AWWW!!

I have to post this because it's just so darn adorable.



Love you Izzie.

After Birth (notice it's two word ... I'm not talking placenta here people)

It took me a lot of time to post the way I did last time (the chronologically ordered thing), so this time I'm going to just skip that and give you the skinny.

About an hour after the baby was born, my dad, step mom and sisters showed up. They had custom shirts that were really cute.



That was in the waiting room at the hospital. Then they all got to come down to see her. They loved it.

Then Izzie went to the nursery for her testing and a bath.


She cried most, but pasted all of them with flying colors. I knew she would be smart. :) (As soon as I'm done with this post, I'll figure out how to post a video.)

Then my mom and brother showed up, but I didn't get any good pictures of them. Then the family left and a bunch of our close friends came to see us. (I had a grin the whole time because I was pretty proud to show her off, but I did feel like a dork because I couldn't get the grin to go away).


After everyone left, we fed her for the second time. She did great. She did great the first time too, just in case you wanted to know. It was about 9:00pm after that, so we laid her down in her sweet Plexiglas hospital style bassinet. It was tough. The night went something like this in about 15 to 30 minute increments: feeding, fussing, crying, fussing, sleeping, fussing, sleeping, crying, fussing, sleeping, sleeping, fussing, sleeping, feeding, fussing, crying, sleeping, fussing, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, feeding. Then at about 6:00am we sent her to the nursery so we could get sleep because we hadn't the entire night. Well, I did, but only because I sleep hard when I'm tired. I awoke to a firm "JOE" from my wife. She said it was about the third one...Whoops. I like my sleep. What can I say.

Then we spent the day in about the same routine as the night. Lynnell got the ok to leave the hospital and so did Izzie, but Izzie had to wait until 3:00pm so that they could give her the 24hr checkup. So, after that, we went to the nursery for checkout.

Quick picture of the inaugural car ride (or is that maiden voyage...I don't know) just before we pull out of the hospital parking lot.


SAFE! We made it home in one piece. I have driven a car thousands of time, but for some reason, this one seemed a little more nerve racking. All of the retards that draft in the middle of traffic seemed to be extra close. I guess it shouldn't be any different though. If I don't want to kill myself in a car accident, then I'll probably do just fine keeping the rest of my family safe.


Here I am rocking my little baby girl in the rocking chair. She's more precious than this blog or words can do justice.


Here is grandpa holding Izzie (it's his first, so he's pretty proud). I didn't get a picture of his permagrin, but he had one.


Here's me and Izzie catching a cat nap at about 8:00am Friday morning. FUN! I'm enjoying it like crazy at this point.


Then we got on the computer to blog. This is when I posted the stuff from the previous two days (the long chronological post). Izzie didn't help much, but she was good moral support and inspiration. Thanks baby.


I have to tell you, Friday morning was tough. Lynnell was so stressed out and unsure of what life was going to look like that she was kind of starting to break down. She held together really good though. I am proud of her for that. Her exact words were "I can't wait until your mom gets here. I hope she didn't go home yet." She was crying and it almost made me cry because I didn't know what to do or say.

Even though Nell doesn't take advice well (from anyone...even me, but it's not a bad problem) I think she just needed someone there to encourage her and be her backup. I know that all she needed was just the knowledge that there was someone there that knew what they were doing. I was VERY relieved when she told me this because I really wanted my mom to be there too because I sure as heck didn't know what to do. As so as soon as Lynnell went to shower, I called my mom to make sure they were coming over soon. Great thing is that when I called her I could hear her phone ringing. She left it at my house. HA! That meant that she was coming back. RELIEF!!!! When the calvary arrived, there was this huge feeling and sigh of relief. And they decided to stay at the house. SWEET!! THANKS MA!


We just hung out for the rest of the day. We did venture out to Target, the bank and WalMart to pick up a few items for the nursery and dinner. Izzie did GREAT! Two days old and not a single fuss while we were out and about. Excellent. I was proud. And we got a sweet lamp, fan and CD player for the nursery.

Next day we got up at a more normal time. Izzie slept most of Friday night for about 4 hour stretches (I slept 9 hours straight...YESSSSSSS...sorry honey). Izzie is finally on a schedule. Thank you Lord.

Then we had Izzie's first doctors appointment with the pediatrician on Saturday (today).


