Russell - going home

We expected to be discharged from the hospital 24 hours after Russell was born, however, they felt his weight loss was a concern so they kept us around for another night. Again, it was another long night so it may have been a blessing in disguise.

We checked out of the hospital around noon on a bright sunny spring day and arrived home to the sweet sounds of a bulldozer grading our front yard. Landscaping can't be too far off.

Russell Day 1

Night number 1 was not nearly as bad as I had feared. Russell had woke only twice through the night so Julianne tried to feed him and he was very quiet.... the after effects of the epidural were fantastic... the gift the keeps on giving you might say.



Our first full day with Russell turned out to be a pretty full day. Great Granny Chow came..


Obasan and Ojiisan Tabata came...


as did Pansy, Luma, and Hannan.

Even the Yam's made a late day appearance...



sadly, with all those guest, eating took a bit of a back seat, that combined with the epidural effects worn off, Russell was set for a cranky night.

Russell Day 0

... so around midnight, Julianne has to lie down and breath deeply for each passing contraction. By around 12:30, we are in motion to get back to the hospital. We enter the triage room around 1am, and it is almost full (4 beds)... funny because we were the only ones there a few hours earlier. Anyways, we actually have to wait for someone to get admitted before we have a bed for them to look at us.

It turns out that Julianne had gone from 1cm to 4cm's in about 2 hours.. very quick so now I'm thinking this could really happen anytime.... They check us into a birthing room around 2am and strap Julie up to all the monitors... the contractions continue to intensify. Julianne's original plan was to deliver naturally, but her judgment got the better of her. She figured that she had already been up for over 16 hrs so far, and if she couldn't get any rest, she might be having to push the baby out without rest for over 24 hrs, so she elected to opt for the epidural. I was pleased with this decision because it was already difficult to see her dealing with the pain of her contractions.

One problem.... the anesthesiologist was in emergency surgery and could not administer the epidural for some time. 2 hrs later (around 4am), he appeared and inserted the enormous needle into my wifes back. Shortly after, we both nodded of to sleep.

That morning, Julie was re-examined, and was only at 5cm's... (for the uninitiated, 10cm is the target to start pushing) They added some medication to strengthen her contractions, and figured that we'd be around 10cm's around 2pm.

Deanne, arrived around 8am to support Julie so that afforded me a few more hours sleep. Julie's mom and auntie Pansy arrived around 10am and the gallery increased. My mom, arrived around 1pm, and we were still waiting for the final act to commence.

Around 5pm, (24 hrs after the initial regular contractions) it was 'go' time... time for the first push. Julianne was focused like a marine... she breathed strong, pushed well, through all the pain and discomfort. I thank her endlessly for this as I wouldn't have been able to deal with the experience of her crying in agony as i heard from several other birthing rooms later that night.

At 6pm our baby boy Tabata was born...


He weighed in at 7lbs, 12 oz.

As you can see, the newly minted Grannys were there to get in on the action shortly after.

LCBO night!!! (aka - Russell day -1)

WooHoo !!! Tonight is my L.C.B.O. For the uninformed, LCBO stands for Last Call Before Offspring. Julianne is due with our first child on May 2nd.

HISTORY... the LCBO was born to be a 'rite of passage' event for guys as the enter fatherhood. We discovered that the transition from bachelorhood to marriage is relatively easy as you've most likely been exclusively dating your fiance before marriage anyways. The transition from a couple to a triple (or more) is significantly more impactful on ones social life with the boys. Thus the concept of the LCBO was born.

Ironically, we realized that we had infact celebrated our first LCBO inadvertently. When Brian asked me to be his best man, i was living on the other side of the country and was unable to organize a proper bachelor party for him. In consolation, I promised him I would throw him a proper send off prior to the birth of his first child, a claim I made good on prior to the birth of his son.

... back to our story... tonight Brian scheduled my LCBO... a simple cards, bbq & cigars affair at his house. Earlier in the day, around 1pm, Julianne started experiencing some "tightening" around her belly. This came and went throughout the day, and increased in frequency and intensity. Around 6pm, Julie still expected me to go to Brian's and considered inviting her sister over to stay with her in case something happened. Her "tighting" feelings were stronger now and happening every 5 minutes... I recall this was significant, from my vague recollection of child birth classes. I insisted she call the hospital to confirm this was 'normal' at this stage before Todd was scheduled to pick me up.

The nurse suggested "I think you should come in".... and the LCBO went out the window. We slowly got our stuff together to go to the hospital. We casually ensured all of our hospital bags had everything, Julianne took time for a shower and we arrived at the maternity ward around 8pm. There, they attached two monitors to Julianne, one for the baby's heart rate, and one to measure the intensity of the contractions. After around an hour, the Doctor examined Julianne and informed us that she had dilated to only 1cm. At around 10pm, she sent us home to wait for the contractions to intensify to the point where Julianne could "no longer talk through them" She told us that this could take anywhere from 2hrs to 2 weeks.

We got back home a little after 10pm, watched some tv and started to prepare for bed.

The Bed is in !!!

It has been a 12 round battle royal to get our new bed into the master bedroom. Here's a recap... dates are approximate.

Feb 24... visit Sleep Country to select a king sized mattress for our new bed.

Feb 25... purchase a new "Bachelor" king sized bed from UpCountry at a promotional price.

March 1... Move from the condo to the townhouse amid the worst snowstorm of the year

March 3... Mattress is delivered, but can't fit up stair case, is left in kitchen.

