video

Here are a couple of videos Rie’s dad took on his mobile.

Home Again

Rie and Hannah came home home Thursday morning. Lucky for us, the clinic was right down the street, so we just walked home. Rie’s parents came in from Tokyo on Wednesday night to help out for the next week or so. They have been a real help. Her mom takes care of all the cleaning, washing and cooking, while her dad buys lots of things for Hannah.

The first day and night were great. She slept all afternoon waking up every four hours or so to eat, and then woke up only once that night (albeit at 4:00 a.m.). Last night wasn’t as smooth. Although she again only woke up once, she had a little trouble going back to sleep. Of course, it was my job to take care of her after Rie was done feeding her. Hannah has quickly learned that if she fusses, one of us will pick her up and she is now liberally incorporating this into her daily routine.

It hasn’t been all fun and games though. Last night we gave her her first bath. Let’s just say there was a lot of crying, squirming and trauma. Hannah, on the other hand, quite enjoyed it and almost fell asleep while I held her and Rie did the washing. The entire event could very well be a surreal baptism scene in David Lynch’s next movie . But we all survived, and are doing quite well now. We are giving her a bath at night, right before Rie feeds her and puts her to bed. We’re doing our best to get a schedule down.

Our apartment is beginning to get that smell that all homes get whenever there is a baby living there. It’s that musty-milky smell that I used to always roll my eyes at whenever I visited someone who had a baby.

Anyway, here are some more pictures that have been taken over the last day or two:

Leaving the hospital. Hannah is wearing an outfit her grandma got her

Hannah and her mommy

Checking out her new surroundings

With her grandpa (ojii-chan)

Enduring another photo session

If it looks like she has a tropical tan, it’s because she had to spend a day under a “blue light” to counter some effects of jaundice. Her regular color should return in a month or so.

8/9/08

My dream delivery date of 8/8/08 was delayed by one day, but the important thing is that Hannah came to us healthy, and Rie is doing fine.

Actually, we almost made the elusive “triple 8″ but Rie decided to “get mellow,” thus holding up the delivery. We went to the doctor on Thursday, August 7 for our regular check-up. The doctor noticed that her urine had a high level of protein and actually wanted to induce labor right away. Instead, he had us come back the next morning, Friday, August 8. Since stress tends to raise the protein level, Rie spent Thursday relaxing on the sofa. Sure enough, we go in Friday morning and her level is actually below normal. The doctor couldn’t believe this and asked us to come back later in the day to test again. We went back later and she still tested below average, so he decided to let the pregnancy run its natural course. The natural course would come about five hours later, just as we were watching the countries enter at the opening ceremony at the Olympics. Her water broke and it was off to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and were taken to the delivery room at 11:30 p.m.. Rie was doing fine at this point, and wasn’t experiencing contractions. The woman across the hall, however, was. About every three minutes she would unleash horrible cries and screams.

Rie started contracting at around 3:00 a.m., Saturday, August 9. At first, she said it just pinched a little, but “wasn’t too bad.” I thought to myself, ‘Wow. At least we’re not going to have as much trouble as that other woman,’ who had, at that time, finally delivered her baby.

Thirteen hours later, Rie was making that other woman look (or rather sound) like Marcel Marceau. After the contractions started, they became progressively worse. Finally, at 4:07 p.m. on Saturday, August 9, Hannah Summer Silsbee came into the world at 6.1 pounds and 19.6 inches.

five minutes old

ten minutes old

3 hours old

yawning, not crying

daddy-daughter time

1 Week?? and Counting…

I had always heard people say, “it was a difficult pregnancy,” but I could never really comprehend what that meant. In my mind, I pictured the woman bedridden (which is true in some cases) not able to function at all for nine months. Well, Rie wasn’t exactly out of commission during her pregnancy, but it was tough on her. So much so, that I have been informed that this will indeed be our only child. Since mid-December, she has not gone a single day without vomiting whatever it was she had just eaten. That’s been our life since the beginning of the year, but she’s been really strong through it all. Now we are entering the last days, so we took some pictures of her and a few of the things that we have gotten.

Doesn’t look much different than she usually does

But from a different angle…

Some of the stuff we’ve gotten:

Well, it’s getting late, so I have to go. More to come!