Katrina, the wicked hurricane

For the past few days a horrible hurricane hit the USA's Gulf Coast. It finally hit near New Orleans, Louisiana where the city is actually 20 feet below sea level. The gulf's waves went over the levee's and has flooded the cities near N.O. The winds destroyed a lot of people's homes and businesses. It is a full blown catastrophe. I thought I'd mention it since it's a relevant current event that is going on with you less than 3 weeks old. I am so thankful that we haven't had to endure any horrible natural catastrophes as a family. I pray to God that He will spare us that kind of suffering. The whole event reminds me of my dad's trip to New Orleans when he was in his teens or early 20's. He went on a Mennonite Relief Mission with his church to help with the rebuilding of the city after a major storm (in the 1960's I believe). Isn't that cool that he did that? It makes me want to go down there and help people out as well. However, I'm enduring my own tribulations at my job. I have been promoted to "Team Lead" at my job, along with 2 others. While I am enjoying the position so far (2 days in!), I'm finding that more and more people outside of my department are coming against me. It's really interesting to watch as this company which I once considered my pride and joy (because I helped get it off the ground) becomes more political and cut throat everyday. It makes me sad. About 2 1/2 months ago, I let go of that ownership feeling I held so dear inside. There have been a lot of compromises that I'm being forced to face now. Compromises that I let go on unchallenged as the 3 years have passed by. I suppose that I have much more to think about on this topic, but it's hitting me pretty hard. I had such dreams for this company, and it seems as though the antithesis has come to pass instead. The bright spot is that we have a new guy at the top (Chief Operating Officer) who is leading a charge for true leadership. Somehow over the past 3 years, I have been passed over for leadership positions until now. As I review the situation, it appears as though my boss has surrounded himself with people like himself. Since I have some serious differences with him, so those people that go along with him have been promoted instead. I guess that is how it goes in any company, but I have been unwilling to believe it was happening. I kept on believing that he was bigger than that, and saw me as the close confidant that I once was to him. Now, I am faced with the reality that I have been in denial. My wife is a really great sanity check for me. When my leadership is telling me that they all feel that I have obvious problems, she helps steady me and bring out a balanced reality. Kendra is amazing, and I want you to know that she is a great model for you follow when you look for a spouse. I guess I'm getting a little mushy. I hope you can handle it. :)
I've got to get some sleep before your next feeding. Love you little man! ~Daddy

Bottle Time!

Today we reintroduced you to the bottle, and formula. You haven't tasted any of that since leaving the hospital. You downed the first 3 ounce bottle like it was nothing. That is more than you're supposed to be eating for your weight. Kendra had to pull out your other food in order to satisfy you. For a few days now, we've been suspecting that you just weren't getting full at each feeding. Tonight, I got to feed you myself for the first time. I think several mouthfuls went down your shirt b/c you can't swallow it all by the time it gets into your mouth. I'll have to work on that with you. After the bottle, I got to burp you and let you crawl on my chest for a little bit. I loved it! This is what I live for.
Love, ~Dad

Cute napping moment

Today while you slept, I was reading in the living room. The baby monitor in your bassinet was near your feet because you keep wrapping the cord around your neck when we put it near your head. (Shame on us). So, as I'm reading, I start hearing you stir a little. Then I hear a little fart. I smiled, and you stirred a little more. Then you let out a really loud one, and it woke you up enough to utter a little cry. I laughed out loud, wishing your mom would have heard it. Then you woke up and I had go get you.


Today, we put a cd player in your room, and played the "womb sounds" cd that our friend (from church) John Keck made for you. I also moved a TV into your room so that whoever is rocking you can watch a little tube.


Our friends Darrell and Amy Amy brought dinner over tonight along with their 1 yr old son Paxson. They said you were a beautiful little guy, and were excited for our family that you have come along.

This was the first day for your mom and me to be alone with you in our home...just our family. We were sad to see Nana & Terri & Pepere leave this morning. We are ready to begin our journey as a little family (Team Regehr).

Love, Dad

You turned 14 today....days, that is.

