Evil Hat Productions » evie http://www.evilhat.com/home Swallowing Your Soul Since the Twentieth Century! Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:21:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Interview http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/453205.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/453205.html#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:58:32 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/453205.html


As I'm sure you heard in that insightful interview, she talked about her experiences rocking:



And rolling:

]]>


As I'm sure you heard in that insightful interview, she talked about her experiences rocking:



And rolling:

]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/08/interview/feed/ 0 I’m a lucky guy. Also very squeaky. http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/450342.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/450342.html#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:48:13 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/450342.html ]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/07/im-a-lucky-guy-also-very-squeaky/feed/ 0 Evie, weeks 2 and 3 http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448931.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448931.html#comments Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:04:49 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448931.html

More of that here: http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8796771_9nGC5]]>

More of that here: http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8796771_9nGC5]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/07/evie-weeks-2-and-3/feed/ 0 Evie’s Birth Story http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448390.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448390.html#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:25:30 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448390.html
By the time the 12th came around, I was already pretty impatient. Every night we'd be sitting around watching TV and I'd have my hand on Christie's belly, and I'd be asking, "When do I get to meet her?" Some sort of psychic thing must have been going on, too -- just the day before, I'd wrapped up all of my current work commitments, and was trying to figure out what was next, that could be sized for a drop-at-any-minute birth event.

Turns out my daughter had the answer for what's next. Christie's water broke at 4:30am, and she told me by 5:30, I think (it was dark, I was groggy). Pretty much from that point forward I couldn't sleep -- not because I was anxious, but because I was too excited. I knew when I was going to get to meet "The Us"!

Being digital, I got to twittering.

Christie's water broke. Contractions aren't close enough yet to head to the hospital, though. Will update when I can!
5:57 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFox

Christie's contractions were pretty irregular, so we gave it a couple hours. Around the once-every-7-minutes mark (though there was still some variation in there), we called the doctor's office. Our least-favorite doctor got the call, and said if Christie's water had broken, we should probably come in -- but our birthing class talked about the "511" rule: 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long, sustained for 1 hour. We hadn't hit that yet -- and we knew that the longer you're in the hospital, the likelier it'll be that they'll recommend Petocin to speed the delivery along. We wanted to be drug-free on that point, so we decided the 511 rule would win out at least for a little bit, and took our time getting ready.

Probably heading to the hospital in about an hour. Contractions aren't at 5min, but doc office says go anyway.
7:33 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFox

Last little bits of gathering and prep filled the time after, as Christie tried (but, alas, failed) to get some breakfast in her before we headed out to the no-food-for-the-mama hospital. We also got in contact with Katie, our doula (think of a doula as a woman that rides shotgun on the birth experience, not as a medical professional, but instead as someone who has answers and knows how to keep us calm and focused), arranging for her to meet us at the hospital shortly after we got there.

The timing was pretty perfect -- by 9:30 (ish) we were getting into the car, and we were hitting the 511 rule dead on. Waiting until 9:30 also meant we dodged the worst of the beltway traffic, which was the main variable in our time for getting to the hospital, usually 10 minutes away. As we walked in the front door of the hospital (availing ourselves of the valet parking service out front), the been-there-seen-it guy behind the reception desk was already handing forward the maternity ward pass for me to clip on. Good reactions, there. We had a brief, excited conversation with the elderly woman sitting beside him, and then made it up to the maternity floor. Pre-checkin paperwork had been filled out, so that much was easy, and we got into triage.



Hanging out in hospital triage area. Hoping for a move to one of them swanky birthing rooms we saw on tour. A bit cramped in here.
10:27 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We were in triage for... well, a while. This is where the timestamps stopped cementing themselves in my head. The space was cramped (they don't move you into one of the swank birthing rooms until they're sure that you're "close"), so it got a little clown-car in there at times as I tried to find a place to be. Katie showed up not long after and really helped to pass the time, also making sure she was as up to date on the particulars of our birth plan as she needed to be.

The doctor from our practice that was on call was Dr. Randy Lizardo (no joke -- but not played by John Lithgow), but he was in surgery, so the triage nurses had to call in the back-up guy. He too was elsewhere so it took him quite a while to get there. Meanwhile we experienced the joys of the (crap) heart rate monitor contraption the hospital needed to use to monitor the baby -- without someone actively keeping it pressed against Christie, it just wasn't getting a reading.

