I had a little photo shoot with Caleb this morning (of which he cried through most) But I got some pretty decent 2 week old pictures out of it.

I have a new found respect for all parents. I never knew newborns take so much work. Our days have been filled with diapers, feedings, laundry, soothings, cleaning, and sleeping (mostly on Caleb’s part). We often have to squeeze in meals and potty breaks in between baby-related chores:

I’m so so so grateful that Andy has had these past two weeks off of work to help out. I dont know what I would have done without him here. Between the two of us (and a lot of help from Andy’s family) we’ve been able to get through each day.

Our nights have been touch and go. After a few days home, Caleb seemed to be sleeping pretty well at night. Unfortunately, he was circumcised a few days later and that seemed to mix his days and nights up. Yesterday, we tried to keep him awake as much as possible during the day so he’d sleep through the night. I think it worked because he would wake up, get changed eat and fall back to sleep within a half an hour.

Yesterday, we went on our first family outing to the shoe store and Target. Since Caleb slept through the whole trip, it was considered a success. This morning we went out for a second time to church. I wouldn’t consider it a complete success because as soon as the sermon started he decided to wake up and start crying. I took him out to the lobby where he began to scream. So I took him to the nursing room where he pooped through his outfit, screamed more than ate and spit up just about his whole meal. By the time I finally got him cleaned, soothed and somewhat fed, service was over. He did enjoy all the attention from our friends however.

Tomorrow Andy goes back to work and I get to take Caleb for his two week appointment… by myself. Yes, I’m terrified to do this without Andy there. But there’s got to be a first time for everything. Last time we were there, He had gained all his birth weight back so he’s eating well.

Here are some more pictures from his first two weeks:

Love,

Andy, Bri and Caleb

Here’s a picture of Caleb and Daddy watching the Cardinals game. Too bad they lost miserably….

Today was a big day for us, as we had the follow up EKG for Caleb at St. Josephs Hospital in downtown Phoenix.  We weren’t very nervous about it for some reason, but we took a ride down there about noon to get the test done.  It was a bit of an ordeal.  The test only takes a good minute or less to “run” but it was tough getting 8 different electrodes hooked up to a screaming pooping baby.  As soon as they called his name to come back in the exam room he pooped his guts out…I guess he knew what was coming.

We finally got the test run after 2 feedings and 30 minutes, and she submitted it to the Pediatric Cardiologist for reading.  She said he’d likely call back on Monday with the results but we got a call from him this afternoon…and Caleb’s test was NORMAL.  This confirmed the follow-up he had in the original hospital visit, and means our little dude has a healthy little heart! He’s also been doing a lot better sleeping at night, normally 2-3 hours at a time, then a feeding and changing and repeat 2 times during the night.  The math has added up to some better sleep for his parents the past two nights so we hope it keeps up!  Here’s a little video from this morning…

Here’s the little guy beefing up his neck muscles.

At exactly 5:30pm, on Saturday December 13th, Caleb Michael Holloway was born!  He weighed in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces and measured 21 inches long. (This makes new Grandmom Holloway the pool winner as she guessed 7lbs 14oz and 21 on the dot!)

What a journey it has been!  We’ve been dying to post pictures and videos but between the hospital stay and the LONG first night and day home, there just hasn’t been a free moment.  Alas, Bri is now fast asleep as is Caleb, so I’ve decided to sneak out and post Caleb’s birth story and some pictures and video for friends and family eager to see the little dude.  Here’s how it went down:  (lots of pictures and video of Caleb at the bottom of this post)

Caleb’s Birth Story

We woke up Saturday morning and gave labor & delivery a call, who said we were set to come in at 6am.  We grabbed the last of our bags and took off for the hospital.  Between registering and getting set up, we finally were in the room by about 6:30 and they got Bri all set up with an IV and started pitocin at this point to stimulate more contractions.  At this time Bri was about 2 1/2 CM and 75% thinned out.

They gradually increased the dosage of pitrocin, and at about 9 our OB broke the water, and that really got the ball rolling.  Bri started getting contraction after contraction with very little time in between, and they increased in strength as well.  The nurse (who was amazing all day) said that Bri could get the epidural whenever she was ready for it, but that it takes about an hour to get it working between the time to put in and the time to work etc.  After a few hours “toughing it out” to try to speed up the delivery, Bri decided to go ahead with the epidural.  It worked like magic and Bri was feeling fine again.  We pretty much played the waiting game at this point, watching 70’s gameshows on the TV and scrabble on our iPhones.

