I thought that I should post a little about the lessons that I have learned in hopes that it comes in handy for those about to have a new baby. Here they are listed, not in any particular order:
1. Bring a sleeping bag - hospital blankets are crap and wouldn't keep you warm in hell. Also, your wifes hormones are all messed up and they want it cold...real cold.
2. Bring your own pillow - unless you are a fan of the Lay's brand pillows (thin). I folded the one I had four times and it still wasn't enough support.
3. This whole experience has nothing to do with the guy, but that being said you are going to be the servant for the next.....I have no idea. You will also be required to get up and get things a lot, and I do mean a lot. Don't forget this time is not about you, it is about your wife.
4. You will not get any sleep. Accept it, move on.
5. Everyone's baby that you see while walking through the hall isn't nearly as cute as yours.
6. You are going to see things that you will never forget. Ever.
7. The panties that they make your wife wear, aren't what you wished they would be. Also, they don't like it when you ask are they a G-string. It seems nurses, wifes, and anything female bond together at this time and really don't like "funny" males.
8. Bring slippers - you will be required to run and get more ice water, at all hours of the night.
9. On the day of the baby arriving, plan on it being a really long day. Really long.
10. Have snacks / food available for when your wife is in labor, but (read this carefully) Do Not Eat or Bring Food around Her. She can smell it, and she can't have any.
11. When you are really tired, done all that there is to do, and you finally lay your head down for a little shut eye time, you will have to get up 2 seconds later because of a crying baby or something else. (maybe to fluff a pillow)
12. You will not be able to hear the TV, and there will be nothing on worth watching.
Today is the day that Ellorah met her little sister.
I went home this morning to bring Ellorah down to the hospital to meet her new little sister. When we first opened the hospital room door, Ellorah was real excited to see her Mommy, but not too pleased to see her holding a new little baby.
Ellorah was interested in Nohea at first, and wanted to sit beside Mommy and look at the baby, and then reality set in.
Ellorah was a big help when we went on our walk around the hospital floor. Ellorah helped push her little sister. We have a video of that, which I will post soon. I was a little afraid that she would be looking to push her down some stairs or out the door, but we wouldn't let her do that.
It is going to be interesting to see her come around, but as of now, Ellorah isn't really interested in Mommy or Daddy holding Nohea. I was holding Nohea, and Ellorah was telling me to let Pepaw hold Nohea. Mommy was even told to put the baby in the crib and not to hold her anymore.
Well the first full day with Nohea was a quite pleasant one. I am hoping we are not in for any suprises tonight, but after last night it really doesn't matter.
After having the baby yesterday, Mistie and Nohea had to hang out in recovery until 12:30am, and then we were transferred over to the postpartum room. This is the room that we will stay in until they allow us to go home. So by the time we where allowed to go to our "home away from home", we were all worn out. One would think that we would all be tired and in need of some rest, but the nurses and the med techs that work nights had other plans. I understand that they play extremely important roles, but from a worn out Dad's perspective, it seems that they think it is funny and some sort of initiation into parenthood. It starts off by the shift nurse helping you get into the room, and understand where everything is, then they say something like, "go ahead and get some rest, and we will check in on you through out the night, but we will be quite and you will be able to sleep". In reality what happens is they wait patiently outside your room until the lights go out then they like to start knocking on the door and then come in and check on you. They say stuff like, "Are you guys sleeping?", "I just need to know if you want your medicine now or in 30mins", "I just wanted to ensure you are resting...do you need anything?". Then the door slams and you are suppose to go back to sleep, for another 7-15 minutes before they come back again and repeat the same 'keep 'em tired' tatics. I would prefer that they did it more military style and kick a trash can into the room yelling "Get up" and firing a 50cal machine gun into the air. At least then I wouldn't be suckered into thinking that they are here to nurse us back to 100% health so we can be ready to take the new baby home and do it ourselves.