Katie and I took turns holding it down, something that repeated itself several times during the day. Really, this is a good small example of Katie's awesome. I could tag out. We could switch around and attend to different sides of Chrsitie's needs. Awesome. Katie also showed her chops early here by talking Christie through the contractions, focusing on the words and communication side while I focused on Christie's physical comfort. Tag-teaming for the win. :)

More waiting. No doc yet. Heartbeat baseline established. Our doula is definitely helping Christie relax during the contractions.
12:17 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

All up to this point, I was pretty calm, and actually remained so for the rest of the labor and birth. I'm a worrier, so I was a bit concerned that my anxiety vector was gonna kick into high gear on this day. But thanks to the classes we took, Katie's involvement, and the fact that I tend to get calm once the "crisis" actually lands (my worrying is all about anticipation rather than the event itself), I was cruising pretty well.

Christie was doing great, too. Eventually we found out HOW great because the backup doctor finally made it to triage. At first I wasn't sure we were going to like him (however brief his appearance was going to be), because he came in all flat-of-expression and a little tired and annoyed around the edges. But as soon as he got down to the examination, he was pretty great -- lots of communication, proper expectations-setting, and a solid listener. Plus he was the guy who confirmed that Christie's water had indeed broken (tested three ways, all confirmed) and that she was 4cm dilated.

4cm dialated and completely effaced. Good news, great progress. :)
12:39 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We have a room assignment!
12:54 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

That was enough to get the process rolling to get us a birthing room assignment, and we were moved there pretty soon after that, going from "cramped" to "expansive". Holy Cross does birth rooms right -- lots of space and light, a couch, a glider, a dedicated bathroom, etc, all for one mama and her posse.



Looking back on it, this is where Katie really came to the fore again. If she hadn't been a part of our set-up, we would have spent long stretches alone in that room. The contractions would certainly have kept us busy, but there would also be lulls where we'd have very little feedback or perspective on how we were doing. Katie gave us that perspective, and continued to rock the calming presence tip. It also meant that while we knew we still had a ways to go, I could run off for 15 minutes and grab some food for myself down at the cafeteria, confident that I wasn't abandoning Christie. We figured it'd be a good idea for me to be well fed and rested by the time things got serious!

Dr. Lizardo also showed up at this time, and decided for Christie's comfort he wasn't going to do another examination just yet. All the same it was reassuring to have him around. He's a young-ish guy, with lots of positive energy and a great bedside manner (at one point we talked about the mix playing from Christie's iPod -- apparently her musical tastes lined up really well with his).

Grabbing a quick bite down at cafeteria. Our cool doctor is in the house and his name is Lizardo.
2:17 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

It became marginally possible to see what other folks were saying in around here as well. I traded a few direct messages and replies with folks, and Rob reminded me while I was down in the cafeteria that I should grab the day's newspaper so we could show our girl what was happening in the world on her birthday. Smart cookie, that Rob.

But then also, there was this:

RT @rdonoghue: If you can take a picture of today, anything about it, and mail it to rjdonoghue at gmail, I will bundle them for fred.
2:59 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

(Yeah, Rob's pretty much awesome. We haven't seen the results of this yet, but the response was apparently overwhelming. I'm excited.)

Somewhere in there after I got back from the cafeteria, Katie made it possible for me to take a nap. Christie kept working through the contractions like she was made for it. It was clear she was hurting, but it was also clear she could take it, and a combination of arm tickles and headrubs from me and calming words and other suggestions from Katie kept things moving forward and positive. Those contractions were getting more intense, though, and we had no idea how far along that was getting Christie. Eventually we asked Dr. Lizardo to take a look.

5cm now. Urge to push has made a tentative debut.
5:05 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

Christie had "only" moved up to 5cm dilated. This could have been a bad turning point -- there had been so much time and work put in up to this point, that we had really been hoping for more than 1cm of progress. Dr. Lizardo told us that the first 6cm were the hardest, which helped, and I applied my math brain to tell Christie that this wasn't about a 1cm jump, it was about surface area (the "bigness" of the aperture), so we weren't comparing 4 to 5 (25% improvement), we were comparing 4 squared to 5 squared (over 50% improvement). Christie tells me this actually helped, which I suppose is a good enough answer for those kids wondering when they'll ever use algebra in their lives.