March 6... For an additional $100 a 'rope team' is hired to lift the mattress to the bedroom

March 16... Bed is finally delivered from UpCountry (see blog entry)

March 18ish... knowing a $2000 credit from UpCountry is worthless unless you wait to get something on deep discount once in a blue moon, I figure I'll get the bed upstairs somehow and have them "re-deliver" it at the cost of another $100.

March 21ish... bed is redelivered, this time, the two pieces that make up the base are removed from their boxes and again tried to negotiate the stairs to no avail. Other problems are that the headboard is missing, and one of the drawers in the base has a deep scratch through the stain to the wood..... wonderful.

March 23ish... headboard is delivered. Neighbor hires onsite crane operator to lift his furniture to his 3rd floors for $200, but i have a quote from the mattress guys for $100, and they're scheduled to arrive next week.

March 26ish... company that lifted the mattress comes back to lift the bed for the $100 quote... however, feel that they can't do it once they see the boxes.

March 28ish... UpCountry dispatches the "Furniture Dr." to fix the scratched drawer. I'm pissed that I'm paying full price for a damaged bed but I'm too exhausted to fight it anymore. He did do a remarkable job, but its not perfect.

April 8th... optimistically, invite a bunch of people over to attempt to lift the bed via rope and manpower upstairs, but wisely abort the plan at the last moment.

April 10ish... Building site proj mgr insists crane will be back "any day now"

April 21st... Get $400 minimum quote from crane operator to bring equipment onsite and move my bed and stuff for my neighbor. The plan is to hire him if we don't hear from the builder by Wednesday.

April 22nd... The mattress has been sitting in the master bedroom, still wrapped in original plastic since March 6th... Julianne and I break down and unwrap it and sleep on it on the floor.

April 23rd... 5pm the building site, crane guy arrives !!! I have no photos as i was too nervous watching a 100+ lbs piece of my bed being balanced on a tiny 4x3 cherry picker basket without straps or ropes holding it down, 30 feet over the roof of my garage. Ring up another $100 for the 30min work and the total delivery charges on the bed are $400. ($100 rope guys, $200 Upcountry (delivered twice), $100 crane guy)... oh and last thing, we debated on whether to lift the head board in its box or unpack it first.... (it had been boxed since it was delivered).... so we open the box and the fabric insert... is the wrong colour!!! ...forget it, it stays.



.... so it took from Feb 24 till April 23rd, 58 days to get the bed in order and we slept in it on the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th. Yes.... 4 days!!! 4 days, and we're back to the 2nd bedroom and later posts will explain.

Hmmm.. so I wonder what else the new guy is going to get rid of ???

Catholic Church buries limbo after centuries

By Philip Pullella 1 hour, 1 minute ago

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.

In a long-awaited document, the Church's International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

The 41-page document was published on Friday by Origins, the documentary service of the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which is part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pope Benedict, himself a top theologian who before his election in 2005 expressed doubts about limbo, authorized the publication of the document, called "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised."

The verdict that limbo could now rest in peace had been expected for years. The document was seen as most likely the final word since limbo was never part of Church doctrine, even though it was taught to Catholics well into the 20th century.

"The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation," it said.

"There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptize them)."

The Church teaches that baptism removes original sin which stains all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden.

"NO NEGATION OF BAPTISM"

The document stressed that its conclusions should not be interpreted as questioning original sin or "used to negate the necessity of baptism or delay the conferral of the sacrament."

Limbo, which comes from the Latin word meaning "border" or "edge," was considered by medieval theologians to be a state or place reserved for the unbaptized dead, including good people who lived before the coming of Christ.

"People find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian," the document said.

It said the study was made all the more pressing because "the number of nonbaptised infants has grown considerably, and therefore the reflection on the possibility of salvation for these infants has become urgent."

The commission's conclusions had been widely expected.

In writings before his election as Pope in 2005, the then
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made it clear he believed the concept of limbo should be abandoned because it was "only a theological hypothesis" and "never a defined truth of faith."

In the Divine Comedy, Dante placed virtuous pagans and great classical philosophers, including Plato and Socrates, in limbo. The Catholic Church's official catechism, issued in 1992 after decades of work, dropped the mention of limbo.

Global Warming???

I find it very interesting when predictions come to fruition. 1999 Ron Howard released the movie Edtv. Figure the concept for this movie was hatched a few years before that. The movie is about a regular guy they put on TV to follow around his daily life. It's interesting how the film pre-dated the flood of reality tv, but accurately illustrated how it can make a celebrity out of anyone.

So what does that have to do about Global Warming aside from all the additional hot air for psuedo celebrities produced from reality junk.... might be on to something there???

Okay, so if you haven't read State of Fear yet, it follows a lawyer who learns of a group that questions the assumption of Global Warming. Somehow, Global Warming has been marketed to become the key issue of today. Amazing considering how the promotion of supporting the cause of Global Warming is a component of the book, and it has actually happened.

Anyways, in the video, he talks about his next book "Next" for the first 22 minutes, but the rest is about his views on the issue of Global warming. (for those who don't want to read the book)



IQ2 Debate: Global Warming
Is Not a Crisis
Listen to Podcast or Read Transcript
On March 14, 2007, Michael participated
in a debate, speaking as part of the team
in favor of the winning motion "Global
Warming Is Not a Crisis".