Each day is another milestone at this young age. Your growing a little each time I look at you. Everyday when I go to work, so go by your room and kiss you on the cheek while you're sleeping. When I return home, you seem so much bigger. It's really wild. Here's a picture of you at 11:25pm. This little bouncy chair is one of your favorite things. It bounces anytime you move, and it vibrates and massages and plays music or white noise. It's a super chair! I wish I had a version of my own to sit in.

This was my first week back to work, and it was really hard to leave you. I guess after a week of work, I'm sort of getting back into my job. But I am finding that I really don't care about much except you. When I'm at work, I'm thinking...I wonder what Jacob's doing right now? I wonder if you are kissing his momma, or getting burped by Nana. I wonder if you are happy, and if I'll be the dad that I want to be for you. It's pretty distracting to be honest. I love it.

Your Pepere came today from Alabama. He's here to take Nana and Terry back home tomorrow. I'm sad to see them go so soon. I was hoping that they would be able to stay thru next week. Unfortunately, all plans fell thru when Kelly (your Aunt) wrecked her vehicle. She and the kids (your cousins Brandon and Zach) were not hurt, thank goodness. They were planning on coming to visit over Labor Day weekend, and take Nana and Pepere back with them. The house will seem a little empty without them here. :(

I'm glad it's the weekend. Unfortunately, I have to go into work tomorrow for the morning. But I'll be back soon enough to play with you. Love, Dad.

Trying to recover all of the details...

While I'm pretty tired, I believe that I really need to get some of my memories from the past 5 days before I forget. First, I need to put up a picture of you for all your fans. There are many to choose from, so I'll put up a quickie of you and me. We were both pretty tired in this picture. The last few days have been a whirlwind of events. Some of the events were traumatic, some were joyous, some were boring, some were exasperating, others were full of emotion. Let's see what evens I can remember...
Around 10am Friday morning, Kendra came to my office in our house (I was working from home), and announced that she thought her water had broken. She jumped into the shower, and when she got out it was an official trickle. I frantically packed the truck with all of the items we planned, and she got dressed for the big event. We got into the truck and drove to Conway Regional Women's Center, the birthing center where we were fortunate enough to be pre-registered. How's this for timing: as soon as we arrive at the birthing center, Kendra opened the door and took one step out of the truck. As soon as her foot hit the ground, her water broke wide open gushing out onto the sidewalk. I know that was more than you wanted to know, but it was a cool sign to me that God was in control. She stood there frozen for about 5 seconds and I told her to go on in the front door and tell the people and they'd know what to do. She went in while I parked the truck and hustled on in to find my bride. She was embarassed because she was pouring out all over the wheelchair they put her in. Who could blame her? We got ushered into her birthing room, and they put her into the bed and hooked her into an IV.. She knew from the beginning that she wasn't going to try to be a hero, so she requested an epidural as soon as she could get one. We then settled in and started calling everyone we knew to announce the story. Let me remind you that Kendra was scheduled to be induced on Monday the 15th (which was 1 week before her due date). I remember calling her dad, and he was stunned silent when I told him that we were in the hospital already. heheh. Then I called her mom, and she told us they'd be coming the next morning. I called my parents and my sister. My parents decided to wait a few days until the middle of the next week. My sister and her husband made plans to come for the weekend instead of coming over Labor Day. I was really glad that they were able to make the trip. I know it was a hard trip for all of our family members to make for such a short visit. But it was really encouraging to me to have that level of support. I'll make another entry tomorrow to fill in some more details and load few more pics.

A note directly to my son...you are making great strides today in nursing. At first, we were concerned that you weren't going to be able to pick it up b/c Kendra had to delay the first feeding for 2 days. But you are picking it up better and better each feeding. Tomorrow, we go to your first doc's appointment. We're hoping to hear that you're progressing out of the light jaundice that you had in the hospital. From the looks of things (you're filling up your diapers quite well now), it shouldn't be a problem. Love you little buddy. ~Dad

Your name is Jacob

Hi son. You are now 4 days old, and you are incredible. We arrived home from the hospital today (finally). Your mom had to have an operation called a "C-Section" to get you born. Doctor Spencer Johnson performed the surgery...you'll see pictures on my website. There are many stories to tell about our 4 days at the Conway Regional Women's Center, but for now I'd like to just focus on today's events. Aside from being born, this was probably the second most difficult day for you. Here's how it all started.