The intensity ramped up, and Christie worked through some monsters. Katie helped her figure out new positions to stand, sit, or lay in to help work through it. There was a possibility that Christie would move from her "afraid of needles near her spine" space into the "okay, an epidural would be really nice" space, but back around 11am we had decided with Katie that Christie could ask for the epidural three times, and each time Katie would suggest a different position or other approach, to try to help keep Christie on her natural birth plan. (Thankfully we had a pretty pragmatic approach throughout all of this regarding the natural birth; while it was an ideal, it wasn't a no-matter-what must-have thing.)

Dr Lizardo is tagging out; in comes Dr Sine, our primary. She too rocks.
6:20 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

It was getting later, and our primary doctor from the practice, Dr. Heather Sine, turned out to be the one tapping in. We went from one-of-our-favorites to our absolute-favorite doctor in time for the birth, which made for a really happy evolution. Dr. Sine is really great; and she's pretty in a TV Doctor sort of way, right down to the great wardrobe and killer heels, but she's common-sensical in a very practical, reassuring way, too. When the nurse complained that Christie was getting a little hypertensive with her blood pressure, Dr. Sine's response was, "Well of course she is! She's in pain!"

(At this point, folks on Twitter continued to express their disbelief that our doctors had such cool names. I'm still a little gobsmacked about that myself.)

The contractions were pretty intense, and Christie was having a hard time fighting the pushing. She asked the doctor to check how far along she was. Turned out to be 9cm, just an hour after she checked out at 5cm.

On the iPod, Jeff Buckley sang a Leonard Cohen favorite.

9cm. Jeff Buckley singing Hallelujah.
6:26 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We still had no idea how much longer it would be, and the pain was pretty bad. Christie asked if it was too late for an epidural. Dr. Sine said "as far along as you are, there wouldn't be much point to it."

Boom. The baby was indeed nigh.

Sine says soon now we start the pushing!
6:41 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

On my end of things, the calm got preternatural. Everything was about Christie and the birth -- there wasn't any room for my anxiety, my excitement, anything in there. We all focused on Christie. She continued to power through the contractions, but each one was a seismic event.

You hear stories about the things women will say during this part of labor. I expected to be read the riot act. Instead Christie just made pushing her number one job -- she didn't even curse, though she did do a lot of wordless screaming. I already knew my wife had superpowers, but seeing her push through the toughest part of labor was palpable confirmation of it. I was so, so proud of her.

Going into this, I was pretty sure I didn't want to look as the birth itself was happening -- in a sort of "you don't know if you're going to be able to erase something disturbing from your memory" sort of way. Strange things happen down there! To anatomy!

But I was holding Christie's right leg as Katie held her left, leaning into her as she pushed, and so there was plenty for me to see. And sure, it was a little scary -- it's not something you see every day. The iodine wash coated her at one point to help with the possibility of microbial whatnot, and one lady (with an almost bored, "seen five of these every day" attitude, almost comical) was there mainly to pour water to keep things moving. It was a big team effort.

Dr. Sine pointed out the top of my daughter's head as it made its appearance. There was hair! It was tiny and curly and couldn't possibly be my daughter because she's someone I am GOING to meet not someone I'm MEETING.

Present tense was doing a watusi on my head. The *baby's* head crowned. Christie finally let out her one moment of cursing in the entire damn thing: "HOLY SHIT!"

Ten seconds later I met my daughter.

Say hello to Evelyn Violet Hicks!
7:12 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

She came out a little "juicy" -- the delivery was so fast, she hadn't had time to get all the fluid out of her tummy and lungs -- so she wasn't doing the full-throated cry so much as a lot of constant whimpering. I rode shotgun as the staff got her over to a heating/cleaning table while they suctioned out her mouth and stomach. It took some work, but we finally got some good cries out of her.

She measured in at 8 pounds 1 ounce, 20.5" long, every bit of her perfect and strange and wonderful. Time, which had already been on the outs with meaning, completed the breakup; I had no idea what was going on, just that Evie was here, and that I could see her, and sing to her, and touch her, and share her with Christie.



We were pretty wiped out at this point. Meaningless time marched on, but we eventually got moved to the room we'd be spending our next 2 days in. We said our goodbyes to Katie and arranged to see her again before we would leave the hospital. Evie's aunt Kathy brought us some "emergency" late night Panera, because, God, we were so hungry.

We, now three, settled in, and slept.

