I’m happy to report that despite a bit of jaundice that we’ve been told should clear up in the next week or so, Casey is doing great. He’s already passed his birth weight (for the non-parents in the crowd, babies — particularly breastfed babies — tend to lose up to 10% of their birth weight in the first few days of life, and it can take 2 weeks for them to regain it).

Maggie’s also recovering perfectly. She’s still a bit slower moving than normal, and not back on the yoga mat yet, but improving every day. She’s also taking to motherhood amazingly — it’s a whole side of my wife I have never seen before and I’m loving it.

We stayed in the hospital for the entire allotted 6 days, with me only popping home once to drop off a few things and grab a car seat from our friends (thanks R&G!).

It’s funny that nearly a week sleeping on a bit-too-short/bit-too-lumpy sofa hasn’t left a stronger impression on me, but the whole time in the hospital is a complete blur. In the beginning I wasn’t eager to spend so much time there, but looking back on it I couldn’t be more appreciative of it. The stay gave Maggie and I a chance to get our heads around this whole “caring for another life” thing with the support of a handful of doctors, a mid-wife and a small army of nurses.

For posterity’s sake, here are a few of the more memorable moments:

The Birth of Our Son

Sort of a no-brainer that this would be the biggest memory of the week. I touched on it last post, but spending those first few moments of my son’s life, just the two of us in a room together, is a memory I’ll treasure for a lifetime.

Doodie Duty

With Maggie bed-bound, everything but feeding Casey fell on me, and I loved it. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but spending 144 hours in a small room is a bit boring. Having lots to do helped that time fly by. I had been warned about the meconium poops months ago by a friend, but nothing can really prepare you for that sticky tar-like goo.

Being quite hands on right from the get go helped with a concern I had about feeling a bit left out. I mean, Maggie had carried Casey for 9 months and was his sole source of much-needed sustenance — I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t have a place in that. It might have been the messy end of the stick, but it really made me feel a part of it all, and poo on the hand is much easier to cope with than chapped nipples.

The Dark Crystals

It is perhaps indicative that the following is the longest memory of the bunch — but despite word-weight, rest assured that these memories are in descending order.

Late in the 2nd day Casey still hadn’t peed, which is not all that uncommon for breastfed babies who are really only consuming colostrum for the first few days before the transitional milk comes in. When he finally did let it out he had dark orange (brick-coloured) crystals in his diaper.

Informing the nurses and doctor about this set into motion a rather goofy string of antics that involved putting a poorly-designed urine capture device over my boy’s baby junk in hopes of catching enough to send to the lab. Because colostrum is a laxative, and contains very little liquid, he was pooping a lot more than peeing at this point, and every time I’d go to change his diaper, what little pee had collected would quickly dump out. After three attempts over a 24-hour period, I calmly explained to the nurse attempting to affix the thing for the fourth time that this just wasn’t working and we needed a better solution.

Apparently parents aren’t meant to raise questions about the care their child is receiving, as the nurse left quickly and sent in the senior nurse on duty, who did nothing to listen to our complaints of the adhesive annoying our newborn, and the spilled urine creating a risk of skin irritation. She insisted that we needed to do this because we had to collect his urine and make sure the stuff wasn’t blood.

I approach saying what I’m about to say next with a bit of apprehension, as I don’t want to be one of those people, but a quick search of the Internet explained that the orange substance was simply urate crystals and nothing to be overly concerned about as they would likely clear out as soon as the baby started getting on a more liquid diet.

Now I’m not saying the nurses and doctor weren’t aware of this, but they certainly did nothing to illustrate this or even hint at the possibility to Maggie and I. Rather, they continued to scare us with exclamations of the possibility that it was blood in the urine (it looked nothing like blood).

Their out-of-the-box suggestion to my foot-down refusal to stick another plastic bag to Casey’s bits was to give us a small plastic cup. Their idea was to have us strip him down and wait until he spout like a fountain and then attempt to catch it — remember, he was relieving himself at most twice a day at this point.

