Home!

Yesterday, Gabriel and Michelle came home.

Gabriel on his first day outside...

... accompanied by his happy mother with some of the flowers she has received...

... and finally, still asleep, in his bed at home. The white teddy, Oursinette, has been made by Michelle.

Michelle has stayed at the hospital for four days out of the five she was entitled to. Even though it was hard for me to drive home and leave Michelle and Gabriel behind at the hospital every time, I am still glad that she had the option to stay there for a bit. This allowed us to learn from the experienced nurses and midwifes how to handle the baby. For example, I bathed Gabriel twice under expert supervision, and I was glad that the second time I did most things right. A baby has lots of moving parts, which make dad's life difficult, and you can't just dunk the baby a few times to wash it.

Now that Gabriel is at home, I have the opportunity to watch him and to hold him whenever I want. According to the advocates of attachment parenting, I should not only do that, but I (or Michelle) should carry him around wherever we go.
I am generally wary of all parenting styles that come with a label, because they tend to overemphasize the labeled aspect, and I believe that this could be the case for attachment parenting, too. I have a very strong urge to hold him all the time, and once I held his little body against mine for a while, I don't want to let go of him anymore. This is supposedly good, though I believe that if I just give in to these urges, my life will revolve around Gabriel and only around him, which is neither good for him, nor for me. For one, I should not forget that am still married to that other person who gives milk to Gabriel.

More pictures

I've added a few more pictures to the album of Gabriel's first day.

The third time's a charm

As promised, here's the story:

On Wednesday, at 8pm, Michelle's water broke. Knowing that giving birth may take a while, we first finished dinner, then Michelle took a shower, while I sent out the information that "Bouton" was going to be born soon.
We arrived at the hospital at 9:30pm. Unfortunately, the assistant doctor was not able to confirm that Michelle's water had broken indeed - there was no amniotic fluid coming out anymore. While the midwife believed Michelle because of the way she described what happened, the doctor wanted to send us back home. Eventually he agreed to the midwife's suggestion that Michelle and I should go walking around for about two hours. The midwife believed that the baby's head was completely blocking the uterus, and that walking could sufficiently displace the baby to get the sanitary napkin wet.
Two hours of walking around in the city later, Michelle and I tried for the second time at 12:30am. However, the sanitary napkin was still completely dry. The midwife asked whether contractions had started, and Michelle denied. However, her belly hurt a little bit, and so we decided to still do one final check before we went back home. That was a good decision. On the monitor that recorded Bouton's heartbeat and Michelle's contractions, there were clearly visible contractions. However, there were also signs that the baby's heartbeat slowed down after the contraction peaked. This was a bad sign that indicated stress for the baby (it is much more normal that there is a deceleration of the heartbeat in sync with contractions followed by immediate recovery as contractions end - that means that the umbilical cord is being squeezed). Now, suddenly, the doctor was very alert.
Fortunately, the deceleration disappeared, and there were nice, regular contractions - one every three minutes - for the entire hour Michelle was hooked up to the monitor. Thus, instead of getting a caesarean, Michelle got admitted to the hospital, and she was given a bed around 2am.
Since contractions hurt more when she was lying down, Michelle decided to walk around. So we walked, until I got really tired (I didn't have contractions to keep me awake), and I slept for about an hour in a rather comfortable chair. We both got plenty to drink all the time, which was very nice (in the birth preparation class in San Diego we were told that all Michelle would get were ice chips from time to time).
Around 5am, the contractions went from rather painful to extremely painful, and around 6:30am, they came so quickly one after the other that Michelle didn't even have the time to take a deep breath in between. When it turned out that in the entire time since labour started, there had been no dilatation yet, it was clear that Michelle would opt for the epidural.
At 7am, she came to the delivery room for the third time. Since she had to wait for the anesthesiologist, the midwife prepared a hot bath for her. This did wonders. Michelle was able to relax, and suddenly, spacing between contractions became much longer again, and contractions weren't as painful as before. Michelle almost opted out of the epidural, though when she was lying on the bed after the bath, there was no longer any doubt that it would be a good idea to be without pain.
The epidural worked like a charm. Contractions stayed as regular as they had been during the bath, and from then on, everything went great. At 10:30, Michelle was already 5cm dilated, and at noon, dilation was complete. The baby was still quite far back, so the midwife suggested we let it move down on its own. That didn't happen, so from 12:30 on, Michelle was ordered to push. She did that very well, "as if it wasn't her first child", as the midwife said.
It was quite amazing to eventually see the head come out. I have seen babies before, but when one finally came out of Michelle, I was really amazed at the size of that head and then the body. Also, Gabriel was rather blue, though that was quickly remedied with exposing him to oxygen. He was, and is, in great health.