The nurse checked her at about 3:00pm and was “hoping” for her to be 6cm.  She was 8 and completely thinned, so we knew it’d be pretty soon.  We had some fun drama with our OB because he had another patient at Arrowhead hospital 15 minutes away, who was progressing apparently the same amount as Bri, and he was in between hospitals back and forth.  He finally came in and Bri started pushing at about 4:40 and it lasted about 40 minutes.  Needless to say, I feel exceptionally lucky to NOT be a woman.  Yikes!  Bri was awesome however, and before you knew it little Caleb Holloway was born!  What an amazing moment that was.  It was such an intense array of emotions and senses, we both  instantly started crying.  We couldn’t believe how beautiful he was.

He took his first looks at mom and dad and then they took him over to be cleaned up (after his poppa cut the cord of course!).  Poor Bri was pretty beat up from the delivery so they patched her up for a while and swaddled up Caleb for me to hold.  He was super alert and just gulping in the outside world faster than I’m sure we can comprehend.  After about an hour and a half Bri was in better shape and we were able to usher in my parents and sister to see the new guy and give Bri’s parents a call.  What an awesome day!  Altogether Bri was in labor appx 9 hours, which was speedy!

Our Hospital Stay & The Drama

After a couple hours in the L&D room they moved us to our post-pardom suite, where we’d be staying the next 48 hours or so.  Nurses were in and out to check on Bri and Caleb and do the necessary tests etc.  They give the husband this fold-up bed that make cement floors look like Tempur-pedic.  It felt, as I told Bri, like a thousand pointy springs with a piece of tissue on top.  Never the less I wasn’t going to be complaining…I had the easy part today!

We had some drama rather quicly in the recovery room.  The nurse came in to give Caleb a bath and she kind of panicked or something that he wasn’t breathing.  She started rubbing him a lot and holding him up saying “take a breath” etc.  Streams of panic gripped us but he ended up taking a breath.  Needless to say we were paranoid from this point on as they left him alone with us, new parents, who have no clue what little baby sounds and faces are supposed to look like at this point.  Bri began feeding Caleb an hour or so later and he ended up in another spell that seemed like he couldn’t breath.  We called the nurses and they decided to take him to the “Stork’s Nest” where he could be monitored.  We were both happy to have him there as we know we never would have slept a wink and just would have stared at him all day and night worried.  They monitored his O2 stats and heartrate and reported to us that both were kind-of-lowish and they would need to run an EKG on his heart.

We visited him at various times of the night to feed and see him, and then tried to get an hour or two sleep here and there while we waited for the EKG to be interpreted by a cardiologist.  These were tough times for us as we had dealt with his arrythmia during the pregnancy and now were facing possible complications after birth which we had hoped there wouldn’t be.

We visited the next morning and they reported his O2 stats and heart rate had looked great through the night and morning.  This was awesome news.  Our pediatrician came in and said that perhaps he was simply choking/gagging on the amniotic fluid still in his lungs and said he looked great and could be returned to our room.

He did however, have to check the EKG and said it came back as abnormal, specifically a “prolonged QT interval.”  The doctor said that they can be transient, and go away within the first 7 days of being born but if it didn’t then he’d have to be on beta-blockers for the rest of his life.  We waited a while for the doctor to call back and when he did he explained that prolonged QT syndrome is what kids/athletes have suddenly died of when they’re in massive excitement/exercise, because a severe arrhythmia kicks in and sends the heart into a frantic state.  We were quite nervous at this point, simply because of the unknown of it all.  He said he needed a follow-up EKG to confirm it in less than a week and referred us to a cardioligist for it.

We were happy to have Caleb back in the room at this point and worked (hard!) at trying not to become anxious or paranoid about the diagnosis until it was further confirmed etc.  We both had confidence that God’s plan, sick or well, was better than our plan for Caleb.  We had an up and down first night with him, lots of feeding and not much sleep, but it was awesome to have him back in the room.

Caleb had no more weird breathing episodes and so we set out to head home on Monday afternoon.  We just had to wait for the pediatrician to do his final check and release us.  He decided to do another EKG right there in the hospital, just to see if the problem had already gone away - and it had! His second EKG came back “normal” and we were in tears once more.  We’ll be following up with a cardiologist still to confirm, but what great news that was to hear!  We are praising God for his abundant kindness.

To conclude this epic-post, I’ll just say we’ve been very very very very tired as Caleb and us adjust to being at home, but it’s been a tired-ness filled with a lot of joy.  We’ve been very thankful for the thoughts, prayers, sentiments, and love from all the friends and family - we feel so blessed to have the kind of support and help that we do…(special thanks to Grandmom Holloway…without her we never would have been able to catch up on sleep and food!)

Caleb Videos

Caleb Pictures

If you want to see the pictures larger, click here to view them on our Picasa Page!

We’re off to the hospital. Pray that everything goes smoothly and everyone is happy and healthy. Andy’s bringing the laptop in hopes of some wireless connection. We’ll update when we get the chance.

