Our Christmas present came home today. He stayed an extra night in the hospital because his Bilirubin levels were slightly elevated. Today his bloodtest came back normal. He and his mom also seem to be figuring out the whole feeding thing. Now if only he could figure out the sleeping thing.
Early this morning, just before 3 o’clock, the long awaited addition to our family arrived. His name is Lyndon Avery Keith. He was 8 pounds and 21 inches long. Pam was a real trooper, laboring at home as long as she could. By the time we left for the hospital, she was ready to deliver. Lyndon was born less than an hour after we arrived. Lyndon inhaled some amniotic fluid on the way out. So for about 2 hours after he was delivered, he wasn’t taking up oxygen quite as well as he should. He’s now managed to sort himself out.
I came across this picture this last week and thought I should share it. I got a good laugh out of it; the expression on the sleigh-rider’s face is priceless. This picture is one of a bunch of pictures at Sports Illustrated. I’m not sure why this particular picture is a part of the collection. Perhaps this was part of some opening ceremony at a downhill skiing event. Anyway, the other pictures in the gallery where this one came from are all pretty cool (and sports related–as one would expect).
So today is the magic date: our due date. There hasn’t been much magic so far.
If you hear a twiddling sound, it’s the sound of the two of us twiddling our fingers while we wait for the magic. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what twiddling sounds like. It doesn’t make much of a sound even when you’re right nearby. Guess that means you probably won’t hear it. Oh well, you’ll just have to take our word for it.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas! It is hard to believe that a week from today is Christmas Eve. Lowell and I decided to send season’s greetings today in case we are otherwise engaged later on this week. Praying that you are finding peace and joy this Advent season. Remember:
“This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherd’s guard and angels sing,
Haste, haste to bring him laud,
The babe, the son of Mary.”
Technology has brought us many conveniences, take for example computers. Don’t they provide us with wonderfully efficient, stress free support?…Medicine has also benefited from research and technology. We have learned that handwashing is a good thing and bleeding a patient not so good. There is the question though of how much of a good thing, is still a good thing. I work in the intensive care, I see examples of “just because we can, should we” daily.
Take for examples epidurals. They provide excellent pain relief in the post-operative patient. People are able to sleep (if sleep can be had in a hospital); we all know that sleep is required for healing. They help patients ambulate and deep breathe and cough which is the number 1 way to avoid pneumonia. However are epidurals necessarily a good thing for all labouring women? Epidurals are admittedly the best form of narcotic since they actually stop the pain messages rather then just altering one’s perception of pain, but should every labouring woman in the 21st century have an epidural?
As with every argument there are pros and cons. Reasons for an epidural; epidurals allow the mom to rest, why should one suffer through pain when they don’t have too, not all labours are equal depending on position of baby, some could just plain hurt more then others.
However an epidural will confine you to bed more then otherwise, taking away your body’s natural ability to use positioning and gravity to aid delivery. Epidurals by design block receptors, therefore there is less oxytocin released in response to pelvic floor stretch receptors, causing statistically longer labours and increased risks of medical interventions (like c-sections). I am delivering this baby in the USA; statistically they are the worlds highest at 25% of women having c-sections. Also there is some suggestion of increased difficulty breastfeeding and bonding after epidurals.
My goal for the delivery of this child is to have a “natural childbirth” ie: pain medication free (just the name of it sounds wrong), by publishing that fact here I have now committed myself. Now I know that I have never been in labour before, and many of the readers of this blog have been and used an epidural. (It has been said that the way to get comments to a blog is to publish something controversial) It may well happen that after the first contraction hits that I start begging for that epidural. I haven’t had very much success with relaxing while squeezing an ice cube in my hand for 1 minute (try it sometime), this strategy is supposed to prepare you for labour. My decision to go epidural free is not based on an attitude of “I am woman hear me roar” (I hope), at this point it is based on research which is all I have to go on right now. Wish me luck!
In my previous post I said that sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Well apparently there are at least some people who have it harder than I do. Books and essays are often hard to understand just like delusional patients are–not that I’m speaking from first hand experience–but they don’t fight back with sharp, pointy objects tainted with nasty micro-organisms! (I direct your attention to a recent CBC report.) So today I’m glad I’m not a nurse; I’ll leave the nursing profession to those who are more stout of heart than I am.
P.S. After reading the CBC report, I wondered why they don’t make training in the martial arts a part of nursing school.
I was reminded again this week how much study can be like work. It can be difficult, frustrating, time consuming, and deflating.
At the outset of the semester, I set a personal goal of having all my term papers completed by next Friday, the day the exam period begins. My reason for this was that I didn’t want to be worrying about writing term papers while trying to adjust to being a new parent. (Of course, it’s also a good idea to have your work done in a timely fashion.) Well, I was on pace till about the middle of the week. I had spent the better part of two and a half weeks reading and thinking about my last term paper. Things were going well. Then, on Monday, when I was just getting down to the writing, I began to find problems with my arguments. By Wednesday, my paper was completely deflated. I’m now back at the beginning, having seen nearly three weeks of work go up in smoke.
Sometimes people think that those who devote their lives to study have it easy–I used to think the same thing myself–but study shares much in common with any other pursuit one might choose in life. It requires perserverance, diligence, and effort. It requires a thick skin. Having a professor point out the flaws in your work is no easier to bear than having your boss tell you that your work needs improvement. It also requires self-confidence; that is, you have to trust that you have what it takes to make a worthwhile contribution. Philosophy is hard. Arguments can be long and complicated, especially when they are constructed by some of the smartest people in the world. There are days when I begin to wonder whether I even understand English anymore. The words on the page look like English words; the sentences look like they are constructed in accordance with proper English grammar; but I can’t, for the life of me, comprehend what is being said. These are the days when the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence–surely planting trees wasn’t that bad.
In the blogger’s handbook it says that, if you want your readers to check your blog regularly, you should post regularly. It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I want my readers to check my blog regularly, so I guess I need to post something.
Two things:
1) We got our first snowfall today. As snowfalls go, it was just a baby one (can you tell what’s on my mind these days?); the little bit of snow that was on the ground in the morning has now melted away.
2) The magic date is now exactly two weeks away. Of course, the magic date has very little value when trying to predict when junior will make his or her grand entrance, because junior doesn’t yet know anything about calendars and gestation periods.
Anyway, back to my paper. Does anyone have any unique insights about Descartes’ notion of mind-body interaction?
