@ 8 days old

At eight days of age, Tate is eating well and sleeping nicely. He's just a sweet little boy. His bilirubin level is still high, though, so he continues to have daily blood tests and to wear his little "biliblanket" most of the time to try and break down his bilirubin faster...O.K. The phone rang, and the doctor called to ask that we get his bilirubin checked first thing this morning, so after that test, I'm back to writing...I was about to say that I read a synopsis of a study that documented the results of several doctors' research from Johns Hopkins University. These doctors found that bilirubin, like fever, is actually a good thing for babies, in moderation. Just as a fever is a natural bodily function to help fight off infection, these doctors found that bilirubin in moderate amounts is very rich in antioxidants. They likened it to a "flexible armor protecting [the baby's] organs," which I find to be a somewhat less fearful explanation than some I've found. They're of course careful to point out that bilirubin does have serious side effects, and that it should be carefully monitored, just as a fever should. Nevertheless, the study suggests that there is also a lot of rhetoric--and in some cases misinformation--surrounding bilirubin, its causes, and its purposes. Whereas much of the literature considers bilirubin a biproduct of the failure of the liver to convert and excrete a waste product, these doctors found it to have a more important purpose because of its antioxidant characteristics.
Here are some cute pictures of little man Tate's fingers and toes, and some words from Gary Snyder's poem "Changing Diapers." Think a good thought for Tate today, please.

@ 5 Days

Our friendly little boy Tate will be five days old this afternoon. He's doing very well, all in all. He's able to go 2-3 hours between feedings, and sleeps like an angel in between them. He so far cries only when it's time to eat, and when he's got air bubbles rising in his tummy. He's occasionally in pain because of these little bubbles rising in his belly. I can sometimes feel them when my hand is around his little body--they're like the strings of bubbles rising at the edge of a flute of champagne. But with a series of pats on his back, the bubbles rise, and he'll burp--far louder than one would think a little 20-inch-long creature could. And my response? "Good one, Tate!" and "Alright!" and "Yay!" I'm surprised by how proud one can be of a little creature's bodily functions.

His bilirubin levels are elevated in the last several days, so beginning last night we had what's called a biliblanket attached to him. He wears this fiber optic, blue-spectrum light blanket kind of like a big shirt, and its paddle-shaped light sort of sits on his back, and wraps around his chest. Its light is UV similar to the sun's light that breaks down the bilirubin in his blood that's causing his jaundice, which he can't do himself just yet because his liver is not yet breaking it down for him. They're careful to tell us not to be alarmed--it's all quite common. One of the harder parts of it for me is just holding him each day when I take him to have the bilirubin level checked: they stick him on the edges of his feet to get a little vial of blood for the test. Two days ago they had to do it twice because the CNA dropped the open vial. I was, needless to say, a bit perturbed.
Our little Tate is such a catalyst for exhausted happiness. It's already quite clear to us that our little baby is a very happy, good-natured little guy. He has the most expressive face I've seen in a long time, and wonderful little blond eyebrows. He's amazing.
Keep him in your thoughts and prayers, if you would.

Some More of Tate

Tate Bradley Robertson

He has arrived! Tate Bradley Robertson arrived at 2:48 pm on Saturday, April 21! More photos soon.

@ 39 Weeks

I've been working on a video using the camera Monica bought me for Christmas. It's about three and a half minutes in length, so click on the play button, and enjoy! The film indicates a little bit about how much we have enjoyed being able to watch the growth of this little child from outside his realm. It's funny -- I've been talking with my friend Josh a couple of times recently, and he said he was in the same boat when his daughter was born not quite a year ago: while you can hardly contain your excitement and anticipation for the arrival of your little one, you can see already that you'll miss "the belly" a little bit, too. It's mostly because it's been so fun, so entertaining, to watch the belly and imagine Peanut changing and growing over the last nine months. You can sit around do virtually nothing for hours on end and be endlessly entertained by the anticipation of the next punch/kick/roll that, despite your expectation, is always surprising. Incidentally, the music in the video came from a cd that Josh and Shelly gave us: lullaby renditions of that great Irish band U2.
So the anticipation is just growing, really. The doctor said on Friday that she thought she'd probably see us again this week at the regular appointment (scheduled for Friday), but that you never can tell. So we wait. It's funny, the waiting. Until stuff started "happening" it was a patience-based waiting game, but suddenly they tell you "things are starting to happen," and the game changes. You are no longer waiting patiently; suddenly you're playing an odds game in your head: when, where, how will it all go down. Pretty fun. Any day now. I'll keep you posted...