The sleepy starts to kick in. I blame Evie's very powerful cute rays.
11:38 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

]]>
By the time the 12th came around, I was already pretty impatient. Every night we'd be sitting around watching TV and I'd have my hand on Christie's belly, and I'd be asking, "When do I get to meet her?" Some sort of psychic thing must have been going on, too -- just the day before, I'd wrapped up all of my current work commitments, and was trying to figure out what was next, that could be sized for a drop-at-any-minute birth event.

Turns out my daughter had the answer for what's next. Christie's water broke at 4:30am, and she told me by 5:30, I think (it was dark, I was groggy). Pretty much from that point forward I couldn't sleep -- not because I was anxious, but because I was too excited. I knew when I was going to get to meet "The Us"!

Being digital, I got to twittering.

Christie's water broke. Contractions aren't close enough yet to head to the hospital, though. Will update when I can!
5:57 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFox

Christie's contractions were pretty irregular, so we gave it a couple hours. Around the once-every-7-minutes mark (though there was still some variation in there), we called the doctor's office. Our least-favorite doctor got the call, and said if Christie's water had broken, we should probably come in -- but our birthing class talked about the "511" rule: 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long, sustained for 1 hour. We hadn't hit that yet -- and we knew that the longer you're in the hospital, the likelier it'll be that they'll recommend Petocin to speed the delivery along. We wanted to be drug-free on that point, so we decided the 511 rule would win out at least for a little bit, and took our time getting ready.

Probably heading to the hospital in about an hour. Contractions aren't at 5min, but doc office says go anyway.
7:33 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFox

Last little bits of gathering and prep filled the time after, as Christie tried (but, alas, failed) to get some breakfast in her before we headed out to the no-food-for-the-mama hospital. We also got in contact with Katie, our doula (think of a doula as a woman that rides shotgun on the birth experience, not as a medical professional, but instead as someone who has answers and knows how to keep us calm and focused), arranging for her to meet us at the hospital shortly after we got there.

The timing was pretty perfect -- by 9:30 (ish) we were getting into the car, and we were hitting the 511 rule dead on. Waiting until 9:30 also meant we dodged the worst of the beltway traffic, which was the main variable in our time for getting to the hospital, usually 10 minutes away. As we walked in the front door of the hospital (availing ourselves of the valet parking service out front), the been-there-seen-it guy behind the reception desk was already handing forward the maternity ward pass for me to clip on. Good reactions, there. We had a brief, excited conversation with the elderly woman sitting beside him, and then made it up to the maternity floor. Pre-checkin paperwork had been filled out, so that much was easy, and we got into triage.



Hanging out in hospital triage area. Hoping for a move to one of them swanky birthing rooms we saw on tour. A bit cramped in here.
10:27 AM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We were in triage for... well, a while. This is where the timestamps stopped cementing themselves in my head. The space was cramped (they don't move you into one of the swank birthing rooms until they're sure that you're "close"), so it got a little clown-car in there at times as I tried to find a place to be. Katie showed up not long after and really helped to pass the time, also making sure she was as up to date on the particulars of our birth plan as she needed to be.

The doctor from our practice that was on call was Dr. Randy Lizardo (no joke -- but not played by John Lithgow), but he was in surgery, so the triage nurses had to call in the back-up guy. He too was elsewhere so it took him quite a while to get there. Meanwhile we experienced the joys of the (crap) heart rate monitor contraption the hospital needed to use to monitor the baby -- without someone actively keeping it pressed against Christie, it just wasn't getting a reading.

Katie and I took turns holding it down, something that repeated itself several times during the day. Really, this is a good small example of Katie's awesome. I could tag out. We could switch around and attend to different sides of Chrsitie's needs. Awesome. Katie also showed her chops early here by talking Christie through the contractions, focusing on the words and communication side while I focused on Christie's physical comfort. Tag-teaming for the win. :)

More waiting. No doc yet. Heartbeat baseline established. Our doula is definitely helping Christie relax during the contractions.
12:17 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

All up to this point, I was pretty calm, and actually remained so for the rest of the labor and birth. I'm a worrier, so I was a bit concerned that my anxiety vector was gonna kick into high gear on this day. But thanks to the classes we took, Katie's involvement, and the fact that I tend to get calm once the "crisis" actually lands (my worrying is all about anticipation rather than the event itself), I was cruising pretty well.

