Announcing the birth of Jonathan Carl on Tuesday, 29 August at 6:37pm! He weighed in at 9lbs, 6.4oz, and was 21 inches long. Gayla and I are too tired to write anything so we let Jonathan do the writing.

Can you believe I was in there?


Labor started naturally a few hours(10:00am) after my mom's water was broken and wasn't too bad, but actual delivery was harder because I was rather large and my head was turned sideways. I wondered why my nose was hurting so badly. Around 5:30pm or so, the delivery doctor (Dr. Z) noticed that mom (Gayla) was starting to get tired so she attached something a lot like a shop vac to my head and tried to help her. It slipped off once, but it was enough to get my head out into the world. I didn't really like the world. Then Dr. Z took a hold of my head and sort of eased out the rest of me. No one told me to keep my arms down so my neck and arm came out at the same time. That was kind of hard on mom. Sorry about that. After that, a rather long cable attached me to mom and this really good looking wonderful dad (Brian) was given scissors and he cut the cable. I wasn't too sure about the wisdom of that so I was glad that Dr. Z had to clean her goggles after this and I got dad's nice T-shirt messy too. It didn't even hurt.

Well, they didn't use straws or hang me over a fence to clean out my lungs, but used a little blue squeezy suction ball thing. That helped, but they were all still worried about something and I did feel a little warm. I was allowed to bond just a little with mom who was quite overjoyed to see me
but then they took me away. I was sure I was to be taken away to where a dooli lay, but alas I had to stay in the hospital in a special nursery.

Once in the nursery, my dad was pretty sure that the nurse wasn't going to be able to stick an I.V. into my hand because the veins were so small, but the nurse tried anyway. I wish she had listened to him instead of poking both hands. Eventually she stuck it in my head and after a little bit I got used to it there. They gave me antibiotics and electrolytes. Dad was pretty sure that electrolytes were good, but wasn't so sure about the antibiotics, but they did make me feeler cooler after about 12 hours. Those crazy people also wouldn't let me nurse for 24 hours. That was a real bummer because I was hungry, but they gave me a little rubber thing to suck on. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to make me less hungry, but that was all I had. It kind of worked a little.

After my 24 hours in solitary confinement were up, they let mom come in and feed me.

I was pretty happy to see her and was glad to know there is more to life than the little rubber thing. I felt much better after eating real food. The nurses and doctor were happy with what all the sensors were reporting so that encouraged me too. In case any of you ever have the same thing happen to you, this is what the important numbers are:

Respiratory rate 30-60 breaths per second (at birth mine was 60-70 at times)
Heart rate 100-150 beats per minute
Blood sugar greater than 50 (not sure about the units. I was only a day old)
Blood Oxygen greater than 93%
Temperature less than 101 (mine was 101 at birth)
CRP test less than 1
Blood pressure greater than 36 (mine was 34-36 at birth)


If I'd known what the numbers were supposed to be I would have worked on making them the appropriate values earlier.

After about 48 hours, they were thinking of letting me out, but they did a CRP test (not crop reduction program, but C reactive protein) and it was something like 4.4, which is pretty high and means I was either getting ready to or had already fought a battle with beasties. Boy was I disappointed, since it meant another 24 hours in the slammer.

Once the 24 hours were up, they took another CRP test and it was 1.9 so they made plans for me to leave the next day. That was exciting, but they wouldn't give me any guarantees so I had to be very careful to keep the other numbers just right so they would let me leave in the morning.

The next morning around 8:30am (Saturday), my CRP test was 1.3 and that meant I could go home. Naturally I thought this meant I could go home, but alas, this was not the case. It merely meant I could spend some time with my parents in their room. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed spending time near mom (the food source?mmmm) and dad too I guess. The checkout process took forever. Part of that was my fault because I was supposed to be asleep for my hearing test, but didn't want to sleep since I was finally with my parents. Then the person who was supposed to take my picture never showed up and we didn't get out of there until a little after 1:00pm.

Upon arriving home, I proceeded to enjoy the new surroundings. A wonderful surprise was waiting for us. The collective grandparents had canned 16 quarts of tomatoes. They looked quite edible, but no one would let me try them. I typically get my mom up at least twice during the night and have been gaining about an ounce a day recently. Grandma Friberg is doing a great job calming me down when I want just a little more food after I've already eaten. They're still trying to get this whole diaper changing, eating, sleeping thing figured out.

For all you people who haven't gotten enough of me yet, you can find more pictures at www.stillmanranch.com/album Just click the link and then click on Jonathan.