When we left the hospital there was some concern about her being a little jaundice. So they told us to watch her and make sure she got some sun. I sat on the deck with her for the last two mornings for about 10 minutes...totally cute and fun... I can't believe I'm using these words. No picture, but at the doctors appointment, she passed with flying colors. Everything is going perfectly and the jaundice has cleared up nicely.


When we got back, Izzie sat on the couch with uncle D (my brother Derek) and played Forza Motorsports 2 on the Xbox 360 (COOLEST GAME EVER!!!). I might have to buy Izzie an Xbox for her 1 month birthday or something (that's just getting my hopes up though).


Well, she didn't actually play. She said her fingers didn't have the coordination yet. That and she didn't want to break a nail. Girls... So she just napped.


Well, it's dinner time. I'm going to eat. Sorry for the long posts, but a lot has been going on, and I'm uber excited about it and want to share. I'll try to keep them shorter.

Here's a coupe of cute pictures:




I'm a proud and grateful father.

The Birthday: June 27, 2007

You have probably read my post from this morning that I posted just before we left, and I texted a couple of posts from my phone. Here’s the just of what went down:

5:00AM
We showed up at the hospital. The lady at the ER desk was new and had no idea of what was going on. It’s always comforting to be greeted at the hospital like that.


5:10 AM
We were kindly showed into our birthing room (Birthing Suite F).

5:20AM
The nurse stuck Lynnell with an IV (which we later found out was totally unnecessary until she wanted the epidural, and then it was necessary...so we lucked out). They also hooked her up to the monitors and got the baby monitor going as well. Contractions at this point were about 4-5 minutes apart, but not very painful…yet.



6:00AM
Contractions are still 4-5 minutes apart and getting slightly more painful.

6:15AM
We unhooked Lynnell from the monitors and went for a walk around the maternity ward. We made about 4 laps in 20 minutes. Of course that also included pulling over to the side of the hall for contraction pit stops every 4 minutes.

6:35AM
Back in the room, and contractions are getting more painful. I tell you what; I never knew my wife had such a strong grip. When she would have a contraction, I would holder her hand and tell her to breath. She looked at me like she wanted to rip my beating heart out of my body as she squeezed the blood out of my hand. It was mildly painful at first, but as the contractions got more severe so did the hand crushing.


7:00AM
Contractions! Contractions! Contractions!

8:00AM
The contractions were getting more and more painful, and at this point he tears started rolling. Luckily I have mad skills when it comes to dabbing tears.

8:10AM
The nurse came in to check Lynnell. She was dilated to about 5.5cm. That’s a good thing. That means we are moving forward. At this point we learned that the water had not broke as was previously thought. The first nurse that checked her when we came in did a test to determine if there was amniotic fluid. The test was positive, but it turns out that it was the forebag (a small sack before the amniotic sack). That meant that the actual water hadn’t broke yet. That provided an explanation as to why the dilation wasn’t moving as fast as we had hoped it would. Even more unfortunate was the fact that the doctor was downstairs performing a C-section, so he wasn’t going to make it anytime soon to break the water.

8:20AM
We are still sticking out the contractions. Word is, the doc is on the way.

8:45AM
The doctor showed up. It was our first time meeting him. He was a very nice guy. He grabbed the hook, stuck it in and popped the water. After he was done, we got back up to do some more laps. We only made 2 this time because the contractions were getting really severe now. We knew they were going to because after the water is broken the uterus is able to squeeze on something without being stopped by the pressure.

9:15AM
Contractions were pretty bad. The death grip was getting stronger and my hands were becoming more deformed. That and I could now visibly see where Lynnell’s fingers were forcing the blood out of my hands. Not only that, but the dragon (yes I’m now referring to Lynnell) was becoming more and more irritable. It seemed like she was ready to kill the first thing that came within reach. Unfortunately for me, she was still holding me in her bone crushing clutches.

10:00AM
The dragon is alive. She also started brushing up on her French a little at this point. For fear of my life, I didn’t dare remind her that she speaks perfectly good English and doesn’t need French substitutions. All I did was remind her that she was doing a great job and just needed to keep breathing. Contractions were now 3 minutes apart and really painful. I say painful based on how bad my hand was hurting and the expression on Lynnell’s face. It was a complicated formula, but I was learning how to master it.