When we heard a midwife insist "Push! Push with all your force!" in an adjacent room a little later, Michelle and I were already able to exchange knowing looks, and a slightly tired, but happy smile.

Gabriel, age 1hr

More pictures can be found here. Story tomorrow; now I need sleep.

PS: Michelle at in the Hospital of Sion, room 518
Her phone number at the hospital: +41 (0)27 603 54 59
Visiting hours: 13-16, 18-19:30

It's a boy

Gabriel Jonas Dorn
12:52 pm
3.220 kg
51 cm

It has begun

It looks like the baby is going to be born on July 26. Michelle's water just broke.

Still waiting

Once again, we've only seen the hospital from afar (the orange building on the right side of the image).
Speculation goes on when the baby will be born. Several people suggested it would be tomorrow. Among them is the Swiss doctor, who arrived on the due date through calculation. Others reason that tomorrow is the day of St. Ann (Anne is the first name of Michelle's mother).
Personally, I like the 27^th, because 27 is 3³.

Waiting

The US due date has passed. We're still waiting. In the meantime, we have taken the opportunity to go for a little walk. We can't just bake cakes or write code all the time.


Yesterday, a database of first names for the Canton of Zurich has been published (thanks to my dad for the info!). We were glad to see that we have chosen good names for the baby. There are also first name statistics for Switzerland and France, in case you're looking for ideas, or in case you want to know the popularity of your name.

Why Bouton?

I guess I should explain where "Bouton" comes from, given that it's most likely only a few more days we will use the name.
Friends from San Diego had called their child Peanut before it was born. I still remember thinking at last year's Halloween party that it was really smart of them to have some sort of a code name to be able to refer to the baby - like us, they didn't know the sex of the baby yet.
Then, on January 31st, when we were celebrating our 4 year anniversary of our civil marriage with our best friends from San Diego, who had had their civil marriage on the exact same date, we were talking about baby names. Returning home from the excellent dinner, I suggested to Michelle that we should copy the "Peanut"-idea (incidentially, I also copied the idea with the blog from them. Smart people!).
Bouton is French for the English button, and the Swiss German chnopf. The latter can also mean little kid, which is quite fitting. Michelle liked my suggestion - after a while.

Speaking about names: In Switzerland, when you go to the hospital, you apparently have to tell them a boy's and a girl's name, even if you think you know it's a boy. Fortunately, we already know two names.

Tomorrow is the US due date. Michelle is having Braxton Hicks contractions a bit more often now. It seems that Bouton may be born at any time. I'll keep you posted!

Stroller

Michelle has been to the hospital for a checkup today. Apparently, the local doctors don't supervise the birth. Rather, this is the hospital's responsibility. Fortunately, everything is fine. Her next visit is scheduled on July 26, the Swiss due date (to calculate the due date, the Swiss seem to count every month as 30 days, unlike the Americans (July 23), who do it exactly. Who would have thought?).
Edit: A pregnancy takes an around 280 days from the first day of the last menstrual period. If you use months with 31 days to calculate the due date, it will be earlier.

In the meantime, I tried for the second time to get the stroller (Baby Jogger, because it is relatively small and accepts the Canada-approved car seat available here) from the store. On Wednesday, they had kept saying that it was ready and assembled within just another five minutes for way too long. This time, the stroller was ready. In fact, one of the assistants immediately hurried to get it when I came in. Unfortunately, the car seat didn't have any belts attached to it. At least, this gave me the time to take everything apart and put it together again. I wonder: How did people manage before strollers were high-tech machines?

On a completely unrelated topic: I have been asked to put also an image of myself onto the blog. Here you go:

Happily Pregnant

Michelle is still happily pregnant

See her happy face?