The One Unchangeable Certainty: July 2008

Over the past 3 weeks that Landon has been with us, he's had lots of adoring visitors and he's even been on a few outings...

After a successful practice mini-outing to the mall and Babies R Us, I gained some confidence and decided that with help, Landon and I could venture further outside of our house.

Our little traveler has already visited another state. My mom, sister, Landon, and I spent an afternoon in Philadelphia. It was an adventure for us all and a learning experience for me as I am trying to expand my comfort level with nursing in different situations. He was a real trooper and slept through lunch, a visit to the Besty Ross House and Elfreth's Alley. Then after feeding him he slept some more as we visited Ben Franklin's Courtyard, the Liberty Bell, and posed for pictures in front of Independence Hall. He even had a mini-milestone while in Philly... he lost that last little part of his umbilical cord while Auntie was changing him in the backseat of the car on Market St.

Ready for his big Philly adventure

After such a great day in Philly, we decided he was ready for his first sit-down restaurant. We went at 3 in the afternoon so there would be very few other people, and we squeezed it in between 2 feedings, but once again Landon proved to be a great little sleeper and slept through lunch.

With Landon proving to be such an accomodating and adventurous new born, we thought heck, why not try a winery. In true new born fashion, Landon slept through the winery, and the restaurant afterward.

After all the visitors left, things have been more low key. I'm learning how manage everything at home without help and I'm enjoying every minute with my new little man!

Landon Meets Grandpa

3 Generations of Clarks

Play time with Momma

IT'S A BOY!

For all of you that haven't heard we have a baby. He was born 3 July 2008 at exactly 8:41pm. This sounds inauspiscious but we are super duper excited about that date. First off it was the 3rd, which is the date both mommy and daddy were born, and secondly our anniversary is the 3rd of July as well which is really cool. The only problem with the anniversary thing is that we never get to celebrate by ourselves again, but now we get to celebrate something better, our babies birthday. So along with Fireworks we now get birthday cake every year on our anniversary. Well I guess I better get down to the real deal with this posting.

On Monday 30 June Lisa went into the OB's office and we found out that we are still pregnant and baby was still super healthy. We had an Ultrasound and fetal heart rate monitor which the baby took at the exact wrong time. For the heart rate monitor the baby is supposed to be calm and still but he kept moving and it was hard to get a very definite answer. Its not bad that he was moving, movement is a very good sign, but they we never able to tell if the heart rate was responding to movement, so they scheduled an Ultrasound for the same evening. We went back for the ultrasound and the baby is supposed to move, but as if on cue the baby took his first nap of the afternoon and he hardly moved. So we waited and waited and finally he moved just a little but that was good enough. During the waiting time we saw him breathe and his eyes were blinking, which was cool. At this point still unsure of his sex, we both thought we might have seen a wee willie winkie, but the tech assured us it could still be either or so we were still uncertain.

After hearing the baby was doing well the doctor suggested getting induced on the 1st, well that was a little too fast for us so we decided to push it back to getting induced on the 2nd. 24 hours is a big deal when dealing with the life of your first child. So we waited another couple days and then we started calling the hospital. The 2nd was crazy with birhting mothers so the induction got pushed to the morning of the 3rd, the day we always wanted and hoped for. We went for it.

Lisa came in bright eyed and ready for baby and holy cow was she. The labor was really fast for a first time mother, she was only in labor for 11 hours total and only had to puch for 1 hour and 40 minutes to get the little baby out. We first found out he was a little baby boy when the nurse exclaimed "Oh, I think I see testicles!" The real test came later that night and the next day when we had to choose a name. Wow, we were so surprised to see him we couldn't decide on a name.

We had thought for 41 weeks about names but now it was real. How could we possibly name a little person. This is the name he will have forever (read like the little boy in Sandlot...Forever, forevvvveeerrr, foreveeerrrr). So we came up with two choices and let the world decide for us. We were undecided between Harrison and Landon. Harrison had been on "the list" for a while, but Landon wasn't even an option until we were flipping through the baby name book in the delivery room. It was down to the wire when we learned that the birth certificate lady was leaving in an hour and if we wanted a birth certificate, he needed a name. We ended up taking a poll. We called family and some of our closests friends. Even a few nurses got a vote, and in the end we chose Landon James Clark.

The stats are Landon James, 7 lbs 14 oz, 20.5 in. Landon is healthy and a wonderful baby, Momma Lisa is doing great, and Dad is over the moon. Well my verbosity is at its end. Enjoy the pictures...

Hello World