Claire's first 36 hours

It is hard to believe that Claire is not just a little over 36 hours old. In some ways it feels like a one big day but because I've taken about 623 naps it feels like its been a really long time. It is amazing at how quickly she is changing. In the first few hours she never opened her eyes, now she does a lot of looking around. Her cry started out loud and continues to be loud but it has become distinctly higher. She pooped 5 times so far and peed about the same. And as I write this I realize that Sarah has yet to change a diaper. The nurses have changed one chunky diaper and a few wet ones but I guess I've done the rest. I think this whole I'm exhausted/in pain thing that Sarah is doing is perhaps a big act to get her out of changing diapers. More on that later, but here is how I see the score now:

Person Yellow Stuff Chunky Stuff
Brian 2 4

Nurses 3 1

Grandma 0 0.1 (since she talked about doing it)
Sarah 0 0

Anyway, Sarah is doing well and more than pulling her weight as she is doing 100% of the feeding tasks. They finally took her off the IV drip early this morning and she's been able to walk around the room several times today, but she's yet to venture farther than confines of our room. I keep telling her that their are all kinds of wonderful sights and sounds outside of the room but with the nurses at her beck and call and teenage volunteers baking her fresh cookies, its hard to convince her to leave. Speaking of which, we'll be leaving tomorrow morning and heading home. The most interesting thing about this will be introducing Claire to the cats. I've found it quite easy to introduce myself to Claire. I told her my name and that I was her father and asked to her cry to acknowledge that she understood. Trying to introduce a baby to cats will be a much harder task. Neither of them seem to speak English, French, Spanish, or any other language recognized by the National Language Institute so we're going to have to try different tactics. I got one idea from the hearing test they just gave Claire. One would think that they're isn't much technology needed to see if the baby will jump if you bang a couple of pots together, but its probably been the most high tech experience we've had since coming to the hospital. Anyway, they hooked her up with some headphones and sensors and measured her brainwaves whenever they sent sound to her ears. As the process is going on they graph her progress. One progress bar for the left ear and one for the right. This was a nerve-racking experience for me as a parent. What if the progress bar got stuck at 93%? Would that mean that I'd have to repeat myself 7 out of every 100 times I ask her to clean her room? Luckily this was not the case. 100% in both ears. I don't know what it means to be 100%, but I figure this means she has supersonic hearing and Sarah and I will soon be using her to spy on our neighbors.

Claire Pictures

Claire Renee Sivitz

Born 1/30/2009 3:06 AM, 8lb 4oz, 21inches long... pictures to follow

Pushing Time!!!!

Full dialation has been achieved and thus it is time to push. Sarah is getting ready and will be starting in a few minutes.

Epidural Time

Epidural inserted. Sarah really likes it. She was in a lot of pain before and now she's saying things like "Drugs are my friends"... We'll need to work on that one once the baby comes out, but for now she can say whatever she wants. We are still a long way from delivering as she is only about 3-4cm dialated. I'm guessing about 5-6am delivery at this point.

The Party Has Started

Sarah is not allowed to eat while she is in labor which isn't too fun. But I am allowed to eat so I just went and got a burrito at Una Mas. While I was gone they decided to break Sarah's water. This seems to have gotten things moving right along. She is having contractions about every two minutes and each one seems to make her stop talking and breath deeply. This is not nearly as bad as the women in the room next to us. This women screamed very loudly for about an hour straight. It was so long and loud that by the end of it her voice was so hoarce that we thought it was a man scream. A few minutes ago the manly screams coming from the woman turned into baby screams. I think that means she's given birth.

Labor is a long and boring process

We've now been at the hospital for about 5.5 hours. When we got here it was much like checking into a hotel and nothing like you see in the movies. Instead of rushing to the hospital with a screaming wife aching in pain, we calmly drove to the hospital, stopping a Sarah's work to drop off a cake she had baked the night before.. After that we meandered over to my work so I could pick up the battery charger for my computer. As we arrived in the labor and delivery room pulling our rolling luggage behind us we gave them our names and they showed us our room. After unpacking and settling in the doctors began asking all kinds of questions and sticking needles into all kinds of different places. Luckily they have yet to stick me, unfortunately they've stucken Sarah nearly a half dozen times. She is now on an IV drip of Pitocin to help the baby come out and the contractions increase. Unfortunately we do have a very stubborn baby and even this doesn't seem to be doing much. At least it hasn't done anything in the last 5 hours. Sarah currently has no pain but appears to be having contractions every few minutes. She says, he look I'm having a contraction. And I can verify this by looking at the piece of paper constantly printing out showing both the babies hearbeat (currently 150) and the contraction level... whatever that means. At one point Sarah was so proud of the graph from one of her contractions that she even said "Look, that was a pretty one" .. So anyway, we bought some playing cards and are currently playing gin rummy and watching TV.