Approaching 39 Weeks

The sun's just coming up over the Virginia Range east of Reno, and I'm looking south towards the Carson Range of the Northern Sierra while the long, raked light of the morning begins to peak over the mountains, golden and soft. It's cold, for April. Tall columns of steam are rising into the dry air above the buildings downtown, and the winds are still. It's strange to look out on the 25 stories of The Silver Legacy Hotel and think they actually did something right putting reflective glass on the building--it's really quite beautiful in the early morning. The windows reflect gold light back through the rising steam; as the heat unfurls toward the sky, the steam flickers like flames from an enormous torch.
Went to the doctor yesterday. Everything appears well, and things are beginning to happen. I'll spare you the details, but I'll say that "stripping membranes" sounds rather barbaric, but sounds worse than it is. Regardless, it won't be long now. It can't be, I don't think.
If you know anything about me, you know my reputation for curiosity, so it shouldn't surprise you that I might have asked the nice doctor about the bodily function they give the highly technical name of "mucus plug." Doctor's response: "it's not a cork." Ha.
Today is Monica's last day of work, formally, at the University Press until mid-July. Vicki Davies, our friend and Monica's boss, has shown us, but especially Monica, many kindnesses as the pregnancy has neared its end, taking Monica home for me, when I couldn't leave the NMA (thank you); encouraging Monica to feel that there is work that she can later do from home, once the formal maternity leave time ends. It makes me very grateful.
While I haven't gotten permission, I'm going to post this little beauty, too. It's awesome!

@ 38 Weeks +

With not even two weeks--it's more like 11 days!! isn't that curvy belly amazing?!--remaining until Peanut is "scheduled" to arrive, I'm left wondering so much. What will life be like for Monica and me with a third person living with us? What color will his eyes be? What shall we name this little person, that he won't resent us at some time later in life for the one we choose? I oscillate between feelings of incredible excitement for his arrival, looking forward to knowing and caring for this little person, and some pangs of fear and a little sadness at what will--everything, by all accounts--not be the same. Also, as with most things with my lovely wife, the impending arrival of this child feels perfectly normal. "Of course we're going to be taking a trip to the hospital soon. Of course it's because we need for you, Monica, to squeeze a living, breathing human baby out of that thing that looks like a basketball under your shirt! Yes, of course. Perfectly normal," I tell myself.
There is a photograph of my family sitting on a table in our living room here in Reno. It was taken by a family friend, Don Hoffman, a local photographer from Wadena, Minnesota, about the time I was a sophomore in college, or so. It's a nice portrait of all of us--my dad, Jamie; my mom, Sally; and my little sister, Caitlin; and I--we're all smiling real rather than camera smiles. I remember this clearly: sitting on the black velvet-covered box, laughing together, mostly at Don's wonderful way of making you laugh in order to find those real smiles. He just kept shooting, and showed us afterwards a small portfolio of images from which to choose. That photograph captures something, some truth, about my family that exists, of course, outside of the photograph, and lives in my memory, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It leaves me daily and sweetly reminded of my own childhood and youth--and wondering what kinds of lived experiences this little person we're about to welcome will recollect.