For the rest of this week, I’m going into nesting overdrive. It’s somehow different when you can actually count down the hours instead of guesstimating when you’ll go into labor.

I feel quite accomplished. As of today, I’ve completed all of my Christmas shopping, wrapped all the presents (based on the way I wrap, it’s an all day event), went down to the fire station to get the car seat installed, cut my hair (yes, I got a “mommy doo”) and sanitized all the plastic baby things. Tomorrow, I’m going to do some hardcore cleaning around the house, grocery shop and wash every fabric thing in sight. Friday is set aside as a freaking out day. Andy will be off so he can get some last minute errands run. I will be packing and panicking.  If we’re motivated enough we might go out for a “last supper” as just the two of us.

I bought Caleb his first Christmas ornament today. I absolutely love it; its so classic. Plus I got a smashing deal on it.

It’s official. The date is set. This Saturday at 6am I’m going to be induced!  A little after 38 weeks (which is today)

This morning we first had our biophysical profile ultrasound at the perinatologist that would be followed by a visit to the OB. When we went into the ultrasound room, the first thing the tech asked us was when we were planning on having our induction. I thought this was a pretty strange question being that we never discussed this with them. When I asked her why she brought that up she said that, for babies with arrhythmia’s, it’s standard to induce around 38 weeks and they should never go past their due date. This was good to hear considering our leaning towards induction.

After the ultrasound we headed over to the OB. I was a little disappointed with this appointment from the start. For one, he didn’t even remember our induction conversation on Friday so I had to rehash the whole thing with him. Then, when we told him what the ultrasound tech told us, he blew it off as bologna and said that it wasn’t always the case. In this situation, both Andy and I have sided with the perinatologist because this is what they specialize in and are primarily concerned with the health of our son. Regardless, he was a fan of inducing and I just got the call that we’re scheduled for Saturday at 6am.

So, with all that said, come Saturday, we should be parents! Sorry for all of you who voted on different days, If you want, I can nullify the points for the dates and we can base the scores strictly on weight and length so everyone still has a chance. I know some of you more competitive people out there would appreciate that.

Once upon a time, Andrew Michael Holloway was born.  The year was 1984.  The olympics were about to be hosted by Los Angeles, Ronald Reagan was in the white house, and no one had heard of iPods.  Soon little Andrew would grow up, playing football with his father.  He’d dress up as a football player for Halloween, small nerdy head in a gigantic helmet.  It was around this time that the Arizona Cardinals arrived in Phoenix.  Football was here.

Oh how swiftly the joy of a football franchise crumbled into the misery of being a Cardinals fan.  Year after year, season after season, game after game, the pathetic red birds took the field long enough to flap their broken wins and collapse into the basement of the NFL.  And year after year young Andrew would get his poor hopes up only to cry little cardinal tears of sadness by season’s end.  Mocked by his peers, he perseveared in hopes that one day his team would learn to fly.  ”Someday,” he said.

The late 80’s and 90’s came and went without more than a chirp.  He’d watch teams like the Cowboys, Packers, and Steelers win championships with the support of their loyal fanbase, as the Cardinals continued to bring new meaning to ineptitude.

There were famous late-game collapses, injuries, controversy, and ultimately 4-12 seasons.  There were embarassing losses on national television and the mockery of the nation.  But little Andrew, who was now not as little, would not soon give up.  He’d continue to wear his Cardinal red with pride, hope and dillusional dreams of grandure.  And then, by some great and wonderful stroke of Kurt Warners pen - the time had finally come.

The Arizona cardinals are the 2008 NFC West Division Champions.  Their first division championship since 1975.  Yes, I said 1975.  They haven’t won a division since I was negative 9 years old.  So if you are asking yourself why a man can get so excited about a football team, just remember that he’s lived his whole life in the closet that is Arizona Cardinals fandom.  He’s proud of his red birds!

Had a couple more appointments today, and spoke to our OB about induction.  Bri is now 2 CM and 70% effaced, and the doctor said that if things are progressing well (like they are) when we see him on Tuesday, we MAY be having Caleb on SATURDAY the 13th!  We’re still not certain on the induction, and have lots to think about, but our little guy MAY have a birthday planned out for him!

Here’s a link to a selection of books, all available for free online, and part of the DesiringGod.org ministry of John Piper. Pretty neat they’re all available at no charge as long as you read them on the computer…

Free Online Books

Who doesn’t remember the great Hootie and the Blowfish craze in the early 90’s.

Just a quick update on the heart issues.   Got back from St. Joe’s Hospital today and everything is the “same” as far as the irregularity.  We had hoped that maybe it was gone after yesterday’s exam, but it is at least the “same” which is benign and not being treated. They just said we have to return after birth for followups with Caleb.  Thanks for all the prayers.