Day #1893 (Wed., Mar. 11, 2015) – Welcome Little Bobby!
My wife and I left for Duke Hospital just after 11am and arrived around 11:40am. I dropped her off that the front entrance to save time and she walked upstairs. I parked the car and took the tunnel underground to the “Traige” area on the 5th floor.
When I arrived at my wife’s room the nurse was already going over some charts and paperwork with my wife. Soon afterwards I went downstairs to Starbucks to get a super large black coffee. I asked my wife if she minded as she cannot eat/drink anything.
At 12:45pm the umbilical cord donor lady came. The doctor showed up at 1pm and the anesthetist showed up at 1:15pm. My wife asked the anesthetist to keep the medication to a minimum if at all possible. The hospital where we had Katie really drugged her.
At 1:35pm they took my wife down to the operating room. I was given a gown to put on. For some reason they gave me four boot covers. I asked a nurse about this to make sure I was not missing something. I told her I only needed two as I left my other pair of legs at home.
At 2pm the nurse came to get me and took me back to the operating room. There were 15 people in the room…as this is a teaching hospital perhaps a lot were students.
At 2:18pm little Bobby was born (see photo to the right). He peed on the doctors and for some reason I replied “That’s my boy”! (NOTE: Not exactly sure what I meant by that?) At any rate he weighed in at 10lbs 10.2oz (i.e.: 4825 grams) and the doctor exclaimed that my wife just delivered a toddler.
They cleaned up little Bobby and “footprinted” his foot on a huge card. They then brought him to me to hold and I held him up so my wife could see him. When the operation was done they wheeled my wife back to the “Traige” Room where it all began.
I texted Nikki a picture of little Bobby and Katie started to cry from joy when she saw it. Nikki brought Katie out to see little Bobby in the hospital this afternoon and we gave her a “Big Sister” sash and pin. Our neighbor Jui Lan gave her a necklace. Katie was very concerned about the pain my wife was in. When the nurse came in to give little Bobby a pin prick on the foot to get a blood sugar reading Katie was really interested. She had eagle eye focus on what was going on…kind of like how she gets transfixed when she is watching a cartoon.
When the time came Katie helped us wheel little Bobby to our new room. Our new room was huge, just like the operating room. They told us that we lucked out…nothing specific for us.
When Nikki got home this evening she and Katie put balloons on the mailbox to announce little Bobby’s birth to the neighborhood.
My wife ordered room service this evening. She got fish and mashed potatoes with ice cream. They forgot the cole slaw so we called them up and they delivered it after she finished her ice cream. I went downstairs to the cafeteria and got a salad and cheeseburger and fries.
I changed little Bobby around 11pm this evening for the first time. That meconium is nasty stuff…like axle grease and incredibly black.
At 11:45pm this evening my wife wanted some cereal with milk. As I was leaving for the cafeteria the nurse from Kenya said that they have cereal and milk here on the floor. So, I got my wife a large bowl of vegetable soup and a small bowl of fruit (the fruit cup cost $3.19).