Finally a nurse came in and suggested we do what we’d seen a thousand Chinese parents on the street do with their kid — the bathroom equivalent of holding him over the curb. Not wanting to ostracize ourselves any further with our primary caregivers, we took him into the bathroom and held him over the sink — careful to relocate the toothbrushes (just in case). With me holding Casey’s legs up against his chest and us joking that this was never going to work, we were taken by surprise when suddenly piss was going everywhere. Doubled over with laughter at the waterworks, Maggie scrambled to grab and fill the little plastic cup before the well ran dry. Seeing opportunity to add additional humour to the moment, Casey chose to complete the set and seal the memory with an explosive Number Two all over the sink.

But we got the goods — test performed — urate crystals. A bit of patience and a tiny bit of water with each feeding and it was cleared up 24 hours later.

There were so many more little memories of those first days that combine to create the experience in my mind, but I’m finding it incredibly difficult to figure a way to string them together into sentences. An endless stream of small moments that when I look at individually couldn’t possibly be considered amazing to anyone other than myself and Maggie. But then, I guess that’s what parenthood is, being in a continual state of absolute amazement at the incredible wonder that is by definition a completely average and basic action. I look at Casey and am just blown away by him; by every little move he makes, look he gives — and then I realize that every parent must feel this way when they look at their kid — I had no idea.

More Photos!

And a Video!

[flashvideo file=http://www.ryan-mclaughlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Casey's%20First%20Week%20-%20Small.mp4 /]

The emotional amazingness of the past 30 hours has left me with no real energy to do anything but copy and paste (virtually verbatim) the e-mail I sent last night to my family:

We woke up around 4 am with Maggie reporting that she was leaking a bit. Contrary to popular belief, water doesn’t usually break anything like it does on TV. Many women have to have their water broken at the hospital by their doctor, others seep more than burst. We were in that latter group.

Maggie passed her (and there’s just no non-gross way to say this) mucus plug around 6 and we were off to the hospital. After confirming with our doc that we weren’t too early, we checked into our VIP room (pretty much exatly like a hotel room, but with a weirder bed and no towel service).

The doc checked and found out Maggie was already a bit dialated but was concerned that there was too much blood in the “water” coming out of her. Because of this and the fact that the baby was still quite high up they decided to load Maggie up with Pitocin, a contraction-inducing drug, and get things rolling.

The drugs brought on some super intense and painful contractions (I’ve heard my mild-tempered wife curse before, but never with such regularity and conviction), but the monitors indicated that there was fetal distress (heart rate dropping when contractions are happening). Because of this Maggie wasn’t able to have an epidural, and so suffered through it full-force for a couple hours.

The baby’s position wasn’t changing, nor was his distress improving, so the doctor informed us that he recommended a c-section. He knew how much we wanted a natural birth, and explained we could continue with it, but that it could just amount to hours and hours of pain, and still end in a c-section. It was either that or Maggie screaming out “C-SECTION C-SECTION! I WANT A C-SECTION!” that swayed my (somewhat limited) vote.

An hour later I was a dad.

It all happened so fast, even the hour of standing in a waiting room with the family members of a bunch of other surgery patients flew by. Everything was behind closed doors, so I wasn’t able to be with Maggie during the caesarian, but I heard the baby’s first cries and only had to wait a couple minutes past that to meet the little guy.

The nurse wheeled him out and let me oogle over him for a minute (giving the waiting room crowd a moment to take in the half-breed) and then we took him back up to the VIP floor where he and I got to sit for about 20 minutes or so and wait for Maggie to come back.

It was surreal being alone with this baby, my son, just moments after his birth. I’ll never forget it, and I’ve not stopped staring at him since.

The c-section left Maggie stuck in bed, barely able to move at all. So, I’ve been doing double duty answering both of their cries. I’m not complaining though, I’m sure if Maggie was up and about she’d be handling more of the baby stuff, so this trial by fire is good for me (man newborn baby poop, ie. fetal tar, is sticky!).

