Visiting the Platts

Sleeping on Ben

Sleeping with Marlan








By the way - Happy 30th Ilene! Greg got her a diamond ring for her birthday. Do you like? He got it at DiamondNexusLabs.com

Another Painting -

I title this one, "Waiting for Toby".

It is a study of the artist Chris Donovan.

Toby's First BYU Football Game

Saturday Week in Review

Things are going well for our newest family member. He doesn't like to sleep by himself, but if daddy will hold him in the crook of his arm, he'll sleep halfway through the night. I find that I can actually rest in that position, and it's easier than sleeping with him fussing or sleeping with the light on (which is the other way he can sleep, poor, backwards kid).

Ilene is a trooper. I don't know why we use that particular epithet to describe someone who faces challenges well. Or perhaps, now that I think about it, I do. Anyway, Ilene is a trooper. Feeding is getting easier for her. I can tell that it doesn't hurt her quite as much anymore. She doesn't wince everytime Toby latches on, and she doesn't usually do the little chant to relax and convince her body to let the milk flow. In fact, she actually is leaking half the time these days--which is a small annoyance, but isn't nearly as bad as not being able to get things going, as she had problems mid-week. And she is getting used to all those motherly things she needs to do everyday now, taking care of Toby while I'm at work.

I think the worst is behind us. By which I mean the pains and the adjustments to family-life. Not the taking care of our infant, which is not the worst because it is not bad.

I've been playing with our blog, and you'll notice, if you care to, that I have combined my blog and Ilene's blog into this one. We've also added a feature where you can subscribe via email that I am testing right now, and I think should work. So if you'd be interested in receiving emails from the blog with the latest news, please, just enter your email in the box at the right.

The Long Version

To those of you who I know are devoted readers...a very elite group, I might add...I apologize for taking so long to post on the birth of my new baby boy! Most of you, however, I contacted by phone. And for anyone I may have neglected to contact, please forgive me for the oversight--it's been an eventful week!

I also would have liked to blog this earlier, but unfortunately there was no internet access at the hospital. I would have had to leave the hospital to post, and well, priorities.

So, here's the story:

Saturday night, October 6th, Ilene started having "cramps" around 5 p.m. After hearing a few complaints about these cramps, I decided I should probably check to see if they were rhythmic. Up to that point I had heard about the cramps on occasion, but it seemed like I was hearing about them frequently. (When I say complaints, Ilene would really just say "ouch" or "ah!"). So I started tracking them about 7:00 that night, and they were consistently 5-6 minutes apart. I suspected that the mystery cramps were really contractions, but Ilene said the pain was only mild, so I held off taking her into the hospital.

At 3:30 Sunday morning, Ilene awoke with a fairly painful "cramp". I decided that this was probably labor, so I got up, got showered and shaved, dressed, and had Ilene get dressed, too. I told her I thought we should probably walk around a bit because if it was labor, as I suspected, it would help to hurry things up, and if it was false labor, as Ilene thought, it would probably help the pains subside.

So we went to Walmart to walk around, because it was very cold that morning, and there's no other place in town that's open 24 hours. Well, it turns out the Vernal Walmart isn't open 24 hours either. We got there at 5:00, but it doesn't open until 6:00. However, one of the employees was on his way in, and we explained the situation to him, and he let us in to walk around. We were approached a few times asking what we were doing, but everyone there was very friendly and once they knew what we were doing, they had no qualms about letting us wander around.

In the meantime, I kept track of the "cramps" on my PDA. I kept a record of the time of the occurrence, the duration, and the severity of pain. The "cramps" were coming about every 2-3 minutes, and when the pain level started to reach upwards of a 7 out of 10, I decided it was time to go to the hospital. We left Walmart at about 6:50 a.m.

When we arrived at the hospital, a nurse took Ilene into an exam room. She examined Ilene quickly and determined that she had dilated to 3 cm, but that her water had not broken. She hooked Ilene up to a couple machines to determine whether or not Ilene was in labor. Then the nurse asked if Ilene had eaten, and she had not. So, she suggested that that would probably be a good time to eat, because if labor came on, she probably wouldn't have a chance to eat until after the baby was born. So I took the car and went to Smith's for bagels and jam and apple juice.

On my way back, I got a call from Ilene, just as I was pulling into the hospital parking lot.

By way of tangent, I am so glad to live in the era of cell phones.

I told her I was almost back, and within a minute or so I was back in the exam room. Ilene was on the verge of tears because she had "peed the bed". I took a look, and sure enough, there was a yellow-tinted liquid, in which she was sitting, all over the bed. We called a nurse in to help (the call button for the nurse had been too far away for Ilene to reach, so she hadn't been able to do it earlier).