The husband sleeping arrangments here at Baylor are far different then that of Plano Presby. At Plano Presby, it was a hard couch that seemed to attempt at breaking your back while you rested on it. Here at Baylor, I would love to have that couch, instead of this crappy fold out chair-bed. It is almost like they built the room, bought an expensive bed for the mother, and then were like..."oh yeah, the Dads.". Which this would explain why my chair bed was out in the hallway when we first go into our room. I managed to move it into our room and put it to some use. I have been through the Navy's SERE school and I am aware of some military tatics that are used to get information, but I don't think the military is aware that this chair-bed exists or I would have seen it in SERE school or at the very least breaking news out of Guantanmo and some prison camp. While I am typing this post, I have thoughts running through my head wondering if I will even be able to stand up at the break of dawn tomorrow. We will see.
The day went great and Nohea has been the perfect little angel. Mistie allowed me to go "Skin to Skin" with Nohea, and that has to be the best thing about having a baby. If you never have experienced taking your shirt off and having a little baby sleep on your chest, then I am sorry, you are missing out.
Mistie has been getting up and moving around, which is a positive sign. I have to keep telling her that she had major surgery and that her stomach is only being held together by stiches so she needs to slow down and take it easy. I guess in the "super Mom" handbook it doesn't point out this small inconvenience. If you have a cape, nothing else matters - it seems.
Tomorrow, Ellorah is going to meet her little sister. We are curious to see how that goes. I know Mistie and I will be glad to see her.
Nohea Memphis Snowden 7lb 10oz - 19" tall born at 9:31pm
Nohea (pronounced: No hey ya) was born via a C section, and when they pulled her out the cord was wrapped all around her legs, so I don't know if that is what prevented her from coming out or not, but I am sure glad to finally meet her.
Mistie is doing fine, and like always was a hard trooper. She always seems to impress me with her strong will.
The Doctor just got through checking Mistie, and everything is progressing. She is now a 7, and the doctors are going to be monitoring the babies heart rate over the next hour. If she keeps progressing and the babies heart rate stables out, then they will allow us to continue on, if not the C word has come up a couple of times.
Today is the day! We had a bright and early appointment this morning to get things moving along. Started at 6 am with the ceremonial breaking of the water bag in hopes to get things moving. So far, so good. Mistie is at 5cm but seems to be stalling out. To get it moving along, they have suggested a small dosage of pitocin and will re-evaluate in 2 hrs.
Nope. Still no baby yet. Baby girl baking is currently 5 days past her due date. Will she ever decide to grace us with her presence? My midwife assures me she will come out eventually. We go back tomorrow for a biophysical profile/sonogram check, if all is well, she will let me stay pregnant until next Monday! That's almost a whole 'nother week! Egads! We will see what happens. If things don't look as well as they should on the profile, we will talk about our options. So, will let you know what we find out tomorrow! In light of that...here are some suggestions well meaning folks have given me to "get the process started":
Do squats Ride around on bumpy roads a lot Eat pineapple? Walk Walk up and down stairs Do Lunges Eat a spicy meal Laugh a lot Rest and don't think about it! Have sex! Drink lots of water Take castor oil (yuck!)
I'll let you know when I get desperate enough to try all these. Until then, we'll keep you posted!
When I first got Elvis, he was a handful. He loved to chew on everything, piss on everything, and play. That is what those days were made of. He used to wake me up in the mornings after a long night of working at the Midnight Rodeo by dropping a slobbery, chewed pig ear in my face and once he saw my eyes open, would immediately start chewing on my hands.
When we lived in Amarillo, we would always go to the park and play fetch. We even got enrolled in obedience training, which turned into attending the Amarillo Search and Rescue trainings. Elvis at a little over 6 months could find me hiding behind a wall, in a culvert, and even in a car trunk. He used to love playing “hide and seek”.