And… drum roll please… I’d like to introduce you all to Casey Ryan McLaughlin, born 12:50pm (GMT+8) on May 4th, 2010 — almost exactly 7 lbs. He’s just awesome, in every sense of the word.

A bit about the name:

We had a hard time finding a name that fit both heritages and ultimately decided on Casey, as it suits his last time, transliterates pretty easily into his Chinese name (恺西), and we both really like it. His middle name was to maintain a multi-generational tradition from my side whereby the first born son is given his father’s name as his middle name. I have to admit though that considering his birthday, both Luke and Ryan Jr. (ie. R2) were front-runners. JK (sorta)

Maggie, Button and I spent most of the afternoon with our good friends, and about 1.3 billion others, down at the nearby lake. Between our big dog and their beautiful baby with big bright blue eyes, we grabbed a bit of attention — somewhat of a rarity in the expat-saturated neighbourhood we live in.

Aside from a nice stroll outside yesterday, I also finally got around to taking some pregnancy photos of Maggie. We’ve been talking about doing them for ages, but it always seemed to slip deeper down the “todo” list. However, about to hit week #35, the pressure to get it done or risk never having them gave us the kick in the pants we needed.

Having ventured out a few times now to check out our local maternity- and baby-goods buying options, I’ve seen no shortage of studios offering to take the photos for us. And while I’m sure they would have done a much better job than myself, the thinness of my wallet wouldn’t allow it. That said, I’m pretty happy with what we managed to take. As is Maggie, the proof being that she’s letting me share them

Despite my ambition and relative familiarity with the use of a camera, my friend Jakob’s work puts anything I’ll attempt to shame — of course, he’s a professional videographer with his how studio in Shanghai; so I suppose my amateurish images-to-be can be excused. Check out this excellent video of his daughter Emily:

Jakob and his wife, you might remember from my Having a Baby in China links post a couple weeks ago, had a hell of a time with their pregnancy at the hands of the Chinese health-care system.

It has been wonderful being home for the holidays, and a visit that has been full of firsts. It was Maggie’s first time seeing British Columbia (as we flew into Vancouver rather than Toronto, simply for the experience and to visit family out west). It was also our first opportunity to meet my 20-month-old nephew who was born shortly after our last visit to Canada.

My nephew is not the only new addition to our clan since our last visit. My cousin and my step-brother have both had children since we were last here, and being home has given me a chance to sit down with all the somewhat-new parents and pick their brains on being first-time parents.

That experience alone has made this visit home invaluable. We have lists of recommended reading, bags of baby gear, advice layered upon advice and, perhaps most valuable, the opportunity to spend some up-close and personal time with babies and little kids — something that has given us both a much stronger sense that, despite the regular fears I imagine all new parents-to-be have, we are ready for this.

Hands down the best part of being home though came in the form of a short trip to a small office in Oakville on December 23, 2009. For Christmas my sister and my mom decided to take Maggie and I to 3D Baby Vision, a fetal imaging clinic that specializes in keepsake 3d ultrasounds.

We got the works; a 30-40 minute 3D ultrasound session, a DVD recording of the session, a CD full of images of our unborn baby, and — most importantly — gender assessment.

Due to Chinese families (particularly in rural areas) favouring boys, and because of the country’s One Child Policy; Chinese doctors and ultrasound techs are legal restricted from revealing the sex of a child so as to prevent parents from aborting the baby if it is a girl.

While there are always ways around this, having the assessment done while we are here in Canada was a simple solution, and one we were quite eager to take part in.

It’s a boy!

Or rather it will be… or should be. Due to the position of the baby, the tech could only give us 90% certainty, but said that in the 5 years of the business, she had never received a call saying she had gotten it wrong.

I was asked a lot prior to knowing the sex what I hoped he would be, and I always said I was completely impartial. More than one person told me I was lying and deep down I had a preference. I really didn’t, and still don’t. I see the benefits and challenges of either — and at the end of the day I’m just thrilled to be a dad.

