Nora Atchison Fawcett

Between facebook, email, and text messages I think most of our loyal blog readers are well aware that Nora Atchison Fawcett was born at 6:54 pm on Tuesday, September 1, 2009. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs, 14 0z, and was 21 1/4 inches long at birth. It is somewhat amazing how the speed and style of communication has changed in the last few years with iPhones and facebook enabling a much more real time reporting of events, this blog is feeling down right old media, but it none the less provides a forum for a much more detailed account to preserve for our family history. So, for all of you die-hards out there lets dive into the details!

Compared to Elaine's pregnancy with Owen, this has all been a very different experience. For one thing, this baby was far more active, kicking up a storm, where as Owen was comparatively calm in utero. With Owen, we were constantly being told how big the baby was and his due date seemed to be a moving target always moving up even though Owen ended up being late. This time around, we ignored any revised due dates, and Nora showed up right on schedule, almost a pound heavier than Owen! Also, whereas a sonogram technician's slip up gave us a pretty good idea that we were having a boy with Owen, this time around we were completely in the dark. We were always pretty set on a girl's name, still being happy with the name 'Nora' that we picked out for a girl before Owen was born, but we never quite settled on a boy's name. (We were still debating between 'Henry' and 'Calvin' between pushes.)

One similarity is that, as with Owen, Elaine's water broke sparing us the any debates about contraction timing and when to go to the hospital. This time around, Elaine's water broke at 4:40 am, so we were relatively well rested for the big day ahead. We quickly gathered up our bags, told Grandma and Grandpa Z what was happening so they could take care of Owen for the day, sent a couple quick emails on the blackberry to make sure Allen's latest analysis would be delivered to the Senate Finance committee, updated facebook, and headed out the door to the hospital. This time around there were no doubts from the hospital staff about Elaine's water having broken, so we were checked in right away and didn't have to walk the halls for hours to prove she was in labor. This also meant that the epidural arrived much sooner, providing much needed relief. Elaine was dilated 1 cm when she was first examined at the hospital, so we knew we had a long day ahead.

With Owen, Elaine also started out around 1 cm when we arrived at the hospital, and after 18 hours of labor she was stalled out at 8 cm requirng a Cesarian section. This time aroud the plan was for a VBAC, but given past history, we were a little nervous about how things would progress. By 11:30 am, Elaine was at 5 cm, much more progress than we were expecting by that point, and we started feeling more optimistic about avoiding a C-section. By 2 pm she was at 7 cm and our wonderful Nurse Robin was becoming quite confident that Elaine would deliver the baby before her shift ended at 7 pm. When they checked at 3:30 pm, Elaine had blown past 8 all the way to 9 cm, and upon hearing this, Mom Mom headed down to the Hospital excited about meeting her new grandchild. At 4:40 pm, exactly 12 hours after her water broke, the cervix was gone and it was time for Elaine to start pushing!

Given that we never reached this point with Owen, we weren't entirely sure what to expect. Elaine's friend Audra was due the day before Elaine, and she just gave birth to her son a couple days earlier after less than an hour at the hospital and just a couple of pushes. Marlo just needed a few pushes to deliver baby Ben a few months earlier. Not that we expected things could possibly go so quickly, but after the first half hour of pushing or so, the epidural began to wear off and the pain began to intensify. After an hour of pushing we began to see a little swirl of dark hair on our baby's head, but the baby still had a ways to go and the pain was beginning to get to Elaine. She may even have wanted to get up, but soon the doctor arrived and solved that problem for us. Elaine's usual doctor wasn't at the hospital, but her evil faternal twin sister was. As Elaine was straining to push, the doctor came in and mumbeled something about having to give up on the VBAC and do a C-section. This of course made Elaine all the more determined, and after the doctor left, she beared down for another half hour of pushing and our baby was finally ready to come out. The nurse called the doctor back and our baby was delivered at 6:54 pm. After a little twisting around, we saw we had a little girl, and we could stop debating boys names and welcome Nora to our family. It was a truly remarkable experience that I was ever so fortunate to witness (not sure Elaine would feel quite the same way feeling everything first hand). Seeing our little girl for the first time she stole my heart and overwhelemed me with joy (and that certainly goes for both of us).


(click here to see all the pictures)

Hazel Marina Pearson

Congratulations are in order for Chris & Elise, and their beautiful new baby girl, Hazel Marina Pearson, born on July 2nd. Head on over to their blog (mochi) for some great pictures of the new family!