10:30AM
Lynnell informs me that she can’t do it naturally. She wanted an epidural. I did what I thought was best. I kindly reminded her that she really wanted to do it naturally and that we could make it through this ordeal. All we had to do was take it one contraction at a time. She gripped my hand, looked me in the eye and said “I WANT AN EPIDURAL!” It was looking into the eyes of a raging bull. I was terrified.

10:45AM
Our nurse shows up min-contraction. I could tell that she knew exactly how bad the pain was when she say Lynnell (she has two kids of her own). Lynnell unconditionally and unwaveringly requested an epidural. I signed the form with my mangled hand and the nurse promptly left.

10:47AM
The nurse comes back to tell us that the anesthesiologist was on the way.

11:00AM
The anesthesiologist showed up. I really wanted to stick around to see the whole process, but that didn’t happen. I tried to reason with him, but it was like talking to a wall. Boy was I impressed…NOT! I moped into the hall where I promptly sent a text to my blog to vent (see previous posts).

11:10AM
The epidural was done, and Lynnell was just sitting there the way purring cats sit and slowly blink their eyes. Notice the thumbs up now versus the jaws of life mentioned earlier.


11:20AM
The flame breathing, hand crushing beast was now well subdued. She was just watching TV and laughing and my corny jokes and the commercials. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t do use this miracle fluid. So, I thought this would be a good time to go find something to eat. I ended up grabbing a salad from the hospital restaurant and taking It back to the room.

11:45AM
It was now time for the catheter. Turns out when you can’t feel anything below your waist, you can’t control anything below your waist. I did get to watch that. It looked like it could potentially be painful. I’m just glad we had a nurse that had enough experience to know to wait for the epidural to take full effect before sticking a ¼” tube in an 1/8” hole.

12:00PM
The contractions started to become farther apart and less severe. This is bad, so the doctor put Lynnell on pitosin. This is an artificial drug that helps get the uterus contracting. They started it out slow.

12:30PM
Contractions are more regular and becoming more frequent. That’s a good thing because it means everything is starting to move in the right direction again. Lynnell was still just hanging out and enjoying the ride. It looked like a good time at this point.

12:45PM
The nurse keeps popping in more frequently. She keeps updating us and giving great advice while carrying on good conversation.

1:00PM
The family called. They hate Montana road construction. I can’t blame them because I also hate it. Little do they know that the Montana state flag is one of those big orange road signs that reads “Road Construction Next 50 Miles.” HA. You guys wanted to come (and we wanted you to), so deal with it.

1:30PM
Lynnell is now dilated to 10cm. That means that it’s time to push the kid out, but we had to wait for the doctor to come give us the ok.


2:10PM
The doctor comes in the room, checks out Lynnell and says “It’s time to push. Next time she starts a contraction, get her pushing.” (that was to the nurse.) Then the nurse turns to us and says “It’s time!” I was rejoicing inside and very excited.



2:12PM
Next contraction starts. With the nurse on one side and me on the other, we put her into the labor pin and tell her to start pushing. She gives 3 good hard pushes (10 seconds each) for each contraction. This continues for the next 15 minutes.

2:20PM
At this point I’m really glad that Lynnell go the epidural. Contractions were somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes apart. Also, you could see the baby’s head in the birth canal. It was at this point that we found out she had a full head of hair…and it was dark brown like mine. SWEET!

2:25PM
The doctor shows up in the room, dons his delivery robe and pops a squat at the exit chute. There was also another nurse that came in to assist the doctor if anything went wrong. Our regular nurse was now busy getting the warming bed ready and making sure everything was in order to receive a baby.


2:40PM
The baby’s head is now starting to crown on the pushes (crowning means it’s poking out of Lynnell…incase you didn’t know), but it is a 2 steps forward 1 step back process. I was confident enough that Lynnell was doing such a great job to say “push hard honey, Let’s have her at 2:45.” Lynnell just laughed.

2:45PM
Lynnell gave it her best, but she didn’t have her yet. Now this is where I was slightly disturbed. Now that the baby’s head is sticking out of my wife’s vagina enough for half of her head to be out, the doctor starts playing with the baby’s hair. It wasn’t just a rub. It was a comb over and then an Alfalfa hairdo and then it was a Mohawk and then It was spikes. I couldn’t tell what drove this doctor to believe that playing with my baby’s hair as it hangs out of my wife’s vagina was ok. It didn’t bother me too much, so I didn’t say anything. I just thought it was odd.