Today is the day

Or tomorrow... We are at the hospital and the baby and mother are getting ready for the birthing experience. Sarah is doing well, still walking around. The baby is still in the mother.... The beard is gone. Still very early in the labor so we're looking at probably a nighttime birth. We know that the baby wanted to stay in longer but the doctor wanted it out today so its time to force her out. Ready or not a new sivitz is on the way

Uphill Battle

A great many men and women have come before us and experienced challenges in their lives. Our furry cave-loving ancestors had issues with staying warm, warding off predatory animals, keeping their teeth clean, and more or less just surviving long enough to bear children. Less than a thousand years ago the human race was faced with a plague with a funny name (bubonic, also known as Black Death) and more recently we've seen things like genecide, floods, economic issues, planes hitting birds, or the internet not being available in a time of need. All of these issues have taught us lessons that we can use to approach problems we face in our everyday lives. Today my wife and I face a new problem. One way to look at it is that we need to reverse the way we've been counting. Another way to look at it is that we need to reset our expectations. Regardless of how you look at it, the disappointment can be likened to that of a small child counting down the days until Christmas. Remember when you were a kid and December rolled around. Maybe it was a candy calendar that counted down, or a bunch of paper rings signifying the remaining days until Christmas. Can you imagine if you'd been counting down the days until Christmas, set out the Christmas cookies and milk, dreamed of sugar plums and then woke up on Christmas morning to find out that it had been postponed for up to two weeks. Suddenly that nice little angel you'd been for all of December probably wouldn't be so nice anymore. Anyway, this is the situation that I find myself in today. For months, 9 of them to be exact, we have been counting days, 270, 269, 268..... 200, 100, 50, 10, 5, 4, 3,2,1... and now we reach 0. And what do we get? Nothing, not even a token contraction to let us know the baby is coming soon. Instead we get to start counting the number of days again. Tomorrow will be 1, Thursday 2. I feel bad for my wife. What a terrible thing to go through. But alas, humanity still survives today. Cave dwellers kept on dwelling, the peons of the dark ages fell, but regrouped, the economy will undoubtedly recover in the future, Taco Bell will return, and the birds may have brought down the plane, but the will of humanity to survive always pulls through. We will prevail. We will not falter. We will have this baby. Have no fear, Claire will declare in one beautiful scream that she has arrived on this planet. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day soon and with that notion firmly planted in our brains, let us rejoice, let us smile at the prospects of no sleep and dirty diapers, we will survive!

Spring Training is Right Around the Corner

For all of our friends and family who are wondering whether or not the baby has been born yet, the answer is still no. Sarah is not yet in labor and the baby is still holding out for a better deal. Yesterday she actually asked for an agent before she gives up her free agent status and permantly signs with us as her parents. She didn't like the no-trade clause we were offering her, but we reminded her that the no-trade clause also prevents us from giving up on her should she become a nasty toddler or a bratty teenager. I think she's warming up to the idea now, but she did hire an agent. Or at least she said she hired one. Or at least that is what we interpreted from the random kicking she has been doing on Sarah's belly. Anyway, assuming we can get through all this legal mumbo jumbo and Claire agrees to sign with us, we should have a baby by weeks end. At the very least, we'll have her signed by the time spring training starts. With that said, this forum is the best place to find the latest press releases and pictures of Claire, so keep your browser's tuned to Sivitz.com. I'll provide frequent updates when the baby decides to join team Sivitz.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I will declare my experiment with my puzzle post mildly successful. Although it seems to have drawn interest from all of my readers... (Who by the way as far as I can tell they all have the same last name as me), not one of you was able to get it without additional hints. I guess I need to go slightly easier on the next one, but since I had fun with it I'll continue and save the "prize" for the next puzzle. Actually I don't really have anything to give out as a "prize" yet, but I'll think of something. One idea I had was sending a special e-mail to the winner, but when I went to my local store they just looked at me with bewilderment when I asked them to gift wrap my e-mail. After the initial shock of the question wore off and the clerk realized I was serious, she tried to explain to me that e-mail is not tangible and she couldn't actually put gift-wrap on it. I sighed, but after thinking a bit harder decided to agree with her and promptly left the store. The next idea I had was to give the winner the rights to Claire's first bowel movement. Aside from the obvious health hazards, I realized that it would be hard to explain to my daughter that I had schlaked and mounted her first earthly deposit when she saw it at one of your homes.