Christie was doing great, too. Eventually we found out HOW great because the backup doctor finally made it to triage. At first I wasn't sure we were going to like him (however brief his appearance was going to be), because he came in all flat-of-expression and a little tired and annoyed around the edges. But as soon as he got down to the examination, he was pretty great -- lots of communication, proper expectations-setting, and a solid listener. Plus he was the guy who confirmed that Christie's water had indeed broken (tested three ways, all confirmed) and that she was 4cm dilated.

4cm dialated and completely effaced. Good news, great progress. :)
12:39 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We have a room assignment!
12:54 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

That was enough to get the process rolling to get us a birthing room assignment, and we were moved there pretty soon after that, going from "cramped" to "expansive". Holy Cross does birth rooms right -- lots of space and light, a couch, a glider, a dedicated bathroom, etc, all for one mama and her posse.



Looking back on it, this is where Katie really came to the fore again. If she hadn't been a part of our set-up, we would have spent long stretches alone in that room. The contractions would certainly have kept us busy, but there would also be lulls where we'd have very little feedback or perspective on how we were doing. Katie gave us that perspective, and continued to rock the calming presence tip. It also meant that while we knew we still had a ways to go, I could run off for 15 minutes and grab some food for myself down at the cafeteria, confident that I wasn't abandoning Christie. We figured it'd be a good idea for me to be well fed and rested by the time things got serious!

Dr. Lizardo also showed up at this time, and decided for Christie's comfort he wasn't going to do another examination just yet. All the same it was reassuring to have him around. He's a young-ish guy, with lots of positive energy and a great bedside manner (at one point we talked about the mix playing from Christie's iPod -- apparently her musical tastes lined up really well with his).

Grabbing a quick bite down at cafeteria. Our cool doctor is in the house and his name is Lizardo.
2:17 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

It became marginally possible to see what other folks were saying in around here as well. I traded a few direct messages and replies with folks, and Rob reminded me while I was down in the cafeteria that I should grab the day's newspaper so we could show our girl what was happening in the world on her birthday. Smart cookie, that Rob.

But then also, there was this:

RT @rdonoghue: If you can take a picture of today, anything about it, and mail it to rjdonoghue at gmail, I will bundle them for fred.
2:59 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

(Yeah, Rob's pretty much awesome. We haven't seen the results of this yet, but the response was apparently overwhelming. I'm excited.)

Somewhere in there after I got back from the cafeteria, Katie made it possible for me to take a nap. Christie kept working through the contractions like she was made for it. It was clear she was hurting, but it was also clear she could take it, and a combination of arm tickles and headrubs from me and calming words and other suggestions from Katie kept things moving forward and positive. Those contractions were getting more intense, though, and we had no idea how far along that was getting Christie. Eventually we asked Dr. Lizardo to take a look.

5cm now. Urge to push has made a tentative debut.
5:05 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

Christie had "only" moved up to 5cm dilated. This could have been a bad turning point -- there had been so much time and work put in up to this point, that we had really been hoping for more than 1cm of progress. Dr. Lizardo told us that the first 6cm were the hardest, which helped, and I applied my math brain to tell Christie that this wasn't about a 1cm jump, it was about surface area (the "bigness" of the aperture), so we weren't comparing 4 to 5 (25% improvement), we were comparing 4 squared to 5 squared (over 50% improvement). Christie tells me this actually helped, which I suppose is a good enough answer for those kids wondering when they'll ever use algebra in their lives.

The intensity ramped up, and Christie worked through some monsters. Katie helped her figure out new positions to stand, sit, or lay in to help work through it. There was a possibility that Christie would move from her "afraid of needles near her spine" space into the "okay, an epidural would be really nice" space, but back around 11am we had decided with Katie that Christie could ask for the epidural three times, and each time Katie would suggest a different position or other approach, to try to help keep Christie on her natural birth plan. (Thankfully we had a pretty pragmatic approach throughout all of this regarding the natural birth; while it was an ideal, it wasn't a no-matter-what must-have thing.)

Dr Lizardo is tagging out; in comes Dr Sine, our primary. She too rocks.
6:20 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

It was getting later, and our primary doctor from the practice, Dr. Heather Sine, turned out to be the one tapping in. We went from one-of-our-favorites to our absolute-favorite doctor in time for the birth, which made for a really happy evolution. Dr. Sine is really great; and she's pretty in a TV Doctor sort of way, right down to the great wardrobe and killer heels, but she's common-sensical in a very practical, reassuring way, too. When the nurse complained that Christie was getting a little hypertensive with her blood pressure, Dr. Sine's response was, "Well of course she is! She's in pain!"

