We checked in shortly after 5:00 and didn’t have to wait too long to get into our room. Their birthing rooms are super nice. Big, with hardwood floors and actual furniture. They really go out of their way to make it a comfortable place. They promptly got Brenda hooked up to the monitors and they started the IV with Pitocin about 7:30. Small contractions seemed to start right away.

Nothing much exciting for the next four hours. We were both exhausted so we were taking naps between nurse visits. Reruns of Mythbusters episodes where on in the background all day.

About 11:30 our doctor came in and broke Brenda’s water. Shortly after, Brenda had reached as much pain as she was going to tolerate and they put the epidural in. Not long after, she was about 2cm dilated. Seemed like we still had a long ways to go, but only 2-3 hours later, the surprised nurse told us we were ready to go and she was calling our doctor.

Hard labor started around 5:30pm, about twelve-and-a-half hours after we checked in. I can’t tell you how incredibly well I thought Brenda did through the whole process. Yes, she had the epidural, but the entire day was pretty taxing. I’m very proud of her.

Kathedra (“Katie”) Eileen Jones was born at 6:42pm, October 7th, 2009. She’s 7lbs, 10oz, and 20 inches long. And she’s already sporting a full head of hair! Neither of us has been able to spend much time with her. We’ve held her for a grand total of maybe five minutes before they took her to the nursery. That’s a major bummer, but the previous post explains why. The main thing is we’ll be thrilled to finally get her home and all to ourselves for a while.

Thanks to everyone that followed the play-by-play. I know it’s difficult for the many friends and family that are so far away during a time like this. It’s hard on us, too, but we’ve always been 100% confident in our decision to move to Atlanta and consider this our home. And we can’t wait to raise our new daughter here. Just remember, Atlanta is a pretty short plane ride and we have plenty of space for guests

More Twitter and blog updates as we have ‘em.

Love y’all,

Andrew, Brenda and Katie

I should lead off by saying that if you saw the photos of Katie in the Special Care Nursery this morning, DO NOT let it freak you out. Soon after she was born, they noticed she had a breathing pattern they referred to as “grunting”. They took her up to the transitional nursery where they do all the usual post-birth stuff. After a while I got an update from a doctor who told me Katie had something called a “Pneumothorax“, which is air that has collected outside the lungs, making it harder for them to expand fully (the article explains this better than I can). The likely cause, for Katie, is the first deep breathes she took immediately after birth.

The doctor was pretty clear about the fact that this is not serious and not totally uncommon in newborns. There’s a chance that if it doesn’t get any worse, Katie will just work it out herself. And if not, they can easily remove the excess air with a needle. That said, they admitted her last night to the Special Care Nursery so they could continue to monitor and give her supplemental oxygen. So in the photos, I’m sure it looks a lot worse than it really is. She’s got an oxygen tube, a feeding tube and an IV for antibiotics. Everything else is just a monitor.

They took a couple more chest x-rays last night, but we’ve not yet spoken to a doctor today. When we visited about 10:30 this morning, she was visibly breathing better and sleeping very well. They’ll keep her at least 2 days, but as many as 6. That sucks, but it’s more important to make sure she has a clean bill of health. I’ll keep posting updates as we get them. Just trust me when I say….don’t panic

I’ll continue the recap in the next post….

Well, this is it. Tomorrow (Wed, Oct 7th) we head to the hospital at 5:00am where they’ll induce Brenda! We had a visit with the Dr. today and since we’re now almost a week past the due date, she went ahead and scheduled us. We’ve had a bag packed for a couple weeks, so we’re ready. Just wondering how much sleep we’re going to get tonight.

I’ll have my iPhone on me the whole time, and will be posting updates to the blog, Twitter and Youtube as often as I can. Here’s where to look for updates:

Twitter (short text updates)
YouTube (videos)
Flickr (photos)
…and of course, right here.

Yes, I realize as a big-shot web developer, I should’ve come up with something way slicker to keep everyone updated. Time just kinda got away from me. But I’ll still keep you all updated

More soon!

Everything is going really well, though, and we’ll have an ultrasound on Monday just to take measurements and make sure everything is still cool in there. Then we’ll have another doctor’s appointment on Tuesday to discuss next steps. If she feels Brenda is ready, she’ll probably go ahead and induce.

That’s really all I’ve got right now. We’re just in a holding pattern until Katie is all packed and ready to move out.

More updates as soon as they’re available, and also new nursery photos!