The Kong was his favorite toy, one time we bought several kongs and gave one to everyone. Once we all were outside, he started going crazy for one kong, then someone else would pull out their kong, and then another, Elvis didn’t know what order he was going to get all 6 or 7 kongs in, but he knew he would get them all. We even tied all the kongs to the fence, thinking he wouldn’t be able to get all of them, after a little while, we went outside only to find all of the kongs where missing from the fence except the ropes. Elvis had pulled every kong off its rope and only the rope was hanging from the fence.
It didn’t matter where you threw the kong, he would run after it. You could throw it in the water, mud, as far as you could, and he still would go after it and bring it back. He was a good protector. I have heard from a few people that he liked to show his teeth if he wasn’t expecting anyone home during the day. One time when Mistie and I were living in Valley Ranch, I came home late and it was really dark in the apartment. I pushed the bedroom door open to enter the bedroom and Elvis started growling the serious kind of growl. I quickly spoke up to let him know it was me. I don’t think Mistie was ever afraid having Elvis in the house with her. I know he always watched over his family.
Elvis helped us meet our good friends Carmel and Kris Helsley down in Houston. Carmel and Kris have a black Labrador named Camden, which Elvis and Camden became good friends too. We all used to go to this huge park and throw the toys. There was a creek that we used to throw the kong into and have both Elvis and Camden run and play in the water.
When riding in any car, Elvis always liked sitting right next to me. In my pickup, Elvis would sit extremely close and just look out the windows. He was even known to get special treats as I would go through a drive through window. Typically, the girl taking orders would be like, does your dog like chicken nuggets? He would score so much.
When we brought Ellorah home from the hospital, we were a little afraid on how he would react. When Ellorah would start crying he would get all nervous, and bring his toy to her thinking it would calm her. He did play ball with Ellorah several times, being real gentle and allowing her to take the ball from his mouth and say “Mine”.
One time, in Houston Mistie and I took Elvis out to do his business. He was very particular about walking on the grass, and eventually did his business. I don’t remember exactly why, but I poked his poop with a big stick. Well, as curious as Elvis was he wanted to know what was on the end of the stick. I offered the end of the stick for Elvis to smell, which he did, and quickly made a noise from his mouth like someone would make when they shrug their shoulders in disgust, and let out a small exhale of breath like that was the most disgusting thing ever and why would you put that in my face to smell. I still laugh, when I think of that.
When I worked at the Midnight Rodeo, I would work sometimes during the day to make some extra money. The manager during the day was real dog friendly, and would let me bring Elvis up and let him run around the dance hall while I worked. I was working, and noticed that Elvis took a huge dump in the middle of the dance floor. I had to quickly clean it up before anyone else saw it. After that, I could honestly say I saw everything in that place.
Elvis was a great lifeguard. He did not like anyone jumping in the pool or running around the pool. If I would jump in the pool, he would immediately jump in after me. He loved playing fetch in the pool, having to jump in the water and swim to the ball.
I Houston, Elvis was known at the local Marble Slab Creamery, where many nights he would get to eat his own ice cream cone.
Elvis’s tail was known to clean off a many low tables, knock kids in the head, and hit any and everything. I would say that his tail gave him the energy to do everything else.
Elvis would place his nose in your face while you were sleeping and give a “bbrrr” noise to wake you up. There is nothing like waking up with a big cold wet nose in your face. If you hung your foot off the edge of the bed, Elvis would walk back and forth, just so that it would rub his back. When you would rub his back, he had a tendency to wiggle and back up towards you so you would keep rubbing his back. Mistie made up a song and would sing it to him while he was wiggling around. The song went like this: “You’re a big fine puppy, why don’t you back that thing up, back that thing up”
The stories could go on and on, and I probably haven’t even told the best ones. Elvis was a great friend and huge part of the family. He would always greet you at the door, happy to see you, and would put a smile on your face when you felt down. He is a very special dog and he is truly missed.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of his wagging tail, and all the joy he has brought to me and my family.
