8/21/08 if he doesn't choose to make an earlier appearance.
The doctor had warned us that she expected him to make a late appearance and at our appointment today nothing had changed from last week, so the doctor scheduled the inducement for next week. Interestingly (only to me), is that I was born 12 days early and he will be arriving 12 days late.

Andrea

Small? I don't think so!

I had an ultrasound today because the doctor felt that the baby was too small and not growing. The ultrasound estimate is that he is currently 8 lbs 4 oz, give or take a pound!! I can tell he is growing - my scrub pants don't fit! Gulp, um wow, he is not going to be a small baby! There is still 11 days until our due date 8-9-08 and the doctor thinks he's going to be late. Wow, ouch, and scary are all thoughts that come to mind! Currently I haven't not had any contractions and only a couple possible Braxton-Hicks. Nothing, Nada, Zilch. On the other hand I am thankful for the mostly easy pregnancy that I have had. A little evening sickness and a lot of tiredness in the first trimester and bad fall about 8 weeks ago, but other than that I have had an easy time compared to some of the stories I've heard, so I feel very blessed.
Nate just offered to take a picture of me to post on the blog, but since I just was dragged to the park by the dog (walking I heard will bring on labor) I decided to pass at this point.

So here is a list of the things I have heard that will bring on labor, some of which I have tried to no avail.
1. Eating an entire chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting
2. Eating spicy Mexican food
3. Eating Italian food
4. Driving over railroad tracks
5. Walking
6. "Hanky panky" as someone delicately put it.
7. Eating a chocolate cake while driving over railroad tracks - (the question on this is do I drive "on" the railroad tracks or "across" them? and does it actually bring on labor or just scare the baby out?)
8. Drinking Castor oil (definitely not going to do this one - it is very unrecommended by our baby book)
9. Bouncing on a exercise ball, the baby gets so shook up he can't wait to escape the womb. ;)
10. I can't remember any more but everyone has at least one suggestion of something that has worked for them or someone they know.

I have a follow up appointment tomorrow and I am torn between waiting patiently for baby to be born and throwing myself on the ground and begging the doctor to show mercy and induce me on the 10th if I go beyond the due date.

Nate's vote is to induce now, but I am pretty sure the doctor isn't going to go for that.

Andrea


Addendum: Reading Sean's latest post and laughing out loud hysterically didn't bring on labor either.

Garden Color

Just thought I'd show off the 'garden' to everyone. These are pictures of the roses we have growing on our deck as well as the peas, lettuce, tomatoes and herbs.


This rose is called French Perfume. This rose plant has been the biggest of them all since we started collecting them. It also makes the biggest flowers, and the most fragrant.















This one is called Midas Touch. It was sick earlier in the season but it has recovered nicely.














This is the Veteran's Honor rose. It has a great red flower that is perfect for cutting and surprising my wife at work with. :)














Here's a view of the whole deck and beyond. Lettuce is on the left, and herbs are straight in front. The peas are a just on the other side of the herbs. They're working on growing up the string you see in the picture. Not a big crop of peas this year, but enough for a few salads and the occasional snack!












Mom and baby are doing great. She's having Braxton-Hicks contractions now which is encouraging to her. It means baby wants to come out too!

I don't think I've posted this yet, but I've been taking a summer class at Clark College. Andrea has always wanted to operate a quilt shop, and I'm taking a small business management class to learn how to do it. It's exciting! I'm learning a lot and hope we can put our plan into action some day.