@ 37 Weeks

As of yesterday, April 1, our babyboy2b reached full term in the pregnancy--37 weeks. He could arrive anytime between now and 42 weeks gestation and be considered full term. So...no more fears that Peanut might be born prematurely! Not that we feared he would arrive early, really, but it's nice to know that at this point, whenever he arrives, he'll have arrived after a full-term pregnancy, with all of its benefits, and the best possible start in the world. Essentially, whatever amount of time remains before he is born he'll use to pack on some additional weight--about an ounce a week. If he's grown according to averages, he weighs just over six pounds now, and probably stretches to about 20 1/2 inches in length, maybe even 21. We're thinking that he began his migration down--he's "dropping," as they say--just a bit yesterday. I can't say he's dropped yet, but maybe, just maybe, he's beginning to do so. The only evidence to suggest this at this point is that the curve in the top of Monica's belly appears to have changed, to have lengthened. Yesterday morning, her abdomen appeared as if she literally was carrying a basketball around, but by the end of the day, the "slope" of the top of her belly had lengthened a bit, looked a bit less round and basketball'ish, and a bit less tightly curved. Of course, we might just be imagining it, but the time is drawing nigh.
Vicki came over the hill on Saturday, and she and Monica set up dueling sewing machines, and over the course of the day, sewed the bumpers for Peanut's crib. They're adorable and sweet, and the fact that they're homemade adds to their sweetness. Thank you, Vicki.

@ 36 Weeks

1. Place to sleep :: check
2. Crib :: check
3. Mattress :: check
4. Diapers, etc. :: check
5. Clothes, etc. :: check
6. Blankets, etc. :: check
7. Fear of God, or of our impending highly-variable variable :: check

Nobody tells you that the fear comes in waves. In less than 30 days, regardless of whether he comes on time, early, or late, there is going to be a third person living with us. For ever. He could still turn out to be a she, though it's unlikely. This person, though he will live with us for many years before going in his own directions, has already staked out enormous psychological, intellectual, emotional, and physical territories that will last the rest of this life. If you ask me, it's a remarkable survival strategy : two cells do a little dance, and suddenly start replicating the mixture of information created by their tango--natural curls, olive or pale skin, blue eyes or brown, ENFP or ISTJ. The mere presence of two cells that become four, eight, sixteen... 300 billion, alters the chemical makeup of the brain so much that, in combination with the pleasantly-offered but not always so graciously-received advice of "those who have gone before," the paths of one's life are re-evaluated, re-calibrated, and otherwise diverted, altered, changed in order that the replicating cells can be cared for in some intellectual, emotional, or physical way for the remainder of one's life. And I'm not even carrying the baby!

On Saturday, Monica and I took a "Prepared Childbirth" class at the Washoe...errr...Renown Medical Center South Meadows. I was thoroughly prepared for the worst, having heard many horror stories of just this class. As the day wore on, though, we realized our extraordinarily good fortune. It became clear that the horror stories had come from friends who had teachers other than this woman, Denise. She led us through the maze of information, expectation, and fear with much wisdom, wit, and humor--not to mention a thoroughgoing knowledge of her field. Those who teach for the love of education have aspirations of just this mixture, I think, and it's a rare--and therefore easily recognizable--gift and skill. I learned a great deal: where to go, what to do, what to bring, how to think about planning for the unplannable. I also felt relieved, welcome to do what feels right (contractions 5 minutes apart for an hour? go to the hospital. contractions 75 minutes apart and worried? go to the hospital; they'll send you home, most likely, but go to the hospital). Many of my thoughts were confirmed, but many others were challenged (have those really just been Braxton Hicks contractions all along?). Mike and Eryn and the girls came over for dinner Friday night before we went to the class on Saturday (good medicince, I might add). At one point, Eryn said she knew me well enough to know that I would respond to the baby class in relation to the quality of its teaching. I guess she knows me pretty well.

@ 35 Weeks

With about 5 weeks to go, Monica's beginning to look very pregnant. The kid's gone through some kind of growth spurt over the weekend--which is either what caused Monica to faint, or she was dehydrated enough that he swelled up like a sponge after she got all her fluids back up to normal. As my dad said last night on the phone, "you've been seeing qualitative change; now the quantitative change begins." ;-)