Your papers, please

So we'd like to take Dylan this winter to see both sets of grandparents. Which means traveling to Canada. Which means getting him a passport.

You wouldn't think that this should be so hard. Dealing with some bureaucracy, paying some absurd fees, maybe waiting in some lines, and waiting some time, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

The problem is that they want passport photos. For an infant. Which will be completely meaningless in that he won't look anything like what he does in the photos by the time he travels, let alone by the time the passport expires.

The State Department has some pretty stringent requirements about what constitutes an acceptable passport photo. Mind you, these requirements aren't that difficult for an adult. But they're pretty ridiculous (and hard to meet) for an infant.

We decided to just do things the "easy" way and pay some money to have them take the photos at the post office, where we had to go anyway to apply for the passport. The problem is that whomever I spoke with on the phone basically totally lied to me about what they were and were not willing to do with respect to infant passport photos. So after some unsuccessful attempts there, we gave up, left, and went home.

We've had a few photo sessions over the last few days when Dylan seems to be in an agreeable mood, trying to get a usable picture. We're still not 100% there, but close. But in the meantime, I thought I'd post a few of my favorite outtakes, while ranting against the State Department.

More Dylan

Life continues.

Dylan is still cute.

My Mom continues to help us out.

Dylan recently discovered sucking his thumb.

And we discovered just how happy Dylan is with the pacifier we bought him today.

Babies and cats

They're getting along just fine.

and Dylan and Grandma

Photo ibid.

Dylan and Grandmama

Picture taken by Grandpa(pa?)

Avraham Naor Fromm

Thursday was the 8th day of Dylan's life. Jhos, the rabbi who officiated our wedding, officiated his Bris at our home. We gave him two names -- Avraham, which means the father of compassion, after Lorien's maternal grandfather; and Naor, which means light (both illumination and enlightenment), after Rich's maternal grandmother.

Out for a walk

We finally got a chance to try out the Moby wrap today -- we took Dylan on a short walk to the Edible Schoolyard at the nearby middle school, before the deluge of the first winter storm arrived (sympathy going out to our friends Heather and Ed for the wet weather on their wedding day). I think it may have taken us longer to get out of the house than it did to actually go on the walk. Dylan seemed to enjoy the walk to the extent that he can enjoy things as a 10 day old -- he basically slept through most of it.

Just to make sure that we had the hang of it and didn't drop the baby, we first tried the Moby out with Snoopy. Snoopy seemed to enjoy it too. :)

Lorien's parents depart for Toronto tomorrow morning. Rich's Mom is staying to help out for about another week and a half.

More cuteness

Ok, this is out of order timewise (this was taken last week when we were still in the hospital), but we finally had a chance to sit down and look at all of the pictures taken so far, and this one strikes me as pretty adorable, and somehow I overlooked it before.

Settling in at home

We're settling into a routine at home. Feed. Change. Sleep. Repeat. The total amount of sleep we're getting in every 24 hour period isn't actually that bad, and it's much more than I was expecting. It's just not one single continuous sleep period. Lorien's parents and Rich's Mom are all in town, and they're helping out, which is making things easier. We've also been blessed with a pretty mellow baby -- Chillin' Dylan as I like to call him.

Our biggest concern so far has been his weight. Having both Dylan and Lorien spend time in their respective ICUs made it a bit more difficult to get feeding going. All babies lose weight after birth (something I hadn't realized before), but the doctors get a bit concerned if the loss is more than 10%. In Dylan's case, for a 6 lb. 14 oz. birth weight, that threshold was 6 lb. 3 oz. He bottomed out at 6 lb. 0.1 oz., but before we left the hospital he was up to 6 lb. 4.5 oz. We just got back from a visit to the pediatrician, and now he's up to 6 lb. 8 oz. So we're halfway back to regaining birth weight. Yay Dylan!

We just took him on his first walk with the stroller, wandering around North Berkeley on some errands. It seemed to go well, in that he slept through the entire time.

We're home

Not much time to say anything more, and not uploading any pics right now, but I just wanted to let anyone know that might be reading this that we got home from the hospital yesterday (that's Monday -- right?) afternoon. And last night wasn't too bad. The sleep wasn't continuous, and not what I would have considered reasonable a short while ago, but the overall length wasn't actually too bad.

Still at the hospital

We're still at the hospital, hoping to come home tomorrow (Monday). If that's the case, we'll have been here a full week -- just like the old days! We're starting to reach the point where we're getting eager to be home.

Busy juggling a bunch of things, so I don't really have the time yet for a detailed posting. But here is your daily dose of Dylan.

All together now

Lorien and Dylan are continuing to make progress, although the time spent apart has made feeding a bit more difficult than we had hoped.

Last night was the first night that we all spent together as a family. As might be expected, I'm kind of tired today.

Special thanks to Kim for the cupcakes, Alicia for the coconut juice, and Alice for being willing to run errands for us and check up on Dirk and Selena.

Out of the NICU

As helpful as the staff was in the NICU, I'm happy to report that Dylan was able to leave this morning. Mom, Dad, and baby are now all sharing a regular room. Being able to hold Dylan and move about without having to worry about a tangle of wires and tubes is a wonderful feeling.

Thank you to everyone for the wishes and blessings and congratulations that we've received.

Welcome Dylan

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Dylan Rigel Fromm, 6 lb. 14 oz., 20.87", at 5:56 AM on 13 October 2010.


It was a long, hard journey, with 45 hours of labor, and it would be an understatement to say that things didn't exactly go according to plan. Not that I think that many births do. Ultimately it ended with a C-section and both Lorien and Dylan in their respective ICU's. But Lorien and Dylan are both going to be fine, Lorien is now out of the ICU, and the hope is that Dylan will be out by the morning. Rich is also doing much better after having had the luxury of some sleep.
.

Please wish us luck in adjusting and healing in the days ahead. We can't wait for all of you to meet our beautiful little boy

Waiting...

Today is precisely 40 weeks, and we're waiting with a mixture of patience, anxiety, and anticipation. But it's late enough now that it would be extremely unlikely for us to get the date 10/10/10. Which is fine, there are far more important things in the world.


We still haven't gotten done everything around the house that we had wanted to, but we're actually in not that bad of a shape, the house is in a reasonable semblance of order, and the room that will become the nursery is reasonably clear of stuff. (Much thanks to Tom Cavnar for helping me to move the desk down to the newly remodeled room in the basement earlier this week.)

We're trying to relax a bit and enjoy the time we have remaining before our entire world is turned upside down. So the whole day wasn't spent on baby prep, the latest bout of warm weather prompted us to head downtown for some gelato. And Lorien decided she was up for biking! (It was her first time on a bike since 7.5 months.) Alas, it did not get labor started. Yet.



Hmmm... either blogger or me (or both of us) suck at visual design. See the detailed post at http://richandlorien.blogspot.com/2010/10/waiting.html for the full photo sequence to be visible. [At least with FF3 on ubuntu that is; YMMV.]

I just made two gallons of chicken soup

You know, in case the baby prefers that to breast milk :)