A Slight Change of Plans

Our plan for the weekend was to try to get together with Brad & Marlo before their new baby arrived, so Owen and Mia could give each other a little pep talk about being big siblings soon. Andrew & Claire and their son Luke were also joining us, and we all were planning on meeting for brunch Sunday morning followed by an outing to Wheaton Park. The weather was gorgeous, and we were about to head out the door when the phone rang. Brad was calling with a slight change of plans: James Benjamin Brown (Ben for short -- going by his middle name just like his daddy) was born a little after 6 Sunday morning and so the Browns would have to take a rain-check. We're extremely excited for the Brown family, and we can't wait to see the new baby. We'll put up a link to Dia de Mia (their now misnamed blog;-) as soon as there are pictures. Owen was disappointed we wouldn't be seeing Mia, but he was very excited that she is a big sister now -- though he's decided he's content to wait until after his birthday for big brotherdom. With Brad and Marlo otherwise occupied, we met up with Andrew, Claire and Luke at Woodside Deli for a lovely brunch, and then drove over to Wheaton Park, which turned out to be a little boy's paradise. There was a gigantic two story slide, that was part of a massive old-school wooden playground complex; a train that took us on a very scenic ride through the woods; and a carousel with a zebra for Owen to ride! Owen had a great time playing with Luke, and we'll have to be sure to go back to Wheaton Park sometime soon.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Eugenia Mary Mettenburg

Eugenia Mary Mettenburg (not McConnel as Joe wrote in his first email, which would have been a particularly odd choice since Cate's last name is Mconnell with two l's), 6 pounds 11.8 ounces and 20.5 inches long, was born forty minutes past midnight on Saturday October 6, 2007. We're very excited for Joe & Cate, and we can't wait to meet Gigi! Now we just need to convince Cate (one of our blog's most loyal readers) to post lots of pictures ;-)

Dylan Avery Williams

Congratulations to Matt and Cecily Williams on the arrival of their son, Dylan Avery, at 2:40 p.m on August 14th. Weighing in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces, a height of 20.5 inches and for those keeping score, 33 Scrabble points, Dylan enjoys a fresh diaper, cuddling and Biz Markie.

Other Peoples' Baby News

Way back in the post about our trip to St. Louis and baby (girl it turns out) Mettenburg, we mentioned that there was even more baby news to be had, but that it was too much for a single entry and would have to wait for a future post. Almost two months later, we're finally getting around to detailing our friends' well, if not "news" then at least their parental status. Besides, now we have pictures.

Our friends from grad school, John & Amy, welcomed Matilda Jean Diggelman on March 30th. John claimed that Matilda was a sound sleeper from the start, but a subsequent note from Amy in early May exclaiming that Matilda had finally slept four hours in a row suggests otherwise. Apparently only John was sleeping soundly in those early days.


My college roommate Cecily and her husband Matt announced that they're expecting baby boy Williams on Owen's first birthday. While I think baby Leos are the best (especially baby boy Leos), I feel a little bad that Cec will also have to experience being nine months pregnant in August. Hopefully, Portland is more temperate than DC, or else Cec is less temperamental than me.


Finally our friend from grad school, Travis, and his wife Abby welcomed Jonathon Travis Warziniack on May 10th (or thereabouts). We don't have many details, but thought this picture was too cute not to post.

Meet me in St. Louis

Where to begin? This past weekend Owen reached several new milestones, we heard exciting baby news from several friends, and we flew to St. Louis to visit our good friends Joe & Cate. All this was too much excitement to fit into one post, so I'll start out by writing about our trip to St. Louis.

We hadn't seen Joe & Cate since they moved from Charlottesville to St. Louis last May (which also meant we hadn't played bridge in all that time), so Elaine and I decided we needed to squeeze a trip to the show me state into our busy spring. Thankfully, Joe's mini vacation before starting his radiology residency coincided with one of our free weekends, and we jumped at the chance for a visit.

Joe & Cate's new home is adorable, but our favorite part of the whole tour was this little unfinished room in the attic, which is going to be baby Mettenburg's nursery! That's right, Joe & Cate are expecting a baby on October 1st (or as Cate likes to say, late September since October sounds so far away). Elaine had suspected for a while based on a few clues Cate let slip, but that was only fair given how early Joe & Cate figured out that Elaine was expecting.

The exciting news gave Owen a chance to break in the parents-to-be. He wasted no time sharing his adorable side with plenty of smiles, and not one but two developmental milestones! Leaving his endearing "beached whale" scooting phase in the past, Owen took his first few legitimate crawling steps. As if that weren't enough, he also perfected sitting up from a prone or supine position. We've known for a few days that he could do this, since we've found him sitting up in his crib at night, but he finally demonstrated his new move in front of us.

The rest of our quick little trip was filled up with delicious food, torrential rain, Owen's first visit to a zoo, and plenty of bridge. The next time we'll see Joe & Cate will be at the beach, when Cate should be showing, and Kaden can chime in on the parenting lessons.

(click here to see all the pictures)

Mia Alena Brown

Congratulations are in order for our good friends Brad and Marlo! Mia Alena Brown was born this morning at 12:12 am on February 25th. She was an impressive 7lbs, 14 ozs and 20 inches long! Marlo went into the hospital for an induction at 8 am yesterday, so I'm sure the Brown family is all trying to get some much deserved rest.

