Ann vs. Jason

By Jason

Sorry for the lack of updates since the quick announcement, Ann and I have been pretty busy with our little Athena Marie.  We’re home, the baby is great and Ann is doing well (though still very sore).

I thought I would write a bit about the birth from my perspective, and Ann will write her side of the story later.

Since Ann was being induced there wasn’t any need to rush to the hospital or anything.  Ann tells me this is not unusual but based on every movie and TV show I’ve ever seen the typical case is a mad rush followed by a birth in a taxi and/or stuck elevator.  Ann’s mom came with us for moral support.  The plan was to get the induction started, and then be as mobile as possible- walking, sitting on the exercise ball, etc.

Then the contractions really kicked in.  Ann was experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort, and there wasn’t much I could do to help.  During a contraction she couldn’t stand anyone touching her or really even talking to her.  It got bad enough that she decided to get an epidural.

With the epidural in, Ann could get some rest.  The baby’s heart rate was showing some dips on the monitor so they put her on oxygen just in case.  Ahan and Julie joined us at this point.

The hardest part after the epidural blocked off the pain was the waiting.  For a little while it seemed like we weren’t making any progress, but finally they did an exam and Ann was at 9.5 centimeters.

Ann pushed for a total of 3 hours.  This was one of the most intense experiences of my life. My participation was limited to helping hold Ann’s leg back and hold her neck up as she pushed and helping to keep her breathing between pushes, but it was physically and mentally exhausting.

Though she wasn’t in pain, the strain of pushing took an obvious toll on Ann.  Ahan and I were amazed to find her dozing off between contractions, only to wake up when the nurse counted down to push again.

We got to a point where the doctor saw that Ann was pushing as strongly as possible, but the baby’s head was just not moving past her pelvis.  They took a break and presented a new option: vacuum-assisted delivery. The hope was that they could get a grip on the head and help it maneuver through.  The only option left after that point would be a C-section, which we were hoping to avoid if at all possible.

After some setup time they go the vacuum in place and we got ready to push again.  Then it was over in a flash – the baby was out, covered in blood and goop.  They placed her on Ann’s chest and I cut the umbilical.  She didn’t cry or scream, but was amazingly alert and calm, so it was clear she was in good shape after all the strain.  They cleaned her up, suctioned her out, got her to cry a bit and then it was back with the two of us.

I’ll never forget the look on Ann’s face when they held up the baby – joy, surprise, and relief.  After over 10,000 votes in our online baby naming poll, we had narrowed the list down to three – Cassia, Ada, and Athena.  Like her mythical namesake, our Athena was born alert and ready to take on the world.

I have to add one more detail – Ann made her brother promise to get a picture of the placenta.  For those of you who haven’t met one in person, it’s not the most photogenic organ in the body (don’t worry, I haven’t posted any of the photos).  Add one more thing to the big checklist of things I love about Ann – her medical curiosity in even the most daunting situations.

I have many more photos up on Flickr, please feel free to take a look.

Athena Marie Morrison

Just for fun I thought I would share this classic Monty Python sketch about childbirth. If you can’t see the video, follow this link.

The doctors and nurses at Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Stanford have better bedside manner than this, so we’ve got that going for us.

By: Ann

I just wanted to give everyone a brief update on Baby Morrison.  The baby is still maxing and relaxing inside my womb.  The baby must have Wii boxing set up inside of there, because I’m still feeling all the kicks and jabs as frequently as ever.  Sunday (the due date), November 16th, came, waved “hi” and left with no baby.  We even walked, literally, all over Mountain View on Sunday, completing a 4+ mile walk, with no dice.  It was a little difficult getting over that hump (my due date), but Jason has been really great with bustling on continuing to give me massages and keeping my spirits up. I’m still as dilated as I was last week.  The contractions are pretty regular, but not enough in frequency or intensity to be effective.

So, yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment and scheduled an induction.  The induction will begin on Friday  (11/21) night and end (hopefully) on Saturday.  I’m not the happiest at how this turned out, but this is the best decision for the baby in order to get the baby out as safely as possible without the complications of being overdue.  But at least my mom will be able to fly in.  Her birthday is this Sunday.  I think the baby as a birthday present won’t be too shabby.  What do you think?  On the other hand, it would be really great if I didn’t need the second part of the induction on Saturday and the birth was nice and quick, so I would be able to give birth on 11/21.  That is my best friend Jill’s birthday, along with Jason’s paternal grandmother’s birthday, who passed away this year.

