Archive for the ‘Pregnancy’ Category
July 7th, 2009 | 
Author: 8lbs 8oz 20.5 inches
Sarah woke up at about 12:30am on Monday morning with contractions that felt a little worse than her usual Braxton-Hicks stomach crunches. She let me sleep about another hour, then we both tried to decide if we should start making some middle-of-the-night phone calls. We ended up calling Sarah’s folks at about 1:45 so they could come to our house and stay with Asher while we checked into the hospital. My lovely wife then proceeded to take a shower and put on makeup while having contractions about 4-5 minutes apart.
This is the part were we slightly miscalculated the timing of the whole ‘contractions hurt’ thing… It took Sarah’s parent’s (John and Lalla) a little longer to get to our house than we had anticipated. By the time they arrived around 2:35am, Sarah was in a significant amount of discomfort. They barely got in the front door before we were rushing out the back. I love that Baylor Frisco is so close to our house, however, your wife being in labor is the ONE time you have an excuse to drive like it’s the last lap of the Indy 500. I think it took about 12 seconds to get to there… wish it was further. It’s funny that the ride home is the exact opposite. You drive about 15mph like a granny when the newborn is in the car. The trips cancel each other out, right officer?
We got to the “hospital” around 2:45am and were all checked in by 3. I put hospital in quotes because it’s more like a 5-star resort than a hospital. We are thinking of our stay here like a vacation – it will cost about the same and our room, the food, and the staff are nicer than any hotel we could afford. Not to mention they give out free drugs! By the time they hooked Sarah up to all the machines and monitors, she was in a LOT of pain during contractions which were now about 2 1/2 minutes apart. It took almost another hour for the blood work to come back and the epidural dude to come, but Sarah handled it like champ. Neither of us have ANY idea how anyone could do it naturally… that is just crazy amazing. The eppy meds kicked in about 4:15am and Sarah was feeling great!
She started pushing at 5:00am and Avy popped out 23 minutes later!!
Mouse over some of the pictures below to read the descriptions
Posted in 
Dear Asher,
Wow, this past month has been insane. Do I say that every month? Well, this month for real! Your mom and I found out that in about 7 months, you’ll be a big brother!! That’s right, you’ll have your very own little one to boss around. We are so excited and can’t wait to find out if you’ll have a little brother or a little sister… We told our friends and family, but I’ll save those stories for next month’s letter.
You are becoming quite the little hockey player. Your wrist shot is already better then your old man’s! All you want to do is play hockey. Last week I made you your very own “real” stick from am old broken shaft of mine cut down to size with a junior blade stuck in the end. We spend hours and hours out in the garage passing and shooting the puck. One of your favorite things to do is to ‘Faceoff’. You either want to pretend you’re the ref and drop the puck for me, or you want to be the center and take the faceoff. You are already working on perfecting your goal-scoring celebrations. You are a master at the fist pump, but you have yet to master the ‘ride the stick-pony’ move.
I’ve had a ton of 7pm Sunday hockey games lately, so mom and you have been coming out to watch a lot. I don’t think you actually watch very much of the game, you just like being there with your little stick and puck. After one recent game, I took you out on the ice and you took a couple shots on goal. It was awesome the way your eyes glimmered as I skated around with you in my arms. After the game, we usually go out for pizza or wings with the team. Last time we went, you apparently weren’t feeling all that great… I thought you were just tired until you erupted like Mt. Vesuvius while sitting in my lap. It was gross… I had puke ALL over me. We got you cleaned up and bailed as soon as we could, but you let loose again about half way home in the car – projectile style. I swear there was puke on the windshield… I spent about 3 hours that night cleaning up yarf in the car, yarf on you, yarf on your mom… Poor little guy… Our house was vomit city, and you were the mayor for about 4 straight nights. I finally figured out that I needed to carry an emergency yarf bowl with me at all times. You are a total trooper though, you’d yarf, then just keep on truckin’ like nothing happened. I admire that.
The last couple of months you’ve started this weird ‘boycotting’ of daddy thing. I try not to take it personally, but it is soooo hard. At least once a day, something happens and you want nothing to do with me. “no daddy” you say. “Go Away”. I guess all working parents go through this at some point, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think a little piece of me dies each time you scream “I don’t want Daddy”. You usually make up for it later with lots of hugs and kisses though, so it’s all good…
I had such an “I’m turning into my father” moment the other day. You were standing up on a kitchen chair and I kept telling you to sit down on your bottom. I tell you this for your own good because I know, in all my vast wisdom, that standing on kitchen chairs is a very bad idea. Sure enough, it took about 12 seconds for you to tumble head fist off the chair and land with a loud thud on the tile floor. You immediately began to cry, and as I picked you up off the tile, I heard myself say “and that’s why we don’t stand on kitchen chairs!”. Oh God, did I just say that? Here you are, crying in my arms, with a potentially serious injury, and I just told you “that’s what you get for not listening to me”… I am so much like my father in a lot of ways, for better and for worse. And for the record, you cried for about 12 seconds, then you went back to standing on that chair!
