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It’s been a long day and Naomi and I are getting ready to get some sleep for the night here at the hospital. We should be discharged late tomorrow morning and then we can bring little Landon home.

I’ve posted pictures from the days events that you can view by clicking on the picture below:

 

Naomi woke me up at 6:00 am this morning very gently and said, “Honey, I know you’re sleeping, but there’s something we need to discuss.” She’s so cute, that one. Turns out she was having contractions that started kicking in at 2:00am and they started getting worse so she woke me up. We rushed to the hospital in record time considering we had to pack bags, get Ben ready, shower (I did, anyway!), and generally make sure we had everything in order.

A few hours later Naomi delivered a beautiful baby boy at 10:10. We’re still in the middle of everything so I’ll update this journal with a full rundown of the events.

Here are the relevant facts:

weight - 6 lb 12 oz.

length: 19 3/4″

 Both baby and his mommy are doing fantastic!

 

 

 

It’s been a very eventful fall and beginning of winter here in Seattle. Hmmm…where to begin?

First, and foremost, Naomi and I found out that we’ve got baby #2 on the way! We’re very, very excited, to say the least. We really wanted Ben to have a sibling and it was important to us that they be close in age. We’ve had some ultrasounds and all signs point to the fact that Ben is getting a little brother!  We couldn’t be more happy about expanding our family by another little Thompson, which should happen sometime in the middle of June. Yay!

Here’s a fuzzy shot of the ultrasound that was taken recently:

 

So, what have we been up to lately? Well, Ben turned 1 in October!  It turns out that Ben loves to eat cake. I know, it’s shocking! At one of Ben’s parties we had a very exciting event take place that kind of punctuated the celebration. One of the big trees from our backyard fell on the house, making the loudest, scariest sound I’d ever heard. Here are some pictures of the tree aftermath and Ben eating cake:

 

 

 

Once that tree fell down on the house I started to really worry about all the other huge trees that are in our backyard. I had a tree company come out and cut down two of the trees that I was concerned about. One of those trees happened to be a HUGE 150′ pine tree that was leaning towards a neighbor’s house. Whenever a wind storm kicked up I would really worry about that tree because if it fell, it would easily cut a house in half. Getting it cut down was no small task considering its size. Now I’ve got enough firewood in my backyard to last us quite some time!

 

The week AFTER I had those two trees cut down, the Pacific Northwest experienced the biggest windstorm in like, forever. It was BAD. Thousands of people were without power (not us, thankfully) and it caused millions of dollars in damage. Luckily we had already cut down our dangerous trees, but one of our neighbors trees crashed through our yard and another one of our smaller trees fell, creating a criss-crossing of fallen trees in our yard. There were also several portions of fence that didn’t stand a chance. That was probabaly the longest and most anxious night I’ve ever had.

 

 

After we lost all the trees in our backyard (four in three weeks) we flew to California for Christmas! Christmas was great this year as we got to celebrate with so much family. It was especially nice getting to celebrate with Hillary and Cory after they had been in Japan for Christmas last year.  The traditional Thompson family Christmas was a lot of fun:

Christmas Eve with the Baldschun’s was awesome, and Ben looked super dapper!

Christmas morning with Andy and Sally’s family brought surprises from Santa.

 

Lastly, we celebrated New Years in style back at the Thug Mansion. We had a gift exchange, played enough Guitar Hero II that we thought we were all rock stars, and were surprised by Kenobi Claus (or it could have been, Santa Kenobi - he didn’t say). Heather flew in from New York and Lindsay and Brooke flew in from Boston for the holidays and it was certainly the highlight of New Years to have them celebrate with us. We miss those kids!

I finally got off my butt and updated this site with a bunch of pictures.  I’ve got even more pictures that I have yet to post - but I think is enough for now!

Here’s the latest batch of Benjamin pictures. He’s about 11 months now and it seems like he’s becoming such a little boy these days. Naomi and Mandy took him for a swim when it was really hot this summer.

                                      

  

 

Hillary and Cory came home from Japan! Yay Holmies! We missed them terribly and are so glad that we get to see them again. I’m really happy that they finally got to meet little Benjamin. Naomi made a shirt for Ben that said: I love my Auntie Hillary and Uncle Cory. Hillary and Cory traveled for 100 hours that day, or something crazy like that.