But this is hardly the point of this post. I'm now realizing that waiting for this baby to arrive is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I am losing faith in the process and don't understand how Sarah is supposed to spontaneously go into labor. Will this actually happen on its own? And is there even a slight chance it will happen by her due date on Tuesday? With all the modern medicine we have these days, you'd think we'd understand the simply process of labor. Not having a cure for cancer or heart diesease is understandable, but the simple and repettitive task of a woman having a baby should be straightforward enough to decipher. There must be some trigger that causes contractions to start. Sure people speculate... Spicy food, walking, taking a bumpy car ride, etc., but none of these have ever been clinicial proven to onset labor. I'm thinking a study should be done using the following setup. Get a group of 100 women who are all close to their deliver dates. Ask them all to do the one thing that they think will most likely cause labor to occur. Ask them to continue doing it until their baby is born. When the first baby arrives, ask the new mother what her action of choice was. Write that down in a book and sell millions of copies. Some women will write back after reading the book swearing by your method, others will curse you for your ridiculous scientific method, but at least you'd be a world famous author.

Must sleep now

Guess and Win

The following actually has some hidden code. It might be hard to find it, but if you do, you win a prize. The hint is that it is related to today's world events:


Go West Just After Telling Jimmy: Just Make Jack Mix Jail And Apples. Journeying Might Be White Hot Just Till Jumping People Zap Tails. Maybe Flying Fairies Pluck Jelly Beans And Laugh. Another Jogger Under Great Realization Has Just Got Cat Allergies. Go Cut Butter Holes. Go Cut White Mix To Ready Wonderful Teeth. We Want Witches Here Cause California Has Half Fruit Raisins. How To Delay Eating, Just Kick Lilly. Jump Really Near Gorges For Jeans Can Really Really Go Ballistic. But Common Goats Boast Big Oats!

No baby for you .... 1 year

The Sivitz household may now be more appropriately named the Sivitz garden. A whole lotta growing is going on.

The beard is still growing:

Sarah is growing:

Claire is growing too, but for what should be obvious reasons we don't actually have any pictures of her yet. Even the garden is growing. With 7 consecutive days of 70 degree weather we've fast forgotten that this is the dead of winter. I've heard that its gotten so cold in the Midwestern United States that even water is freezing. I mean imagine if someone took a bucket of water and put it in your freezer. That is what happens OUTSIDE! I keep hearing these news stories about all these poor people in the Midwest who are having to pay huge heating bills because of the recent cold streak, but has anyone really stopped to think about the fact that you don't have to turn on your freezer when its that cold outside. I mean, come on people, if you aren't smart enough to live somewhere that doesn't get so cold, at least figure out how to take advantage of it. Take your Ice cream, frozen meat, snowballs you've saved from last year and put them outside. Then turn off your freezer and sit back and wait until you get your next electric bill. Sure, you might be shocked that you have to fork over $400 for a single months bill but at least its not $401. And besides, consider the fact that as you are running out the door and trying not to be late for work, at least you won't have to run back inside to get that frozen entree for lunch....

Anyway, on to more serious matters. The birth of my sweet baby Claire. As you can tell by the pictures above, we still haven't met her. Just when I was about to give up hope, I came up with this brilliant idea while eating some wonderful blueberry and chocolate multi grain pancakes that Sarah had whipped up on Saturday morning. I said to myself, if the baby isn't going to come on my terms, perhaps she would come at the most inconvenient time. So I took out my hammer and I started tearing down one of the walls in the house.

I consider this my first declaration of war with my daughter. If she is going to stubbornly sit in the womb and leach off of all my wife's nutrients, well I'm going to ignore her and start a new house project. I even went so far as to put a nine month pregnant womb to work helping me on the drywall.

When that didn't work, I took Sarah out for some spicy Mexican, but that turned out not to work either since we went to the not so authentic Chevy's. I think the combination of the crazy singing waiters and the quite scary looking "El Machino" scared her back into the womb for another couple of weeks. The last crazy idea we had for the day was playing basketball. Aside from shooting some hoops, Sarah successfully made both left and right handed layups and the baby still refused to come out. Although she is still yet a fetus, I've already determined that Claire is going to be quite a stubborn child.

Baby Anxiety

In the last couple of days I've pretty much given up hope that Claire will be born anytime soon. In fact I've pretty much accepted the fact that my beard will grow so long that I'll be forced to move to the backwoods of some less valuable state and become a mountain man. I'll more than likely be speaking to squirrels and asking them things like "Where do you find a good nut around here?" Of course any self-respecting squirrel is smart enough to know that nuts are their livelihood and would not reveal the location of their treasured winter meal. Alas, I will simply sigh and strangle the squirrel to death and cook it over a fire. If only Squirrels could learn to share then they wouldn't be eaten by someone higher on the food chain.

Although I've given up hope that the baby won't be coming soon, I think nearly everyone I speak to at my work has Baby Anxiety. Anytime my phone rings, I get a paged, or I'm running to catch a train their is widespread speculation that Sarah is actively pushing the baby out into the world.

There is one thing keeping me going during this waiting period... I heard from a very reliable source that the baby's can't stay in their forever. I guess that means they eventually come out.