The nurse came in to help and Ilene apologized profusely for peeing the bed. The nurse simply laughed it off, but it was traumatic for Ilene, who was embarrassed to the point of tears. Another nurse came into the room, took one look and one sniff and declared that Ilene's water had broken and that Ilene had made their decision of whether to keep her or send her home very easy, and they moved us into a delivery room.

Over the next couple of hours, Ilene had strong and frequent contractions. We were moved into the delivery room between 8:30 and 9:00. By 11:00 Ilene had moved to 8 cm dilated. The contractions were getting to the point where she was not able to handle them when the Anesthesiologist arrived to give her the epidural. She warned Ilene that there could be some scraping along the discs as she inserted the needle, due to Ilene's smaller stature, and that she had to stay very very still. But, fortunately, Ilene reports that none of that occurred, so she was able to hold completely still without any problems.

The epidural seemed like a miracle to Ilene. The pain subsided immediately, but there was really no loss of use of Ilene's legs. She was able to move them without problem, although they were a little shaky. We asked the anesthesiologist about this, and she told us that that is how she administers epidurals...killing the pain but not applying it so heavy as to deaden the legs.

In retrospect, we wish that she had done it a bit heavier.

As helpful as the epidural was in relieving Ilene's pain, it proved to be a disaster. Ilene had gone from 3 to 8 cm in only 2 hours. But the epidural seemed to stop her in her tracks. For the next 5 hours, not a thing happened. The nurse had said that they had applied the epidural just before she was to begin pushing, but there was no pushing to come for hours.

In some ways this was good because our doctor had been away at a conference and his flight landed in Salt Lake at about 8:00 that morning. He was driving back as fast as he could go, but it wasn't likely that he would get back in time to deliver the baby. The nurse even contacted the on-call doctor to let him know he would probably have to come in.

But Ilene was stalled. Our Doctor, Dr. Anderson, called at about 1:00 to let us know that he had made it back into town, and to see if Ilene had delivered. The nurse informed him that she had not, and said she would call as soon as Ilene started to push. But Ilene stayed stalled for a long time. In fact, she didn't reach the pushing stage until after 4:00.

The second part of the epidural disaster happened then. There was still plenty of medication left in the syringe, but Ilene started to feel the pain of the contractions again. The anesthesiologist pumped another syringe full of what she said was a stronger medication into Ilene's IV, but to no avail. The pain simply did not go away.

So, just as Ilene began pushing, the full pains of labor came on. I did my best to help her focus on her breathing, and the nurses and doctor did the same. It nearly broke me to see Ilene in the pain that she was enduring and to force her back into focusing on breathing and pushing. But I had to keep steady to help her, so I was fine.

When the baby came out, per our request, they immediately took him and towelled him off and got him cleaned up. I cut the cord, but then they took him away. Ilene couldn't handle the stress of holding a sticky, slimy baby (for those of you who don't know, she's a bit of a germophobe, but not in the traditional way).

It took the better part of an hour to get Ilene all stitched up and back in a more comfortable position on the bed. During that process I was at Ilene's side the entire time. They laid our new baby boy in the warmer (is it just me or do those things seem like the sandwich warmer at McDonald's?), several feet from me. I was able to keep an eye on him, but Ilene needed me there, pinching her hands to help her cope with the pain (something which I did throughout the pushing stages).

At one point they brought the baby over for Ilene to see, but Ilene was crying so much that she demanded they take the baby away, because she didn't "want him to see me like this".

At last, they brought the baby over and we got to meet our little Toby for the first time.

I'll pass on the details of the rest of the time we spent at the hospital, because it's pretty standard and relatively boring. Sufficeth to say that we have a boy who is so much calmer and so much sweeter than most of the babies I've known, and no, that's not just a proud daddy talking. I was actually amazed that he didn't cry more.

After we got him home, Toby seemed to turn a little yellow. Fearing Jaundice, we took him back to the hospital for a bilireuben test on Wednesday. His level was 12.5 (which really means nothing to me except by comparison). So the doctor asked to have us go in the next day. He checked his weight (only 2 oz. less than his birth weight, which is up quite a bit) and his size, and his color. He seemed to think things were headed in the right direction, but asked us to go back to get another bilireuben test. We did, and today we learned that his level had risen to 13.6.

So, once again, today, the doctor had us go in to get another test done, today to see if it had risen to dangerous levels which would constitute treatment. I am happy to report, though, that the level has fallen to a 9.5, so, we're out of the woods.

A couple things of note. I have the greatest job. The city allowed me to save up some time from work at meetings, etc. over the past couple of months, which has allowed me to be away from work for the first 4 days this week. I also was able to do a couple of important, time-sensitive tasks for work on my work laptop while at the hospital so that I could be with my family without getting behind. That has been one of the greatest things.