That said, now that we know I can focus on what having a boy means — basically, a little me. I’m in a lot of trouble. Of course I’m kidding. I’m excited to take part in all the “father-son” things that I took part in with my dad. Playing catch, going to games, etc.

I’m also pretty keen on the fact that as the only male child in my family, having a boy means that my family name with carry on (provided he doesn’t go on to hyphenate it — but who does that, really?).

Anyway, without further adieu, here are some photos:

As mentioned above, we were also provided with a DVD of the session. It really was a nice touch, but was a bit rough. It was littered with blank screens when the tech switched between 3D and 2D ultrasounds, and also displayed a few error messages that popped up on the system. Additionally, it was overlayed with a rather cheesy soundtrack that had to go.

So, a bit of iMovie magic, and I whipped together the following (Slow? Also on Vimeo):
[flashvideo file=wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Baby%203D%20Ultrasound%20-%20Medium.mp4 /]

Sadly, the holiday cheer and baby excitement has been overshadowed a bit the last few days. My paternal grandmother died just after Christmas, and we’ll be attending her funeral tomorrow.

The grief of losing a family member is terrible. It was barely more than a year ago that my maternal grandmother died. The most painful part when she died was being so far away from everyone. In that way, I am glad we happened to be here now.

I have a wide mix of emotions over her death, and don’t have the experience with death to properly put it all to words. However, the one feeling I am confident in is that to me her death was anything but a tragedy. I cannot begin to imagine a way in which it is a tragedy for someone to live 93 years; seeing, experiencing, creating, loving and giving all that she did.

I will miss her more than I can even guess at now; I can’t even fully comprehend that she is gone. But I know that I will always remember her as the amazing person she was and the infinite number of ways her life positively influenced my own.

It is a, ultimately life-affirming, conflict of emotions feeling the kick of my unborn son one day, and losing someone I love dearly the next. Truly, c’est la vie.

And with that in mind, I’d like to wish everyone a very happy New Year. May we all discover things in 2010 which make us more fully appreciate our lives and the way we live them. My best to all of you.

Nor did the tech print them out much larger than a thumbnail. It’s sort of funny putting our experience up beside friends and family who have gone through all this and come out of it with large images burned to CD, DVDs, 3D ultrasounds, life-like action figures… and we get blurry ultrasound photos. I guess you get what you pay for, and at like $60 for the full ultrasound (and that’s the 2x VIP price) even the fancy foreigner wing is pretty inexpensive. We were told that if we bring in a disc they’ll burn some images for us if we slip the tech a few kuai.

We finally approached the topic of finding out the sex of the baby. As most know, but some might not, revealing the sex of the baby before birth is illegal in China. The law is a reaction to the traditional preference for boys, and resultant aborting of female fetuses (fetii?). For us, and I imagine most city-bred Chinese, it is an inconvenience.

The doctor told us that it depended on who the tech was and whether we could find out or not. At first it seemed like we’d find out, but then we were told that it’s too early and the ultrasound wasn’t clear. We believe that to be Chinese doctor code for, “You should have brought a hong bao“. We may just slip into an ultrasound clinic while we’re in Canada and find out there, saving ourselves the awkwardness of bribing.

A damn cool part of this checkup was that we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat. The doctor cautioned us that if the heartbeat wasn’t loud or immediately distinguishable that we shouldn’t be alarmed, as it’s normal for it to be quiet at this stage. It was a boomin’, so much so that we got a nice loud “tài hǎo le! from the doctor.

Here are the ultrasound pics:

The benefit of having two close friends go through everything we’re about to, only six months ahead of us, is a fortune we’ll never be able to repay. I’m sure I’m not the first to say that being on the road having my first child is equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. Being able to witness this whole process first-hand in the lead-up is amazing, and having two people that live only minutes away that I can turn to and ask the litany of questions I have about becoming a parent is just awesome.

Ric and Gin, I couldn’t be happier for you both. And as sleepless as the two of you no doubt are, it’s hard to tell through the glow you both have. Aria Marie is beautiful. A truly wonderful addition to your family, and our little tribe.