ABC ya.

Sarah is productive

Sarah is 38 weeks pregnant, but that doesn't prevent her from making me feel lazy... Let me explain first what I did today. I woke up, biked 7 miles to the train station, took the train to work, worked all day, got back on the train, and biked 7 miles home. Then when I got home I worked a bit more, worked on our taxes but I did this while lazily watching "Frequency" on Starz. And yes, I feel like a lazy man. Today was Sarah's first day on Maternity leave so she didn't go to work. Did she just sit at home... no not really. When I called her at around 10am she was busily cleaning the house. And when I say cleaning, she swiffed, organized, vacummed, dusted, etc... Then after that she went to the gym, rode the elipitcal trainer for 30 minutes and lifted weights for a bit more. After that she went grocery shopping and not just for your usual stuff. She decided she'd make a fancy chocolate tort from scratch with homemade raspberry topping and homemade whipped cream. I was so impressed I took a picture.

It was just like what you might pay $10 for at a fancy restaurant but better because I got to have seconds and didn't have to pay anouther $10. Oh and she also did Laundary, made a fancy tofu meal and countless other things that I can't even remember. Basically she is the most productive person I know.

I think I also mentioned I wasn't going to shave until the baby was born... Here is a picture of the progress:

Small World

It is amazing how small the world can be sometimes. A couple of months ago a Deia Schlosberg from my Track and Cross Country team at Washington University was named one of the few National Geographic Adventurer's of the year. You can read about it here:

http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/12/best-of/deia-schlosberg-gregg-treinish-text

They attended an awards ceremony and pictures were posted on Facebook. Among them were two adventurers honored for trekking from the north to south poles:

http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/12/best-of/rob-gauntlett-james-hooper-text

Now I see this on Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainfranceclimbingaccident_newsmlmmd

A sad day it is.

Blog Spam

I discovered that Blog's can be spammed. I started this blog about 4 years ago and haven't written to it since. Now that I'm starting up again I see that several spammers commented on my first post by saying things like "nice blog... check out this link".... Fortunately for novice bloggers like myself, I've also discoverd that you can delete these comments. This will be good for other bloggers to know as they may want to delete stupid comments that I make on their site.

Sunday is today

In France everything is closed on Sundays but in California things are not closed. As a tribute to this Sarah and I plan on going to the largest store ever imagined (Costco) and purchasing a year's suppply of Soymilk. I am actually not exaggerating here as we generally get about 50 Soymilk containers and go through one of them a week. I wonder if Claire will enjoy Soymilk. I made the long slow transition in that I started, as most babies do, with Mom's milk and moved on to 2% and then Skim Milk, and then Soymilk. I wonder what it would be like for Claire if we forced her to go directly to soy...

Birth that baby

Today I went for an 6 mile walk with Sarah. We are trying to force our daughter to be born by walking as much as possible. I figure if you walk enough you'll cause the baby to break right out. My goal is for the baby to be born on 1/11/2009 since both Sarah and I were born on the 11th of a month.
Her name is going to be Claire Renee Sivitz and I'm also hoping she will be born on/around 4:47am as "47" is my favorite number. See http://www.47.net/47society/ for more information on the number 47.

We also stayed at the downtown San Jose Marriott last night as my work was having its 25th anniversary party there. We had a good time and since I'm a gold member (50+ nights in a year... yes that's a lot... sorry Sarah!) they upgraded us to a Junior suite on the 18th floor with a good view.

Later on today I will probably watch a movie, work on the house some more, write random comments in my facebook status and torment Sarah until she excreets our baby Claire. Techinically she isn't due until the 27th of this month, be I'd like her to come early as I think it would be easier for Sarah to delivery her. Also, it will prevent me from becoming more of a mounain man as I've decided not to shave again until Claire is born. I haven't shaven in about a week and my beard is already pretty long. If it grows much longer I'll post a photo.

peace

Sivitz.com/Sivitz.net Redirected

Sivitz.com and Sivitz.net will now point to this blog. I've been looking for any quick and easy way to make updates to my website and I think this will be the easiest. Sarah and I will also share stories and pictures of Claire on this website. I'll start by posting pictures of her latest 3D ultrasound...

Yellowstone will erupt

I was talking to Sarah's brother Steven a while back and he was moderately worried about a big super volcano in Yellowstone. Other people are worried about this now as well. Watch out for ash coming soon to your local neighborhood:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090110/ap_on_sc/yellowstone_volcano_hysteria

Ali Good

Apparently I started a blog back in 2005. I don't remember doing this, but I guess I did. My blog will probably be used to talk about my daughter (not born yet) and as I mentioned a few years ago to talk about normal and crazy stuff. For now today's post will be simply the following:

I read Ali's blog and it was very good.