And my coworkers are so wonderful. The first evening back from the hospital (Tuesday night), two of them, Denise and Nikki, came to visit, bearing gifts. Denise also brought a fantastic dinner for Ilene and I and my parents. We are so grateful to them!

Additionally, our ward, and in particular, Ilene's visiting teachers were great, bringing us dinner on the two following nights. Both of them were warm and delicious meals which really helped us.

Ilene is back on her feet and moving around and working. I am having a bit of a struggle to get her to follow the doctor's orders to keep it to a minimum. She wants to be out walking and jogging off the "baby weight". But so far she's been good.

Toby is doing well. He likes to be awake at night and asleep during the day. But we found that if we keep a light on, he'll sleep at night. Last night Ilene was the one to get up with him when he needed attention, and she says that he slept for 4 straight hours. We hope to have him in a regular routine in a couple of weeks.

For those who care for the stats, here they are:

Toby was born at 5:05 p.m. on October 7, 2007. He weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. He was 20 inches long. He has a head-full of dark brown hair, and has dark brown eyes, which are slowly turning to a dark slate-gray, from the outside in.

And Now For the Excrutiating Details...

So on Saturday (oct 6) at around 5pm I started having contractions. They were really mild and the only way I could tell they were contractions were the fact that they came in regular intervals. We didn't want to get our hopes up - we went to bed.

At 4 am the contractions got stronger and closer. We decided to walk around Walmart and continue timing them. To my surprise (because I didnt' want to get my hopes up) they got stronger and closer still.

At 7am we decided to head to the hospital so the nurses could tell us definitely if it was labor or false labor. The nurse checked my cervix and found it was dilated to 3 centimeters, then left to set up the tests. Greg left also, buying us breakfast and getting a few things taken care of. Of course, what should happen next but all of a sudden I couldn't stop leaking all over the exam bed! I got so upset thinking I couldn't control my bladder and I couldn't reach my phone or the nurse button. So I sat there, miserable and in pain.

The nurse confirmed that I had broken my water and I was in fact in labor. Yay! I handled the contractions as long as I could, but eventually I asked for the anesthesiologist to give me the epidural. The nurse checked my cervix again and saw that I had dilated to 8 cm!

The epidural was wonderful! 5 hours later I was ready to push. Then I started to notice that I could feel the contractions again. Pretty soon they were excrutiating! They tried adding more medication, but it soon wore off too.

Well, it was the worst pain I ever had and if it weren't for great nurses, doctor, and Greg, I don't know what I would have done!

And now we have our Toby! Don't you think he's most perfect baby in the world?

He was worth it. Now I just have to learn how to take care of him.....

Finally!

Excrutiating details to follow....

Pernicious Absurdity

I recently posted a "Question" on my facebook account, free to all my friends to respond. I simply asked the question "who do you support in the 2008 election?" I was curious where my friends will land politically. I got the following response...no kidding.

"I am still undecided, There will be history made with a lot of them. First woman Pres? First black pres? or first LDS pres? I am still deciding who i support more. either Hilary or Romney??? I Dunno yet??? "

All I can think in my head is ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!?!?!

I can understand if someone says they support Obama, or Clinton, or Romney, or McCain or whomever they decide. Presumably there is something which each of these candidates either espouses or claims to espouse which is inviting to people. For instance, one may support H.C. based on the idea that her health care plan will save America. Regardless of whether it will or not, if a person believes that she is right, then they can support her. Someone may believe that M.R.'s plan to run the country like a business will make the U.S. economy stronger (whether this is intelligent or foolish) and so would support him.

But to support a candidate based on the RECORD THEY WOULD SET! This friend of mine might support Hillary or Romney, she says. But these two individuals are very nearly polar opposites when it comes to their core beliefs and intentions for the future of the country. How can anyone look at the two of them and say 'I could support either of these candidates'? I can only think of one reason, and that reason is indicated in the statement "There will be history made with a lot of them. First woman Pres? First black pres? or first LDS pres?" This voter is not deciding her candidate based on his/her ideas, but rather on the most shallow of possible details: the color of the skin and the organs of the body.

And this person will be voting.

Which is WHY, to all those of you who have asked, I do not support the idea that everyone in this country should be voting in elections. As I have stated to some of you, I do support the RIGHT to vote being given to everyone. But I believe that anyone who cannot vote from an issues-based perspective, that is, intelligently, should willfully abstain from voting.

And my reason for that is simple. If people who vote are thinking about issues, if they're listening to debate and trying to understand the different perspectives, if they are ruled by values and reason together, and above all, if they avoid the politics of soundbites, then I believe that this country will move forward, will be safe, and will be great.