We’re mostly settled into the new house, although there are still some scattered boxes here and there. I’ve already fixed a couple minor things and we had our landscaping touched up (our HOA already sent a letter about the weeds). Today I get to fix our mailbox post that’s about ready to fall apart. But we absolutely love the house and I’m looking forward to Katie growing up here.

Also still several things to finish on the nursery. We won’t have to paint the walls, but we’re putting up letters to spell out KATIE and I’m “supposed” to be drawing some cartoon characters on the wall. I only hope I have time to do it (and do it right). Brenda’s also working on some bedding and the window treatments. Last Friday was her last day at work, so she’ll be working on that as much as she can.

That’s about it for now. I’ll be posting more photos and updates as I can. We also should get one more ultrasound, but I’m not sure when.

Note that a lot of the squiggly stuff on the bottom couple photos is just some of the gunk she’s swimming in at the moment.

To view the registry, click here.

We still have to add some things, like a crib, changing table, and dresser. But we have quite a few other things picked out. Some things on the list don’t have photos, but if you are at a store, they should be able to look them up.

Also, plenty of things can be generic, like wipes, bibs, blankets, etc. We just had to scan a specific brand at the store. Just make sure when you make any purchases, you use the registry number 76310855 so it gets applied to our registry and everyone else knows what’s been bought already.

And if you can’t decide, gift cards are always appreciated

Biggest news is this past January, Brenda and I learned we were going to be parents! We’re now about 24 weeks in, and we’re due September 30th, 2009. We also know that we’re having a little girl, whom we’ve already named Kathedra Eileen, after both our grandmothers. We’re not entirely sure yet, but her nickname will likely be “Katie”.

We’ve had three ultrasounds so far and everything is on track, and mommy and baby are doing fantastic. We’re super excited and can’t wait to meet our little girl in just about three months!

Also, as if one major life change in one year isn’t enough, we’re about to buy our first house in Atlanta. We really wanted to be in a house by the time Katie comes, and this seemed a good market to buy in. We did a lot of searching online and looked at about 6 or 8 houses and made an offer, which they accepted. Since then we’ve gone though the painful process of getting the loan finalized, appraisal, inspection, etc.

We did just recently hit a snag, resulting in “firing” our lender. They were fine until right until the end, when they started throwing bigger numbers at us than they’d quoted. Way bigger. Our spidey-senses went off, and we ditched them. Good news is we’ve already gotten a new lender and it looks like we’ll be just fine. Our original closing was June 26th. At worst, it may get pushed back a week. Fingers crossed.

You can view my photos of the house here. And see the actual listing here.

Those are the biggest updates, by far. We also just had a very nice week’s vacation with Amy and Donnie. Seems like we were running every day doing stuff, including: a Braves game, Georgia Aquarium (including Titanic exhibit), Dave & Buster’s, bowling, a movie, mini-golf, shopping, and we even were able to show them the inside of our (hopefully) new house. A really fun (but exhausting) week. They were our first house guests of 2009, and there are still some who having been down yet (you know who you are).

I also just got back from a trip to Ohio. I spent one day at Engauge’s Columbus office, then attended the Spring Break developer conference at Ohio University. It’s the same conference I spoke at last year, although this year I was just an attendee. It was okay, but I probably won’t go back next year unless I’m a speaker again. Most of the sessions just aren’t advanced enough to warrant the time and expense. But on the upside, I got to use three days of the trip to spend with family and friends, so that makes it all worth it.

Oh yeah, and I also launched two websites of my own in the last few months. One is a service where you send me a photo of yourself, and I create a cartoon version (or avatar) of it. You’d use these as your profile picture on sites like Facebooks, Twitter, etc. I’ve sold several already. It’ll never make me rich, but one order is a box of diapers

The other site is for my brand new webcomic, Happy Accidents. I’ve been wanting to start one for well over a year and finally got enough motivation and/or inspiration to actually do it. I’ve done about 8 strips now and the reaction and feedback to them has been unbelievably good. Unfortunately, I’ve skipped the last month due to all this craziness that’s been keeping us busy. But I hope to get back to the drawing board very soon. (Note that this isn’t exactly a “family-friendly” comic strip. Just bear this in mind when visiting

All the animals are doing quite well. Murray is 14 now, and some days you’d have a hard time convincing me she’s not a puppy. Work is also going pretty well. I’m still not getting to be the “master” of any one thing, but being a jack-of-all-trades at least keeps things interesting.

So I think that’s about it. I’m sure I’ll think of something else and come back to edit this post. I’ll also be posting info on our new baby registry shortly after I finish this entry. Stay tuned for that and more baby updates!