                                        

 

We also got a couple new kittens this summer. One is Maine Coon mix with EIGHT extra toes across all his feet. Naomi loves the polydactyls! His name is either Hobbes or Mr. Pancakes - it depends on who you ask. The other kitten is a Pixie Bob and his name is Sinatra, because he’s a pimp like that. He’s also a polydactyl, and totally awesome. They’re fantastic kittens and a great addition to our ever growing family.

                                       

 

Naomi threw a big party in August for the many of our friends (including herself!) that have birthdays in the summer. The theme this year was a carnival that she and some of her girl friends put a ton of work in. There were darts! And Zak painted faces! And pies and water balloons!

 

                                        

 

Then we camped at Ocean City. It was awesome! For some reason we didn’t break out our camera, so Matthew took some shots on our last morning.

                                                    

 

That should be enough for now…

Can you dig this?

I don’t have any time to write a good post updating you all on Ben and how he’s doing these days. You’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that he’s the cutest handful you’ve ever seen!

I’ve updated the site with a couple hundred pictures - so that should keep you busy until the next time you *cough*Tina*cough*Sally*cough*Holmers*cough*Heather*cough* pester me to put up some new pictures!

I hope you’re all doing well!

Man, Christmas and New Years sure did fly right on by this year. Naomi and I were very busy the entire time and not a single day in my week and a half vacation was our house void of visitors. From Andy and Sally and their two kids coming up here, and Scott and Janine staying with us for the better part of the week, to Heather coming home for Christmas and New Years - it was really fantastic and we loved every moment of it and I have pictures to prove it!

Santa Vadar!

It was great having Heather back in town!

I think we have a pretty good representation of Ben and his first week home with the latest pictures I just uploaded. See…he doesn’t do much right now except for three things: eat, sleep, and fill his shorts. Two of those three are represented here — maybe next time we’ll get some pictures of him eating!

First of all, I really wanted to thank everyone for all the kind words in the comments of this journal and in the multitudes of emails and phone calls that we have received. Naomi and I have truly been humbled by this experience knowing that so many of our closest friends and family are thinking about us during these last couple of days.

I’m going to write a post about the experience of the labor and delivery - in the meantime check out some great pictures of Ben’s first moments (special thanks to Adrian and Mandy who took a lot of these really cool pictures): Ben’s first day. WARNING - baby bits ahead!

Little Benjamin was born this morning a little after 11:00. 6 lbs-8oz, 18 1/4 inches full of dynamite. Both baby and his mom are doing fantastic!

Things are still pretty hectic around here, which is why it’s taken some time to make this post. Ben’s doing well and is handling everything with ease. Naomi was absolutely amazing during the delivery and she really handled things like a champ. Unbelievable, I say. I’m very proud of her. She’s recovering well and is in really great spirits - she’s absolutely glowing.

When things calm down a little bit, and after I get some food and maybe some sleep, I’ll write up the details of how it all went down and post some more detailed pictures.

Yay!!!

Not soon after I last posted Naomi awoke from her nap when our doctor came in and decided that she wanted to manually break Naomi’s water. Once she did that *blammo* the harcore contractions hit Naomi. She was in a lot of pain and needed the epidural really bad. It was a little over an hour before they could get the anesthesiologist out of surgery and into our room. Her pain was really, really bad and now it’s pretty much gone with the epidural. It’s an amazing thing, actually. Watching the doctor insert the catheter meticulously into her back was fascinating!

It’s been a couple hours since the epidural and she’s progressing very quickly now. I think she’s totally effaced and she’s several centimeters more dialated than she was before her water broke. So, it could be an hour, or it could be four more, there’s just no way to predict the time, but she’s doing really well and labor doesn’t seem too far off!

It’s around 3:30 am and Naomi’s asleep in the bed next to me. She’s the cutest mommy to be that I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to crash out in this old recliner that smells like hundreds of previous dads-to-be but I’m having a hard time getting any sleep. The room is nice and big and there isn’t too much noise going on outside to keep us up. The TV is on, but not really serving much of a purpose beyond comfortable background noise. Every 15-30 minutes our nurse comes in (Naomi has a dedicated nurse!) and checks the baby’s heart rate and analyzes Naomi’s contraction count to see how often she’s having them.