I'll update this post when I hear more.

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Update - Here's a picture of the happy family!

Congratulations!

Last week the anti-Owen was born to our friends Tracey and Nathan. Satya Effie Cook was born several days early in the Southern hemisphere after a two-hour labor involving no drugs. The only commonality between the two births is that neither Tracey nor I got dessert the night labor began (though Tracey at least got dinner).

For those of you that don’t know the Cooks, Tracey is one of my college roommates. After college graduation she went to teach English in Japan for a year where she fell in love first with Asia and then with an Australian adventurer named Nathan. Together they organized the trip to Bali where Allen and I got engaged. They had their son Kailash in India, got married in Thailand and had Satya in Australia.

Satya’s arrival is a bit of a relief for us as so far, all of our friends that have had kids in the past year have had boys (Kelly & Channing, Bill & Katherine, Teresa & Mike, my cousin Joyce & Brian, my cousin Katie & Dennis all recently had sons, and our friends Eric & Kathryn and Allen’s cousin Thomas & Jen are all expecting sons in December) making the perpetuation of the species, let alone Owen’s dating prospects, worrisome (not that we would advocate Owen dating any of his second cousins). Satya’s appearance suggests that maybe the winds are shifting and gender equanimity will return, though it would be convenient if they shifted stateside.

Oh well, there’s always Suri Cruise…

Owen Grady Fawcett

Yesterday (August 20th, 2006), at 2:50 pm Owen Grady Fawcett joined our family. Defying the dire predictions from our sonogram, he was 7 lbs 15 ozs, and 20 1/2 inches long. He was born via Cesarean section, and mom and baby are both doing well.

Our good friend Nabeel over at Start-Up Dad got the scoop with the first picture of Owen online, and a day later, here's a bit more of the story. If you don't want to read me droning on about all the details, you can skip to the good stuff at the bottom of the post were there is a link to all the pictures.

On Friday, Elaine went to the doctor's office, and she said that Elaine was only dilated 1 cm (which was 1 cm less than the previous week!), so she went ahead and scheduled an induction for Tuesday, August 22nd. At this point we were pretty convinced the baby was never going to come on its own, all the crazy new due dates the sonograms had indicated had long since come and gone, and having already been on the edges of our seats for over three weeks, Tuesday couldn't come soon enough.

So on Saturday, Elaine and her mom went to see 'Little Miss Sunshine' and I took Elaine's dad sailing with Don and Brad & Marlo. We all had lovely afternoons, I'm told the movie was great, and the wind and weather were perfect for a wonderful sail. That evening we all converged on Mom's house for grilled salmon and peach & blueberry cobbler. However, right as the salmon was coming off of the grill at about 7:15, Elaine's water broke!

We took a little time to decide that it actually must of been her water breaking, and then called the doctor's office. The advice nurse told us to have Elaine lay on her side for an hour and call back to tell them if the towel under her was soaked. So we had Elaine lie down, and I started wolfing down some delicious bbq salmon. A few minutes later, the nurse called back and told us that the doctor wanted us to just head right in to the hospital. I inhaled some cobbler, we rushed down to our place to pick up the bags, drove over to the hospital timing Elaine's contractions at about 7 minutes apart, and checked in a little after 9:00 pm.

The resident that examined Elaine found that she was still only dilated 1 cm. Then she preformed several tests to verify that Elaine's water had indeed broken, but they all were coming up negative, so she talked to the attending physician, and he requested that Elaine walk the halls for two hours with a pad to try to verify the presence of amniotic fluid. This of course annoyed Elaine to no end, since she clearly knew that her water had broken, one of the test was ridiculously painful, and each hour she had to walk around was another hour without any pain medication to help with the contractions.

At 12:15 am, after walking the halls for an hour, we decide to go back to the labor & delivery room and tell them Elaine wasn't going to walk the halls any more. Her contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasting over a minute, and becoming very painful. Another resident checked her pad, and immediately could tell that Elaine's water had indeed broken, so they finally officially admitted her. They gave her some medication for pain and nausea, which helped some and at least allowed her to rest between contractions, and measured her cervix at 3 cms. At about 3 am, after Elaine's blood work came back, they finally gave her an epidural to help with the pain. This really helped Elaine sleep, but I was pretty much up for the night.