You got your little wang chopped off for starters (not ALL of it, just the standard circumcision). Our pediatrician is in a small group of doctors that switch off hospital visits, so your regular doctor, Dr. Champlin, was not doing the procedure. Instead, his partner Dr. Craig came and told us all about the little surgery. Dr. Craig is a good man, and he explained all the details in great detail. After he left, the nurse came and took you away. Before we knew it, you were back in our room again...fast asleep. I thought to myself, that must have been pretty smooth, but your mom was in tears...putting herself in your place in her mind. She imagined the cutting and the bleeding and the feeling of being away from your mother and also that your mother and father let this happen to you. She felt so sad inside even though she knew it was the best possible thing for you. And as she cried for you, you just laid there peacefully, dreaming of placentas and umbilical cords (what else could babies dream about?). Your peaceful face let me know that it was all okay.

Believe it or not, that isn't where the day's drama ended. The next step was being informed that you were looking yellow, which means jaundice. Jaundice is caused by a build up of bilirubin in your body. The natural way for the baby's body to get rid of it is to poop it out. Breast fed babies have a higher occurance of jaundice than do bottle fed babies. You have had some pretty good poops (the current funny phrase is "blowouts"), but apparently you haven't had enough just yet. The medical team had to draw blood from you and send it to the lab to be tested. If your bilirubin count is too high, they would keep us there another day so you could have treatments under the bili-lights. There's a whole "bili" world apparently that I didn't know much about. It turned out that your bili-count was only up to 11 and the magic number meaning we'd have to stay was higher at 15. Thankfully, we packed our things and made our way home. You had your first ride in your mom's Ford Escape, and your own infant seat. It was very non-dramatic, just like the Ford Escape. Okay, that little jab wasn't necessary, but it felt good.

The next big event was attempting to feed you. You got into this pattern of fighting before you feed...hmm...fight-n-feed. You will throw a huge fit as your mom tries to nurse you. You will move your arms in front of the...ahem..nipple, you rare your head back and forth and side to side, you kick your legs angrily, and all the while you'll have your mouth open saying "feed me!". It's pretty exasperating for you all of us. Your mom is trying something new every feeding now (cuz she's a champ who won't give in so easily). I just keep encouraging her b/c sooner or later you and she will find the right combination. One thing we have all derived about you is that you have quite a temper. One book I've been reading says that you may be getting overstimulated during this time. But that would probably mean that you are getting overstimulated quite a bit. But here's the cool thing: you sleep like a little angel. And when I hold you up to my chest, you just nuzzle your face into my neck and find your peace. Those moments are pure gold. ...It makes me tear up a little even now thinking about you...sleeping in the other room. You're going to have us all working our rear ends off for the next 6570 days, and it will be tough. But I am hoping that most of those days are "neck nuzzling" type of days for us.

There were other hairy adventures today that I'll just briefly mention.

• I had to go to the doctor for a strained ligament in my foot. He speculated that it may actually be partially torn, and gave me some medicine, some treatments and a lace up foot brace(ugh). I'm supposed to go easy on it for the next 3 weeks.
  
• Another wonderful issue is that our garage door opener is acting up. It's not working correctly so I have to find a remedy fast (before I go back to work next week)...and I'm afraid that it will be expensive.
  
• We have to find someone to mow the lawn since my foot is messed up.
• Our toilets are both leaking, though slowly. I'll be fixing them this week if everything goes as planned.
• Topping it all off is this sense (Kendra & I both) that we have so much to do to get things straightened out in our house for you. I know it's weird. None of the problems are going anywhere, so the rush is only percieved. But that instinct is kicking up in both of us.

Of course, we are soooo blessed to have you, and we have had other blessings today as well:

• Your Nana and Auntie Terri are here staying with us to help us out with stuff.
• Jan Sturdivant from church brought us food from Market Place Grille - it was very satisfying! She also brought a pie and some banana bread, all very well received.
  
• Jan also brought a gift bag from herself, Sheryl Pachosa and Lisa Vanover. It had all kinds of great stuff in it that you will enjoy either directly (a great Teddy Bear and book) or indirectly (a box of 1 million baby wipes, or so it looks like - this box is huge).
• Also, I have been encouraged by the phone calls and email of friends and family that have wished us well over the past 4 days. We have received a ton of email and it's really picked me up when I have been tired or discouraged (seriously, we're going to have to work on your temper!).