We had an appointment at 1:00 this afternoon to get Naomi kickstarted with a cervical gel, which is, I guess, the first step in inducing labor. It’s supposed to soften up the cervix and it can, by itself, cause some women to go into labor but it’s not exactly common. This went as planned and they sent us home around 4:30 to get some food before coming back to the hospital around 9:00 to really start the inducing process with Pitocin.

Naomi had an I.V. put in a while back and while she’s terrified of needles, she really did well and didn’t have any complications. She’s got some regular fluids running through the I.V. (I sure don’t know what these are called - it’s just electrolytes, or something) along with the pitocin. The pitocin started off at 9:00pm and was at a rate of 2mL per hour. Right now it’s at 12mL and they’ll continue to increase it every hour or so until her contractions really kick in, or until it’s at 20mL. She’s got so much fluid pumping through her right now, and the baby is starting to push down on her bladder, that she has to use the restroom every 45 minutes, or so.

Naomi’s contractions right now are certainly getting stronger than when we came in this evening after getting the cervical gel around 2:00 this afternoon. When we came back in this evening, she said they were at a pain level of four, and now they’re at a solid six. As soon as these contractions get more severe and less tolerable, she’ll get an epidural to numb her from the waist down. I believe they are between two and four minutes apart right now (and for those that understand these things, she’s 2-3cm and 75-80% effaced).

From the way she’s progressing, and from what the nurses around here have seen historically (these things are impossible to predict, obviously), the most common belief is that Naomi will deliver sometime in the morning after the sun comes up. Only time will tell, though! One of the great things about this hospital is that they don’t have a ‘well baby’ nursery, so that if our baby is delivered healthy he never has to leave our room. We’re really excited about that.

One of the cool things that I discovered a little while ago is that they have free wireless running through the buildings. I brought my laptop with the hopes that there was wireless, but I find that when I lug it places with that in mind I’m usually disappointed. I think my discussion on wireless and how it should be available everywhere is a rant best saved for a different day! My laptop was having problems and I needed to download a new wireless driver so I slowly walked the halls looking for an Ethernet tap and then, booyah, internet ahoy. I intsalled the wireless driver and then hopped on the network from our room. Awesome!

When I arrived here today I was pretty nervous, and I know that Naomi was too. When we left the house today we did the whole - ‘this will be our last time leaving the house without a baby in the car seat’, and, ‘this is the last time we get a good nights sleep’, and ‘this is the last time we can have full control over how we spend out time’. We’re very excited to become parents, and we can’t wait to bring our baby home, but we know that the upcoming days/weeks/months are going to be very trying and we’ve done everything we can to prepare for it the best we could.

As I’ve been writing this her contractions have stiffened up a little bit, which is a good sign. It’s amazing how much pain and discomfort pregnant moms go through over the nine months of the pregnancy term. It’s the type of thing that just makes me sit back and be in awe that my wife is so tough and so loving of her baby that the last thing she’d do is complain through all this. It’s amazing.

I love her, and I love that little baby of ours.

I’m going to try and get some rest, but I’ll update again when I know more. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers, we appreciate them.

All our love,
-Doug (and Naomi)

Naomi and I are out the door and back to the hospital for phase II of the induction process where Naomi is going to get hit up with Pitocin and the contractions are sure to follow!

If you plan on visiting us (which would be awesome!) I want to make sure you’re able to find us, so here’s a little map to where we are : Map to hospital

On the top level (six) of the West Garage (which is where you’ll park) is the Women’s Child Birth center and that’s where you’ll find us. Here’s a picture of where it is:

Sooooooo, it’s pretty evident that I’m terrible as posting updates to this blog as I haven’t stayed up on Naomi’s progress nearly as much as I would have liked. These last nine months have absolutely flown by and it’s just incredible!

I don’t have time to make a proper post now (surprise!) but I just wanted to let anybody who’s checking this for updates know that we’re going into Overlake Hospital on Monday to get the pregnancy induced. There aren’t any major problems, our doctor is just concerned that there isn’t enough amniotic fluid surrounding the baby and she thinks it’s a good ideal to speed up the process. It’s only eight or nine days early, so it’s not a big deal. Naomi wants the little guy out NOW anyway, so it’s all good.