As a little aside, I really can't imagine how women that go through child birth without any medication can manage it. I've heard plenty of arguments for natural child birth that I won't link to here, because I don't want to start any debates about it in this forum, but for Elaine, the epidural was amazing. It took away all the pain, and let her actually sleep, saving her energy for what was to come. Before the epidural, I'd be watching the contraction monitor and it felt like riding a roller coaster. We'd ride up to the top of each peak with Elaine's vice like grip squeezing my hand, and I'd desperately watch for a slight dip in the monitor that would indicate her pain was about to subside. Each contraction was a traumatic event that seemed to stretch out time, and the thought of continuing this for 15 more hours was unimaginable. After the epidural, the pain went away, and I'd watch the same contractions on the monitor, and it's as if they were gentle waves that simply were rocking Elaine to sleep. She was relaxed, and the contractions could do their work without Elaine tensing up and resisting them. That being said, there were certainly times when the epidural would ware off, and I am incredibly impressed with how well Elaine did throughout the whole experience, I couldn't be prouder of her.

Around 7:00 am, the attending physician came in and found Elaine to be dilated 5 cms. He said that the contractions Elaine was experiencing were coming in overlapping waves that didn't let her fully recover between contractions, so they were not being as effective as they could be. He adjusted her pitocin dosage and watched as her contractions spaced out into a more effective rhythm.

By 9:00 am Elaine was dilated 7 cms, but after that things began to stall. At 12:30 pm, the new attending physician checked and found she was only 8 cms. The contractions were strong and in a good pattern, so he said if things were going to progress, she should have been dilating another centimeter each hour. He gave us the choice between going right in for a C-section, or trying for another hour, and we decided to try for another hour. At 1:30 pm, Elaine was still only 8 cms, so they began prepping for the Cesarean section. I went to the recovery room to get dressed in scrubs while they took Elaine to the O.R. to prep her for surgery. After she was prepped, they brought me into the O.R. and sat by Elaine's head as they began the operation.

It wasn't long before I saw a little purple cone-headed creature emerge from behind the screen at 2:50 pm. They suctioned out his airways, and as he began to cry my tears joined him. He quickly turned form purple to pink, and after the pediatrician checked him out and the nurse cleaned up his poop and swaddled him, I held my baby for the first time. They still need to finish the operation, so for the next twenty minutes I held Owen near Elaine's head so she could see him, and bonded with my son. It's hard to describe the emotions of holding your child for the first time, but there is something very intense and primal about it. The same instincts that helped our distant ancestors protect their offspring in the wild are with us today, and as I held Owen and looked into his eyes I was overcome with feelings of love and an urge to protect this helpless little guy from all the dangers of the world.

After they sewed up Elaine, they put Owen on her chest and mom and baby were together again. They wheeled her out to the recovery room, and both of Owen's grandmothers were there waiting with tears in their eyes, smiles on their faces, and cameras in hand.

I'll leave the story here for now, and let the pictures that follow and the many phone calls with family and friends document the rest of the day. I'm off to hold my son...

click here to see all the pictures.

(Note: some of the baby pictures are only viewable by friends and family. In order to see these pictures, you need to have a flickr account, and I need to mark you as one of my friends or family contacts. To sign up for a flickr account (it's free), click here, then if you already have a Yahoo! account, sign in with your user name and password, if not, then click on the "sign up" link. Once you're logged into your account click here to view my profile, and in the upper right hand portion of the page click on "add allen fawcett as a contact." On the next page, check the "Mark as a friend? (optional)" or "Mark as a family? (optional)" check boxes and then click the "ok" button.)

click here to see mom's pictures.

The Baby Bug is Spreading

Congratulations to our friends Channing and Kelly down in Austin, they have a new healthy nine pound baby boy! We're sure he'll grow up to be every bit the rock star that his dad is. Congratulations are also in order for our Houston friends Bill & Katherine, they called the other day with a little bit of exciting news, they're expecting a baby too! Katherine is due about two weeks after Elaine, so it's nice that Elaine has a friend going through some of the same things.

We've been thinking about going back to Texas in May to visit folks, and there certainly would be some great photo opportunities, but Elaine's not sure she'll be up for flying that late in the pregnancy. Last weekend we flew up to Boston with Joe & Cate to visit Nabeel, Megan, and Kaden as well as Billy, and the flight was a bit rough. 55 mph wind gusts in Boston forced us to circle for almost an hour with some heavy turbulence, and that quickly disabused Elaine of the notion that the she left the morning sickness behind with the first trimester.

Despite the rough flight, we had a great time in Boston. It was fun seeing Kaden again, and I don't care what CBS news says, it really was exciting to see him up and walking around. (I won't get into the whole daddy blog debate here, you can follow the links and read all about it over at Start-Up Dad or Daddy Types. Needless to say this blog is simply designed to share pictures and stories with family and friends, not to earn a million dollars or impress CBS). Billy served up a served up a bounty of McDonalds and donuts for Sunday brunch (thankfully he also made omelets). We played some poker, visited some museums, and toured Nabeel and Megan's new house. Of course that's now set off our own home search back here in DC, but that's a whole different story.

(click here to see my pictures from Boston, or here for the slideshow)
(click here to see Nabeel's pictures, or here for the slideshow)