2:46PM
Another contraction and some good hard pushing brought the baby to the brink of making her grand exit. I asked Lynnell if it hurt. She looked at me calmly and said “Nope. It just feels like a lot of pressure.”

2:48PM
SHE POPPED OUT!!! YES! It’s a girl (the ultrasounds were right). She came out just fine. No complications. The doctor gave her a quick rub, suctioned all of the fluid out of her nose and mouth and then put her up on Lynnell. She started crying right away (a good thing). That means she’s getting lot’s of air into her lungs to help dry them out. I think I saw a tear roll down Lynnell’s cheek, and I’m sure that it was from joy, not pain because she still had the epidural in.

Watching a baby come out of a woman’s nether region was definitely a new experience. Sure I saw it happen in the birthing video’s, but it just wasn’t the same as the real life experience.


2:50PM
After the placenta was delivered (at least I think it was after), the doctor clamped off the umbilical cord and I did the honors.

2:55PM
Our nurse took the baby to the little baby warming station where she did the usual stuff. At least I’m assuming that it’s usual. Since I don’t have anything to compare it to, it’s usual to me. She weighed her. 8 pounds even. Measured her head and her height (19.5 inches long).


3:02PM
I put her first diaper on her. Sweet! She cried the entire time. I probably did too (when I was born. Not when I put her diaper on her).


3:10PM
Back in moms arms.



More to come (when I have more free time)…Which could be a while

Izadara Kay Cote 8lbs 19.5in 2:48pm

Time to push!

10cm. Almost go time.

10cm. Almost go time.

Well, we almost made it

Well, we almost made it without the epidural. Lynnell is getting it right now. From what I hear he's a good doctor, but he's not very nice.

It's time! We are going

It's time! We are going to the hospital.

It's Time... I Hope.

So there I am enjoying the visions of sugar plums dancing in my head when Lynnell bursts out of the bathroom at 3:30AM this morning. "JOE, I think my water broke, and I think it's time to go to the hospital!"

Now, I was in a deep sleep, and the urgency of the "JOE" was more like a activate-the-Glock-security-because-there's-someone-in-the-house "JOE". So, I was fully awake in about 0.2 seconds. Then I realized that I was nice and safe in my warm bed and my wife was just in a lot of pain.

So we counted the minutes between the contractions, and they were about 4 minutes. We got up, showered, ate, and now it's 4:53 AM and we are off to the hospital (car seat, mini van and all).

Wish us luck (and pray)...I hope.

Hospital Trip #1

Went to the hospital tonight. It was the first trip for the pregnancy. Lynnell thought that her water broke, so we went in to be sure.




Here's where the magic is going to happen.



Turns out tonight isn't the night. Bummer. I was hoping that it would be. The nurses (Yes they have names. I just don't want to divulge any information that somebody doesn't want me to.) were great. They got Lynnell all hooked up to monitor the baby and the contractions.




Then when we learned that the water hadn't broken we were instructed (by the nurse) that we should walk around for about an hour to see if we could encourage labor to happen a little sooner.



It didn't work. So we came home. Lynnell just told me (litterally as I'm writting this) that tonight is going to be a long night. Thanks a lot nurses. That's a mean trick to play. Get someones labor going and then send them home. HA! Good one. I'm just kidding.

You know, as I'm writing this, I think it might be prudent to watch what I say about the doctors or nurses. Now that they know about the blog, they can use my secret public journal against me. I'm sure they won't though. They seem like great people...I hope. ...That's a joke. I better make up for my shenanigans now...

So, to the nurses and doctors, just know that I appreciate you guys and your expertise, and the jokes are just that. See you tomorrow. (I hope)

Wrong!

Ok, so I have to share this. It's quite incredible; like nothing I've ever seen before. It's Lynnell's pregnant, swollen, watter retaining foot.

She tells me it's really uncomfortable, and judging by the looks of it, I can believe her. Check out the indentation. That's from me pushing on it with my finger. WRONG! It's like pushing on a nectarine. You know, that squishy-but-doesn't-return-to-normal feeling. Her whole foot is like that. Eventually (a few minutes later) it goes back to swollen. My mom told her that cantaloupe is supposed to help, so we are trying that out now.