More later…

So Hillary and Cory have now moved to Japan. Needless to say Naomi and I are really going to miss them. Hillary and Cory have been awesome vacation partners, reliable companions, camping buddies, and most of all, our very best friends.

It was really tough seeing them go, however we’re really excited for them. We know the experience that they’ll get in Japan will be one that will propel their individual careers and help them realize many of the goals they’ve always had their eye on. Ever since the first day I met Hillary and Cory they’ve talked about one day moving to Japan to learn more about the language and the culture that they love so much and I’m really happy to see them take that leap.

Earlier this year Hillary landed a very good job with JET (http://www.jetprogramme.org/) where she’ll be an English teacher to Japanese kids at a school near their house. Cory is also moving over with Hillary, and he’ll figure out his job options once they get settled in (I think he’d make a great Geisha!) They will ulimately live in the rural town of Muraoka located in northern Hyogo Prefecture.

We love you guys, and we’ll certainly see you soon!

Naomi and I had the official 20 week ultrasound a couple of days ago and the verdict is in - our baby is officially a boy! Yay!

I’ll post some pics of the ultrasound and write up more about the experience soon, but I have to buy a scanner first!

Now we’ve gone and done it. Naomi and I are expecting our first child this November. We had been discussing starting a family and the timing just seemed perfect. So, Naomi stopped birth control and BLAMMO - she’s pregnant.

At the time it had been about a month since she had stopped taking the pill when she noticed that she was late. I (being the guy I am) just assumed it was a result of her body re-adjusting from the birth control and didn’t think anything of it. A couple more days passed and while Naomi didn’t feel any different, she started to really wonder if we could have already been successful. So, she picked up the ol’ home pregnancy test and gave it a whirl. Within seconds the red lines show up and OH MY GOSH WE’RE TOTALLY PREGNANT. I didn’t believe it and told her the thing was broken (which, I’m sure, is what all the guys say!). I guess that’s what the pregnancy test companies expected me to say so they packed the box with a bonus test stick. So, she did the test again and sure enough, it was broken too! What are the chances?!

As Naomi’s family had an occurrance of Downs Syndrome our doctor recommended we go in to a specialist to investigate. We went in at about 13 weeks and had this high power ultrasound done where they do a full visual on the baby and measure the amount of liquid in the spine near the neck. Everything checked out and is on the up-and-up as the baby appears to be normal. If you’re interested in looking at a quick ultrasound of the baby you can get it by clicking this here link! (Update: Apparently this .mpg isn’t working for everyone — I’ll see if I can fix it…) If you don’t have a high speed connection, you may just want to pretend you watched it because it weighs in at about 30Mb and two minutes long (cut from the original 20!). I’ve always been confused when looking at ultrasounds of other people’s babies but now I’m becoming quite the expert. This capture is pretty clear as you can see the head and body and if you look closely you can see a small bit of hand near the baby’s mouth. If you watch the movie you can see the baby movin and groovin.

One of the neat things about this ultra-sound is the 3-D picture that they can extract. Now, our little baby was only 13 weeks at the time, but the amount of detail visible in these images was amazing. The baby has little Popeye arms (just like his muscle-bound mom) and an umbilical cord that wraps around his body and goes up near his head. Man, I still can’t believe this is our baby…

We told the doctor that we were very interested in finding out the sex of the baby. He tried to get the baby to move around to get a better angle and the little thing was being pretty stubborn (which isn’t a surprise considering who the parents are!) and not giving the doctor a good shot. And then BAM! The doctor froze the ultrasound, broke out his little pointer, and directed it right at what he called the ‘legendary penis’.
Weeelllll, he probably didn’t say legendary, and most likely said ‘alleged’, but legendary is more accurate I’d say!

Well, today we’re at about 16 weeks and things are progressing well. The expected due date is November 1st and I’m sure it will be here before we know it. Naomi’s handling this thing like a champ. She’s had morning sickness from the time she wakes up to when she goes to sleep and she’s dealing with really bad indigestion daily. I think she’s probably wondering why in the world she said okay to this whole pregnancy thing, but I’m certain that while her body is constantly reminding her that she’s not as tough as she thought she was, she’s looking forward to the great reward at the end (man, that sure is easy for me to say!).

If these first few months are any indication, the next six are going to be full of vomit and lots of excitement!