Work has been really crazy-busy lately. I’ve been working late quite a bit and when I get home, the first thing I do is to check my email and set up my laptop so I can do more work. A couple weekends ago, we had a power outage in my office building, so I got to work an entire Saturday, shutting down our datacenter and bringing it all back up. You asked me several times after that day, “is the power on daddy?” ”Check email daddy?” “Go to work daddy?” Each day when I get home now you ask me if I was at work in this strange accusatory tone… it’s like you’re checking up on me, making sure I wasn’t out doing something fun without you.
I guess I’ll have to start including info about how your little sibling is coming along, and how your mom is handling it all. We should know a lot more next month!
Love,
Papa
I’m beginning to think this kid is NEVER going to come out… and the waiting is absolutely excruciating. I am totally, 100% pre-occupied by the fact that we could be heading to the hospital at any given moment to have a freaking CHILD! I can’t sleep, I can’t concentrate at work, and I’m a danger to other drivers on the road (OK, so maybe that last one is always true). And if I’m having such a hard time with this, I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for poor preggo-huge-burning-up-in-the-heat Sarah.
We went back to the doctor yesterday and scheduled a “just-in-case” induction for August 9th. Yes, 12 days from now. 12 MORE days. ARGH! I can’t wait 12 more days. We bought some raspberry-leaf tea, which the hippie-people claim is supposed to help things along, and we ordered some extra spicy chinese food at dinner the other night. At this point, I think Sarah might eat a bloody rare steak if it would put her into labor. She’s still swimming almost every day, and we even walked 2 miles the other night, but still no labor.
Hopefully, the next update will be from the hospital (they have free wi-fi!) with lots and lots and lots of pictures of Asher J???? Yarbrough (Much to Sarah’s chagrin, I still haven’t decided on a middle name).
No one ever told me that being pregnant is a lot like being a celebrity… Like most other things in my life, I’ve figured this one out on my own (ereh, with a little help from Sarah). Everywhere she goes, people want to talk to her and ask her questions. “When are you due”, “Is it a boy or a girl”, “You look so great” and on, and on, and on… Luckily, I’m usually an innocent bystander when these stranger-speak attacks occur. I don’t think I could handle the onslaught Sarah puts up with every time she goes out in public, but she’s always polite and courteous. Some of my favorite questions and comments made to Sarah so far:
“Are you pregnant?” (She was 9 1/2 months at the time and looked to be
smuggling a HUGE basketball)“Can you still drive?”
“Should you really be swimming? What if you have the baby while you’re
in the water?”“What does it feel like?” -someone asked this recently after finding
out that she is already 2cm dilated“Please don’t let your water break on my couch”
It occurs to me that being pregnant might just be a needy person’s nirvana. Strangers talk to you all the time, and when it’s all over you’ve got a nice little companion to torture for the next 18 years…
Well, I haven’t blogged in a while… I thought about writing something on the 4th of July, but I just couldn’t muster the time or finger-strength to type. Honestly, Sarah and I haven’t been all that busy lately, but for some reason, all my creative energy is totally zapped – I’ve got a big bag-o-nuthin. I think it’s because my brain has been in overdrive trying to compartmentalize the fact that I’m about to be a dad. We are quickly approaching zero hour… Tomorrow is my birthday, (I’ll be 28 years young) but it also happens to be the day that Sarah turns 37 weeks pregnant. So, starting tomorrow we are on full baby-labor-alert. The baby seat has been installed in the car and our bags are packed. It’s time to go. Just tap it in. Just tap it in. Give it a little tappy. Tap Tap Taparoo…
It generally takes a LOT to make me nervous, and I now constantly have elephant-sized butterflies in my stomach. I can’t wait to finally meet the little guy, and at the same time, I’m totally terrified!
I’ve never been around a lot of pregnant people before, and I’ve certainly never felt anyone else’s pregnant tummy while their baby kicked… So, it was a completely original experience when I felt Asher kick in Sarah’s belly for the first time. It’s weird enough to feel it on my hand, I can’t even comprehend what it feels like for Sarah. Craziness. I keep thinking of the movie Aliens when the creature pops out of that dude’s stomach (or perhaps from Spaceballs – “Water my ass, get this man some pepto bismol”). Asher is constantly moving around now and even keeping Sarah awake at night. It’s the coolest thing in the world to feel him squirming around in there. He’ll even kick me when I push on him – I can feel his head or his butt or a foot. It’s just the coolest feeling, I can’t even describe it.
