BREAKING PHOTO STORY :

QUENTIN BORN INTO THE HOUSE OF ORANGE

Here's mama with Quentin in the hospital, healthy and happy. He was born at 3:54 AM on September 29th 2005. Weighs 7lbs, 4 oz. He's 19.5 inches from head to toe.

Prior to the happy result of getting a new son, Here I am suited up for the Operating Room. We arrived at the Hospital around 8:00PM on Wed Sept 28th, and V was hooked up to a bunch of monitors with the intention of inducing her (since she was 72 hours overdue) the next morning. A rather kooky nurse noted that she didn't like the "Dipsy Doodles" on the vital signs. She called in the doctor who came immediately to the hospital. As soon as he checked the stats, he recommended an IMMEDIATE EMERGENCY c-section, as he felt that the baby was under heavy duress, and vaginal delivery would not bode well for the baby's delivery. They passed me a little package of clothes (seen here) and prepped a very nervous V immediately.

I was allowed to go in, though I had to stay in a wheelchair while V was strapped to this crucifix style apparatus. They gave her a shot to the spine to numb everything but she was very aware of the operation, though she could not feel pain. A curtain was raised so that we couldn't actually see the gory details. Apparently she recalls the doctors discussing golf and coffee as they routinely operated. The docs did express surprise at one point (kinda freaking me out) when they said; "Good Lord, there's two of them!!" They were referring to the umbilical cord which had twisted around Quentin's neck twice! Had the docs waited and allowed V to bear the child vaginally, this story may have become quite tragically different.

Quentin was very, very pink and when I first saw him (and heard his cry). Below is the very first photo of Quentin, when he was only a few minutes old. As soon as they cleaned up all the afterbirth goop, and V and I had a chance to be introduced to our new baby boy, they wheeled him off, along with me to the Nursery. Unfortunately V had to go to the Post-Op recovery room to be stabilized from the C-Section, so I was left to my own to bond with Quentin for the first little chunk of his existence. There in the Nursery, nurses and an on-call doctor took care of some more tests, gave him a shot in the ass of Vitamin K, and hooked him up to a wire which warmed him up to get his body temperature to a normalized state. He shit himself (of course) during this process, proving to me that he definitely takes after his old man. What really surprised me was how responsive Quentin was to my voice; even a few minutes after birth, he was moving his head around towards my voice as I anxiously circled the incubator.

This photo was taken as V held Quentin in her arms for the first time on the morning of his birth:

A close up of the same scene - those little red marks on his face are known affectionately in the business as "stork bites" and are very common on newborn babies:

Due to the C-Section, V had to endure a liquid only diet for 72 hours - she was starving (and --ahem--- cranky)! Here she is eating her first few bites of solid food. She couldn't get around very much either, so her ass was numb from lying in this bed. The room was fairly private (as in we didn't share it with anyone else) , though a nurse or "tray lady" came by every few seconds, it seemed.

I slept (or rather made many attempts to sleep) on this forsaken thing for 4 nights:

Quentin sleeps a lot during the day - if only we can get him to sleep at night!!! Even if I wasn't sleeping on the vinyl thingy in the pic here, it was very difficult to sleep with the newborn, needing frequent feedings. I can now personally testify to all those of you who haven't become parents yet --- all the war stories you hear about not being able to get any sleep with a young-un are absolutely true.

By the way, all the tests Quentin had for health (hearing, sight, disease, birth defects, etc) were all passed with flying colors.

All new parents get treated to a "gourmet" meal as soon as the mother can handle solid foods. Well, the salad was alright, but the 300 year old rubber steak  (made by either Firestone or Michelin, I think) and the paper-mache, styrofoam potato will not be appearing on any reviews as a 4-star delight. Alas, here's a picture of the hospital food:

Here's Quentin all bundled up, groggy from his (OWCH) circumcision, and in a cute little outfit and hat ready to head home to the House of Orange. 

THE END (or is it : THE BEGINNING??????????)