(At this point, folks on Twitter continued to express their disbelief that our doctors had such cool names. I'm still a little gobsmacked about that myself.)

The contractions were pretty intense, and Christie was having a hard time fighting the pushing. She asked the doctor to check how far along she was. Turned out to be 9cm, just an hour after she checked out at 5cm.

On the iPod, Jeff Buckley sang a Leonard Cohen favorite.

9cm. Jeff Buckley singing Hallelujah.
6:26 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

We still had no idea how much longer it would be, and the pain was pretty bad. Christie asked if it was too late for an epidural. Dr. Sine said "as far along as you are, there wouldn't be much point to it."

Boom. The baby was indeed nigh.

Sine says soon now we start the pushing!
6:41 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

On my end of things, the calm got preternatural. Everything was about Christie and the birth -- there wasn't any room for my anxiety, my excitement, anything in there. We all focused on Christie. She continued to power through the contractions, but each one was a seismic event.

You hear stories about the things women will say during this part of labor. I expected to be read the riot act. Instead Christie just made pushing her number one job -- she didn't even curse, though she did do a lot of wordless screaming. I already knew my wife had superpowers, but seeing her push through the toughest part of labor was palpable confirmation of it. I was so, so proud of her.

Going into this, I was pretty sure I didn't want to look as the birth itself was happening -- in a sort of "you don't know if you're going to be able to erase something disturbing from your memory" sort of way. Strange things happen down there! To anatomy!

But I was holding Christie's right leg as Katie held her left, leaning into her as she pushed, and so there was plenty for me to see. And sure, it was a little scary -- it's not something you see every day. The iodine wash coated her at one point to help with the possibility of microbial whatnot, and one lady (with an almost bored, "seen five of these every day" attitude, almost comical) was there mainly to pour water to keep things moving. It was a big team effort.

Dr. Sine pointed out the top of my daughter's head as it made its appearance. There was hair! It was tiny and curly and couldn't possibly be my daughter because she's someone I am GOING to meet not someone I'm MEETING.

Present tense was doing a watusi on my head. The *baby's* head crowned. Christie finally let out her one moment of cursing in the entire damn thing: "HOLY SHIT!"

Ten seconds later I met my daughter.

Say hello to Evelyn Violet Hicks!
7:12 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

She came out a little "juicy" -- the delivery was so fast, she hadn't had time to get all the fluid out of her tummy and lungs -- so she wasn't doing the full-throated cry so much as a lot of constant whimpering. I rode shotgun as the staff got her over to a heating/cleaning table while they suctioned out her mouth and stomach. It took some work, but we finally got some good cries out of her.

She measured in at 8 pounds 1 ounce, 20.5" long, every bit of her perfect and strange and wonderful. Time, which had already been on the outs with meaning, completed the breakup; I had no idea what was going on, just that Evie was here, and that I could see her, and sing to her, and touch her, and share her with Christie.



We were pretty wiped out at this point. Meaningless time marched on, but we eventually got moved to the room we'd be spending our next 2 days in. We said our goodbyes to Katie and arranged to see her again before we would leave the hospital. Evie's aunt Kathy brought us some "emergency" late night Panera, because, God, we were so hungry.

We, now three, settled in, and slept.

The sleepy starts to kick in. I blame Evie's very powerful cute rays.
11:38 PM Jun 12th from TwitterFon

]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/06/evies-birth-story/feed/ 0 Yeah, there’s gonna be a lot of this http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448041.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448041.html#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:22:19 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/448041.html












More: http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8617296_iCyx2]]>












More: http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8617296_iCyx2]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/06/yeah-theres-gonna-be-a-lot-of-this/feed/ 0 The last few days (part 1) http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/447559.html http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/447559.html#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:24:25 +0000 Driving Blind http://drivingblind.livejournal.com/447559.html






EDIT: Galleries:
http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8539876_f2E2A
http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8569778_WpeEG]]>






EDIT: Galleries:
http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8539876_f2E2A
http://fred-and-xie.smugmug.com/gallery/8569778_WpeEG]]> http://www.evilhat.com/home/2009/06/the-last-few-days-part-1/feed/ 0