It also makes me wonder what the ancient cavewomen thought… Am I crazy for thinking about that? If you didn’t know the details of reproduction, wouldn’t it freak you out when you realized something was growing and moving around in your belly? I watch to many damn sci-fi movies…
A couple of months ago, Sarah and I poured through several baby name books and each made a list of all the boy and girl names we liked. We then compared lists, and any names that appeared on both our lists became finalists. To us, this seemed to be the easiest and most democratic way to make one of the most important decisions affecting our kid’s life. Once we found out we were having a boy, we settled in on 2 final choices… and after much deliberating, we now have a winner! We have decided to name our son Asher. It’s an Old Testament bible name – Asher was one of Jacob’s 12 sons and the name means “blessing” or “happy” in Hebrew. We like it because it’s not a common name, and since Sarah and I both have rather popular names (the J in JR is for Jeffry), we thought it would be cool for our son to have an unusual name. For the most part, the reaction from our friends and family has been very positive.
Some people, however, do not think it’s cool… In fact, some like to tell us that they hate the name every chance they get. Some simply give a groan or roll their eyes because we haven’t chosen a name more traditional name such as “John”, “Robert”, or “Michael”. Not that there’s anything wrong with those names!! It’s just not our style. I wasn’t quite prepared for the backlash of this name game. I had no idea what a lightning rod of controversy it would be. Our friends recently had a baby and refused to tell anyone the name until the baby was born, thus avoiding all open discussion and/or family mayhem. I can totally understand their reasoning, and I wish I could do it, but there’s no way I could hold off my family. They would make my life a living hell until I spilled the beans. It amazes me how some people can feel so strongly about the name of someone else’s baby. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than not caring about the name at all…
I must admit that naming the lumpy, moving basketball thingy in Sarah’s tummy has added some serious reality to the whole “I’m gonna be a dad” idea. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I’m going to have a son in 3 1/2 short months. Sarah and I have finally moved all the furniture out of the guest room and started thinking about new carpet and paint to make it into a nursery. I’m already losing my free time to the kid and he isn’t even here yet! I’m learning to savor the few precious moments of peace I have left…
Sarah and I visited our doctor today to find out what we’re having…. It’s a BOY!! Holy crap was I surprised! I was sooooo sure he was going to be a she (wait, that just sounds weird. Note to self – never repeat that phrase to the kid).
It was such an amazing experience, I can’t even describe the feeling of seeing him on that little grainy black & white monitor. Rarely in my life have I ever cried for joy, and it was REALLY hard not to cry during the sonogram. I am going to be a complete and utter mess of snot and tears on the day he’s born. I think it’s finally starting to sink in a little bit, and knowing that we’ll have a little boy to cuddle with in 4 1/2 short months is really exciting and scary as hell at the same time.
Up until yesterday, I was the last male Yarbrough in our family… I was the last hope for the survival of the family name. Now, the name will go on for at least one more generation. Awesome.
I can’t wait to teach him everything I know (which should only take about 3 days…) To play the guitar, saxophone, hockey, football, golf… I will live all my sports dreams vicariously through him! Mwa-Ha-Ha. Could he be the first ever Texas born player to go #1 overall in the 2023 NHL draft?? Do they make ice hockey skates for 1 month olds?
I posted the sonogram pictures below and on the photos page in the Pregnancy folder along with some pics of Sarah’s exponentially expanding belly. I think the boy has my chin, and hopefully he’ll get Sarah’s beautiful blue eyes…
Couvade is the medical term for sympathetic pregnancy. Yes, that’s right, it means that during pregnancy, dad can often experience many of the same symptoms as mom… for example:
Variations in appetite
Weight Gain
Nausea / Vertigo
Headaches
Mood swings
Backache
Itchy skin
Food cravings
I’ve heard stories about this phenomenon in the past, but I didn’t really give it much thought, and I sure as hell didn’t think it could happen to me… boy was I wrong! The symptoms started in Sarah’s first trimester with a strange rash on my hips. Back pain and nausea soon followed, usually attacking me on Saturday and Sunday mornings when I was trying to sleep in. I’ve had weird random headaches that only last 5 minutes, crazy roid-rage like mood swings, and intense food cravings (Not so much for specific foods, but for ALL foods)… I’ve gained about 7 lbs since November.
Then last night, the weirdest thing yet happened. I got up about 5am to use the bathroom and when I laid back down, the room began to spin like crazy. I’ve never experienced vertigo before, and the only way I can describe it is to say it was like spinning on a merry-go-round x 1000. It only lasted about 25 seconds, but it totally scared the crap out of me.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that I am a complete and total nut-job psycho (as if you had any doubt).
Craziness is only a sunny crumb of melting plastic snoring to the tune of truckness.