On a brighter note, some of you may know or have heard that Jason was on Australian television via satellite.  He was on “The Morning Show,” the “Today Show” equivalent in Australia.  The interview was about the whole baby naming business we have going.  You can watch it by clicking on the link below.  Jason figured out how to embed it on his home page.

http://www.jasonmorrison.net/content/2008/appearance-on-the-morning-show-in-australia/

Jason has been too afraid to watch it.  I would be, too, if it were me.  However, I think it turned out very good.  There was a bit of a delay, but Jason wasn’t nearly as twitchy as he thought he was, given the conditions that he had to do the interview in.  He looks very good in the video and it was very entertaining on a whole. They have a photo montage of family and friends, so look out for your face.  Now Jason’s not the only one famous in Australia.

I’ll take one final picture and post it to our website of me in my final hours of pregnancy.  I promise. Thanks for all of the well wishes and phone calls.  It’s great to have a support system like all of you, even if most of you are so far away.

Happy belated birthday to Rachel and Kim.  Sorry no calls were made out.  Spirits were kind of low that day.  But we love you all just the same.  Happy birthday today to Jess.  Happy future birthday on Thursday to Cory, my not-so-baby nephew.  All of these birthdays…it’s really hard to keep up.

By Jason

This post is a bit late, since Halloween was more than a week ago, but we’ve been busy what with all the pre-election poll watching and post-election celebrating.  Halloween is usually a big holiday for Ann and I, since we almost always have a big party at our house with lots of friends.  This year we are thousands of miles from most of our friends.  We still have a house, but it’s filled with tenants and missing two porches.*

We were kind of sad and missing everyone, but luckily Google had a big Halloween party so we were still able to dress up and have a good time.  Ann’s pregnancy narrowed the choices for costumes this year, as did the fact that I would be going to work in my costume.  So we wanted to be funny and tasteless without rising to the level of termination for offensive behavior.

I was pregnant and Ann was my beer-bellied husband.  We decided to white-trash it up as much as possible.  Luckily there’s a Wal-Mart nearby.  No offense, Ryan G.  Anyway, if you’re in the market for mu-mus, I highly recommend their selection.  It’s hard to see in the photo but Ann’s wearing both a shirt and flannel with the arms cut off, to better expose her tattooed guns.

Here are some of my co-workers, Sandy as a cereal killer, Charlene as Juno, Koklynn as a ghost, and Merry as a cowboy.

Nelson and Henry both came as bees.  There were tons of dogs dressed as bees this year – I wish I was in the dog-sized-bee-costume business.  It seems cute but the idea of a bee the size of a dog is sort of terrifying.

Sophia was Domo-kun, and Wysz was Beah (which will make more sense in the next photo).

Wysz and Beah dressed up as each other.  You can read the harrowing tale of Wysz’s costume here.

Here’s Ann with Mike, who had an awesome Powdered Toast Man costume.

Tiffany came as a holiday fail.  If you’re one of my less internet-culture-immersed readers, check out this article about the liguistic uses of the word fail.

Indranil and Rowyn as Dracula and Alice respectively.  Rowyn’s blog is appropriately named Down the Rabbit Hole.

All of the Sesame Street characters at the party congregated together.

Above you see Ann with Prince.  This may have been the highlight of the party for Ann, even though it’s obviously not the real Prince, not matter how much she wanted to believe.

Finally, this is Sandy and Matt.  Matt’s already moderately-to-highly famous on the Internet, but his Rick Astley costume got him to the front page of Digg.  Click here to see Matt’s impression of Rick.

That’s about it.  Stay tuned for baby news, this kid is going to be born any minute.

* If you’re missing the reference to the porches, they were destroyed in a collision with a garbage truck.  Since moving to California we’ve had 7 months without a tenant, $18K for a new roof and other repairs, and now the porches have been smashed.  So the Morrison real estate empire isn’t exactly profitable at this point.  If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hold on to it for a few more years until the market is back up and we can sell it for somewhere near what we bought it for.  Then we’ll have almost enough for a down payment on a mobile home in Mountain View.

I want to report that my cousin Ron and his wife Meredith have had a cute baby boy, thus beating us in the race to have the first great grandchild on that side of the family:

Did the headline make you think we had the baby for a second?  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.  Little Lucas is only a few days old and he already looks a lot like Ron.  I see matching Halloween costumes in their future.

I’ll post about our Halloween next.