HAHA! It's A Scorcher

Want to know what it's like to be nine months pregnant in 80 degree weather?



The fan is on full blast, but you can't tell because my camera is too cool. That might be a vein statement, but it is a sweet camera. As soon as Izzie get's here, it will be on non stop. That I can promise you.

What I really want to do is to sell my DV video camera and get an HD one. The problem is, I don't have $1000 to spend on a video camera right now. So, if you want to donate you can PayPal me some money. I'm just kidding. But seriously, you can find my email address somewhere on this blog...No...don't send my money...unless you want to...I really want an HD video camer......just kidding. Don't do it...unless you want to... (OK. I'll stop now because I don't even find it funny. I don't even like Will Ferrell.)

Getting Close

We had another doctors appointment today. Lynnell is still dilated to 2cm...still...that's a week later...just in case you are keeping track...I am. The doctor gave her a good report though. He said that if it happens, it should happen tomorrow. Not because Lynnell is that close, but because he's on call tomorrow and it would be most convenient for him. What a great guy. I'm just kidding; he is a great guy.

Since Lynnell is so close, I had to take a picture of the 9 month mark.


We also got the baby's room finished this weekend. There's still a few items to finish, but we aren't in a hurry because they are small things. We are still working on a layout. It's kind of a small room, so the furniture seems cramped.





And most importantly I got my picture done. Lynnell did the two butterflies, but it took someone with extreme OCD to make perfect 4" squares and line 30 butterflies in perfect rows. That's me. I'm pretty proud of my OCD at times like this. Hopefully not a lot of it rubs off on Izzie, but, then again, I got mine from my dad.


Oh yeah, I should mention that the center picture is centered precisely in the middle of the wall and the space between the pictures is exactly 12". Pretty sick huh. Oh well. That's how I roll.

Getting Ready

We spent today finalizing the nursery. Lynnell got the cribbing set she wanted, so she washed that and put it on the crib. She got the rest of the baby clothes washed and tried to hang the curtains. That didn't happen, so we'll have to do it tomorrow. We didn't get as much done as we wanted, but we did make some headway.

The fun part was painting the pictures for the baby's room.

I did the checkered one. I have some little wooden butterflies that I have painted pink and brown that I will stick in the center of each square (opposite colors of course). Lynnell painted two canvases. Both are brown (to help offset all the pink in the room) with pink butterflies (it could have been worse...pink background with brown butterfly). Everything is starting to look good, and we are both anxious beyond belief.

T-Minus 2 Weeks

So we had a doctor appointment on Monday. It was the first of our weekly visits. (At 37 weeks you start seeing the doctor every week instead of every 4 weeks.) It went well. Lynnell was dilated to 2 cm. That’s a good thing. It means that the baby is on the way. The bad part is that she can be dilated at 2cm for another week or more.

Lucky for me, nothing happened while I was in Boise for the first half of this week. I was only down there until Wednesday afternoon, but that didn’t stop Lynnell from worrying that she would have the baby while I was gone.

The rest of the week has been fairly smooth. Lynnell has contractions here and there, but nothing major. She called me about an hour ago just to let me know that the mucus plug is officially gone. It was gross to hear about, so I’ll just quote the first part: “It’s official. My mucus plug is gone. It was huge. Aren’t you excited? That means we could have the baby anytime now.”

So, there you go. The flood gate is open. All I have to do is stand near by with a mop and slickers to clean up the mess when the water goes. Yes, that’s a joke, BUT I did see such an event occur in one of the birthing videos we saw during our classes. The lady was sitting there in a rocking chair all calm like with her husband rubbing her shoulders. The next moment was fairly traumatizing for me, but not because it was gross. Her water broke. It wasn’t a slow leak or a small gush though. Imagine turning on your tub full blast as fast as you can and then turning it off half a second later with the faucet pointed straight out to the side. (I guess this analogy only works if you have good water pressure, so if you don’t, you’ll have to imagine that part too.) It’s a lot of water. Well, that’s what came out of this lady. The jet went straight out for about 4 feet. Then it was just all over the floor. SICK!

Now, the traumatizing thing about this isn’t watching or hearing it happen. The traumatizing thing is thinking about it happening in a not so convenient place like in bed, on the couch, or even worse, in the car. That’s not cool. If Lynnell’s water breaks like that lady’s did, it better be over a storm drain not in the car.