If instead, people vote for our country's leadership they way they vote for American Idol: that is, if they vote based on looks, based on the superficial elements of a campaign, such as soundbites, the 30-second media clips, the bumper-sticker "wisdom" that pervades political presentation today, we'll end up with leaders who are no more than pop-stars. A pretty face and a catchy tune, but who are so drunk with their own power that they forget about, or worse, ignore, the real problems and opportunities that our country is faced with, today. People who never get below the surface of "the first woman president" "the first black president" "the first LDS president" etc. etc. will be fooled by politicians instead of being led by them.

For example, a few years ago, due to a very successful self-promoting "ad" campaign (for lack of a better term), Britney Spears was believed to be clean, wholesome, and good. This was based not on facts or any demonstrated virtue, but on a very convincing image that was presented to mass media in little clips. Can you imagine what would happen if we had the same sort of insidious personality presenting the same sort of image campaign to become a leader of America? Perhaps you can imagine, or maybe, you need only remember.

Former President, Bill Clinton, presented himself as a "family-values" candidate. He certainly did not embody my family's values. With all the evidence against his statement as such a candidate, why did no one notice that his claim was false? Because this country elected him based on the 30-second media clips and the bumper-sticker slogans, instead of by looking at his record. And during his presidency I was condemned for watching "The Simpsons" while he committed unspeakable atrocities in the Oval Office. So, remind me again, how was he the "family-values" candidate?

We must not continue this trend of electing individuals based on '10 words'. We need to send our best and brightest, regardless of their party affiliation, to Washington to represent us to our country and to represent our country to the world. We have failed to do this, recently. Instead of sending our best and brightest, we've been sending our slimiest and most clever. They seem like the real thing on the surface, but once below the skin, the filth is obvious.

How many times, in recent months, have you heard that congress has a low approval rating? Or the president? How many times have you heard of judges legislating from the bench? Everyone seems to want to point fingers at the other party and talk about how the other is a hypocrite. And the regular people like me, that is, most people in America, point fingers and talk about how other people were fooled into voting for bad people. For instance, so many republicans point to Idaho and talk about how the Idaho republicans sent someone to Washington who doesn't really represent them, the Idaho republicans. What so many fail to realize is that WE ALL SENT THEM. While I do not dispute that a few politicians are good, and many are decent, the fact is, most of the time they are not who they seem to be in the media. We can sit and blame the media all we want for it, but the simple fact is that "the media" is a very small minority of Americans. What we all seem to miss is that we're all being misled, and we're all submitting to it by choice.

But most Americans never get below the surface of the television image. Not because they're not smart enough, but because they simply don't take the time. For whatever reason, very few take the time to really get to know where their candidates stand on all the issues which are important to them. Very few vote intelligently.

Which all brings me back to my point: I do not support the idea that everyone, or even that most people, in this country should vote. This is not an elitist view that only the people that have such and such education or such and such background, etc. etc. should vote. It is simply a very well-based view that most people in this country don't realize that they are being misled, and often flat-out lied to, when it comes to politics.

So please, if you're going to vote for someone based on the record they'll set (first black, first woman, first Mormon, first whatever), please, don't vote. But if you're going to vote for a person because of their position on immigration, AND the war, AND health care, AND the economy, AND every other position they espouse (taken in total), then please, please, please, do.

Belly Laughs-

The Belly, from Ilene's Point of View :)

New Going-Home Outfit

At the Nuttall Baby Shower, my mom brought 3 outfits she thought would be good going-home outfits. I picked this one.

I think I will find it fun to dress up our baby in all the nice clothes we got at the Nuttall and Platt baby showers. :)

A Possible End-

No baby yet -
So at our last doctor's appointment, the doctor said that I haven't dilated any more. Do you know how frustrating and annoying that is to hear when I have had cramps all week that apparently weren't doing any good?

Today I woke up with painful cramps and a bad mood. So Greg suggested that if Toby hasn't come by the due date - Oct 13 - then on that day we'll ask the doctor to induce me. Not unexpectedly my mood brightened considerably. I do realize that it is selfish of me to want an actual cutoff day. An end that I can see. But I still want to do it!

Here are some more selfish reasons to induce on the 13th:

*it's a Saturday so Greg (and hopefully family) will have an easier time getting work off
*it's not near my birthday (Oct 25) which I'm happy about (I don't like the idea of sharing my birthday with a family member, even/especially my own son)
*it would give me (and Toby) enough recovery time so we could go visit family in November (my sister Susan Ruiz is coming from California with her new baby girl then)
*I like the idea of Toby coming on Oct 13

What do you think? Any thoughts? Concerns?