Well, we got about 3.5 hours of sleep last night. At 1 a.m., we asked for some formula, because Carson is insatiable (sounds like his brother). That helped a lot.

We suspected we were in for a long night, as he slept from about 6-9 p.m. We watched three episodes of “Mad Men” during that time. Brian ordered dinner from Falbo Bros. Pizza.

***

Our pediatrician came in this morning and confirmed what his colleague said yesterday: Carson is a healthy baby. We’ll need to have a follow-up appointment two days after we’re discharged from the hospital.

***

As of 10:30 a.m., we’re still waiting for Kristin’s doctor to get here and let us know if we can go home today. She was supposed to be here between 8-9 a.m., so we’re wondering if she had to do a delivery.

Journal hospital, pediatrician, sleep

The parade has begun. Carson woke up every two hours or less last night, so we didn’t get that much sleep. Plus, he has pooped six times in his first 24 hours!

Thus, we were pretty tired this morning with the morning shift nurse came (she’s awesome), followed by the staff who assists with the birth certificate, followed by the pediatrician, followed by Kristin’s doctor’s colleague, followed by the janitorial staff, followed by the lab tech to draw blood.

Wowsa! Can we get any privacy here? At least we’re prepared for this onslaught after Braden’s birth.

***

Kristin took a nice, relaxing shower this morning, then took a couple of walks around the hallway. She is feeling much better and has regained her appetite.

***

The nurse is currently performing a hearing test on Carson, but the computer is acting up. So, she’ll have to come back later.

***

Brian’s mom visited and brought lunch from Famous Dave’s. Mmmm!

Journal hospital, visitors

Poor Braden. We still don’t think he gets it yet. When he got to the hospital, it took us a long time to convince him to come inside the hospital room. Once he finally came inside, he refused to acknowledge Kristin and Carson.

We gave him gifts that we told him were from Carson, but that didn’t help. We even tried to give Braden his digital camera, but he wouldn’t even take photos of Carson. Eventually, after more than an hour, he at least was willing to touch Carson on the head and nose.

***

Like with Braden, Brian had the pleasure of changing Carson’s first poopy diaper. At 5 p.m., Carson woke up and seemed hungry. Brian opened up his diaper to find the black tar that newborns have for poop. Brian also remembered to stand perpendicular to Carson, which was a good thing, since Carson also peed.

Carson had two more poopy diapers later at night. This is stunning, since it took Braden a while to poop. Plus, where did this come from?

***

Our first nurse was young and very nice, but we think she is still a little too green. She made several mistakes and was somewhat forgetful. We think the nurse that replaced her was a bit stunned by what her predecessor did (or didn’t do).

Our favorite one so far is the third shift nurse, though sadly, we’ll see her the least.

The nice thing this year is we don’t have a constant stream of people (residents, interns, etc.) coming in like we did last year. That was super annoying, and it didn’t allow us to sleep ever.

***

Good night at 1:40 a.m.

Journal diapers, hospital

We are pleased to welcome Carson Zhi Lee, born at 8:27 a.m., weighing 8  lbs. 3 oz. and having a length of 19.5 in.

Kristin was a trooper as always and is recovering now. We posted a photo on Facebook and were happily surprised by the immense number of comments we’ve had already.

Our families came around 11:30 a.m., and we took a ton of photos.

Journal birth, hospital

Th new episode of “Brian and Kristin Plus One” is the sequel to episode 4. In it, we wrap up our hospital stay.

Video bath, family, hospital

After another feeding and a bath for Braden, we packed up and left shortly after noon. Kristin did NOT have to be carted out in a wheelchair–she is one tough cookie.

Brian, as always, had road rage on the short drive home (1.4 miles according to MapQuest), only this time it was even more severe as his protective tendencies came to play. But we made it home safely, and Braden already has been fed.

It’s 2:15 p.m. and we’re just relaxing (well, Brian is doing some work and then running errands for Kristin) before we have family over.

Check out the new pics (Day 4).

Journal, Pictures family, home, hospital

It’s about 9 a.m., and we are eagerly awaiting to get out of here.

Braden fed at 2:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., and as usual, we had many visits from various staff members throughout the morning. Our pediatrician examined Braden and said he looks great; his bilirubin levels have plateaued, so we will continue feeding him formula but will take no further action to alleviate his bit of  jaundice.

We will be scheduling an exam for him for Saturday. If all is well, we won’t have to have another check-up for two weeks.

Kristin is about to take a shower then get her stitches taken out,  and then we can get out of here.

This morning’s nurse has been super nice and gave us a lot of goodies (formula, diapers, etc.) to take home. Brian will have to make at least a couple of trips to the car now.

More to come! Plus videos, pics, the works.

Journal feeding, hospital

Thank you to everyone who has called, e-mailed, texted and/or Facebook-messaged us today! Your well wishes really, really mean a lot to us.

We’ve had a parade of people come in today–the overnight nurse, the day nurse, the resident OB, Kristin’s baby doctor, our pediatrician, the nurse’s assistant and Meriter’s volunteer welcome person. And of course, our parents came this morning and stayed a few hours. Finally, Kristin’s sister Marcie stopped for a while this afternoon. 

Before Marcie came, we asked our nurse (Carol–she’s outstanding) if we could have some privacy to sleep. So we got a DO NOT DISTURB sign and then napped for an hour–we really needed it.

We’ve been feeding Braden every two hours or so. He smacks his lips and sticks his tongue way out when he’s hungry (it’s so damn cute!). He’s been sleeping a lot, and he hardly cries.

It’s funny, Braden loves keeping his arms by his head (like he was in the womb).

As mentioned, we didn’t expect to be in the hospital this long. Brian already is out of clothes, so he may just wear a gown the rest of the week. Thank goodness we brought Brian’s laptop to stay connected to the world.

It’s about 4:45 p.m. and we’re just relaxing until the next feeding. Kristin is disconnected from her PCA [meds] so she can move around as needed (she’s still sore, though).

Did you see the pics of Braden?

Journal family, hospital

We are pleased to announce …

… Braden Jie Lee, born 12:03 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, at 8 lbs. 3 oz and 19.5 inches.

Kristin began pushing at 10:20 p.m. At 11:30 p.m., the doctor felt it was best to switch to a C-section. The procedure was perfect, and Kristin is recovering speedily.

We are now in a different and smaller room (C-section families are transferred out of the birthing suites).

We are both exhausted, as the nurse checked Kristin every hour, then the OB came, so we’ve had less than four hours of interrupted sleep.

We’ll be in the hospital until about Friday. We didn’t think we would be here that long, so we didn’t pack the connector for the digital camera to the laptop (nor enough clothes). Brian will upload camera phone pics later today.

Friends may visit us on Thursday. More info to come.

Thanks everyone for checking in throughout yesterday evening. We’ll keep this blog updated!

Journal Braden, hospital

Almost 9:30 now. The nurse flipped Kristin over to her other side about 30 min. ago. She’s almost fully dilated now and is trying to nap to conserve her strength.

The baby has about 2.5 hours left to be born on my Chinese birthday this year (it changes every year).

By the way, it’s worth mentioning that everyone is very nice–the nurse, the physician and the anesthesiologist.

The cleaning crew just came in by accident. They were paged to the wrong room! They were puzzled why this room was so clean, and Brian answered that we hadn’t given birth yet. They felt bad for the mistake.

Journal hospital