I hate to forget anything, but I also know that I need some sleep in order to do it all again tomorrow. What am I talking about, I'll be doing it again every "2 to 3 hours". I love you buddy, and it is overwhelming to me (tearing up again) as I think about all of the blog entries I made to you over the past months. I am now merging those thoughts and dreams with your actual face, your body language, your dimpled chin, your light brown hair, your sweet smile, your temperament and mannerisms, your gestures...it's all finally become real for me. And I love you even more now. ~Dad.

I need you to Google the word "Sciatic"

Hi little buddy. We're still pretty sure your name is Jacob. Now, let's get down to business. You're mom is experiencing a whole new sort of pain. You are pushing her sciatic pain to new heights. The pain starts in her upper right butt cheek, and shoots down her leg. I cringe everytime she gets the look on her face. She can't get up out of a chair very easily, or even out of bed. Last night, the pain was strong enough that she couldn't sleep. She went to the living room to watch some TV, and she fell twice while getting up. Do you remember that? Ha.

I feel like we're in the middle of the final countdown. I just know we're going to see your cute little face very soon. I can't wait. We watched a movie last night called "Coach Carter". It's an inspiring, true story about a basketball coach that turns around a high school program at his alma mater where he was a star. It's really wild because the story was more about turning hopeless adolescents in a poor community into young men with hope for a bright future. I hope that you enjoy basketball when you are older. If you don't, it's okay. We'll connect on a whole lot of levels...I just know it.
Love you little man! ~Dad

Excited about the new season of tv

I'm excited about the new season of television because of 2 shows that I have become attached to: Battlestar Galactica and Arrested Development. These shows represent new ways of filming in televsion, and are ground breaking in their committment to remain true to their original vision.
Battlestar is, as you can imagine, set in space. The story is about the last remaining numbers of the human race trying to find the mythical promised land called "earth" while trying to avoid contact with their robot hunters: the cylons. The show's special effects are really authentic. When a ship is flying thru space, and needs to make turns etc, you hear the sounds of jet nozzles shooting gas out to effect a change of direction. It's very true to real life like when you see footage of the space shuttle or space station making positional adjustments. Also, they use bullets instead of "laser" guns. Even in the space ships, you hear the sound of rounds going off instead of some dreamed up weapons. It makes for some riveting televsion.
Arrested Development is just plain funny. The characters are outrageous, and keep Kendra and I laughing constantly. We have the dvd set for the first season. Soon we'll get the second season's dvd set. We're anxiously awaiting the upcoming season.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share some of these moments leading up to your birth. I'm expecting that you will arrive before the due date of 8/22. Kendra is continuing to get bigger and bigger. One thing is certain, you won't be under weight.

I love you bud. See you soon! ~Dad

Your Grandma Regehr says hi...

That's my mom. :) I'm on the phone with her right now. She's in Wichita telling me a story about somebody's name, and how she thinks your name will turn into derivatives of Jacob Wade. We're not 100% sure that's your name, but it's fairly certain.

Your mom is nearly about to burst. Her legs are swollen, and her whole body feels like it's about to explode. It's got to be pretty wierd for her, but I can still tell that she loves feeling you move around inside her womb. I wish I could experience the feeling. We've been getting the finishing touches on your room. Yesterday, we hung a shelf on a wall in your room and put your collection of stuffed toys on it. We also put on the shelf the "Baby's Prayer" plaque that my grandmother gave you. Next to it is a little stuffed praying baby giraffe. We hung colorful blue and green curtains over your window. When the sun shines, the color in your room is really beautiful. Your Grandma Regehr has a new computer and she's having some issues learning Windows XP. It's been out for 5 years or more, but she has been using Windows 98...so the transition is a little slow for her. But she's pretty sharp, and she's getting thru it fine. By the time you can read this entry, these operating systems will be long ancient relics. I just got her on MSN's chat program, and we're chatting over the internet...typing only. I have invited her to a voice/video chat. She's seeing me on video, but she has none b/c of a 26kb modem connection. It's mega slow...one day they'll get highspeed access.

I'm getting tired, so I'm gonna sign off tonight. I love you more! ~Dad