I don't know if we're going to go to sleep now or not. Up until yesterday, Katherine had a pretty predictable pattern, she slept most of the time, and was only awake for an hour or two a day. Now she's starting to put together multi-hour periods of either sleep or awake, and of course, they're just not on a normal day/night schedule. Last night, for example, after I wrote that blog, I went upstairs, and Katherine was up. So I took her downstairs, and we downloaded MP3's and listened to music. She was up for well over an hour. Not crying or anything, just awake. Then, eventually, she fell asleep. I got her all the way upstairs and into the bassinet before she woke up - just as I was pulling my arm out from behind her neck, and then she started bawling. Anyway, Kara fed her, and I fell asleep, but apparently she slept for a little while, then was up again for some time. She finally fell asleep around 5AM, and we both slept until noon. Noon! Can you imagine? I mean, I've stayed up late a lot, but I haven't slept until noon in years.

Anyway, so she had a two or three hour period early this afternoon of being awake, and she's had a few meltdowns today. I am much more comfortable with her crying. Kara hasn't experienced as much of it, and I think has a mom thing going on where it really bothers her. It bothers me to, but I'm more thick skinned, I guess. So I comforted her this evening when she started to cry, and it didn't last all that long. But now, it's a crapshoot. She could sleep for three hours, or be up for three hours, and we have no idea. But we're going to pretend that she'll sleep a bit, and all go to bed and hope that we are on a more normal cycle tomorrow. That probably guarantee's that she'll be up soon.

Wow, I really got crazy last night on the whole smoking gun tape thing. No such tirade tonight. Today, I had the 'baby is crying and will not stop' experience. Kara went out in the afternoon. We had really been trying to find a way to allow her to get out of the house and run a few errands, because she's been basically in since being discharged from the hospital. So after Katherine had been fed, I took her, and Kara slipped out for 25 minutes of errands. Katherine started bawling just a minute or two later. It turns out that she hadn't really had as much to eat as we thought. So I tried every trick in the book. I changed her, I cuddled her. I actually did get her to sleep after about 15 minutes, and I felt really, really great. She was bawling, and then boom. Asleep. Unfortunately, as I was sitting down trying to get my arm comfortable, I woke her up, and she immediately realized that she should be screaming, and began in earnest.

It's incredibly frustrating and draining. I understand intellectually why babies cry, and I tried to talk both Katherine and myself through it, but man, can she wail. It's pure torment. And I did, in fact, experience incredible frustration, and even a little anger. But eventually, I realized that she was just going to cry, and that it was OK. When Kara got home, she found me in the bedroom with Katherine in the bassinet, with a bear playing music, and me rocking her. Actually, I almost got her to sleep again during that period, but then she started up again, and I gave up. Kara was home, and I promptly handed off Katherine to her. She fed a little more, and then feel asleep. We put her down, and she slept for a long, long time. Probably 60 or 90 minutes, which is a record at this point.

So it's really interesting what you learn these first few days. One of the most important things I've learned is the value of communication with Kara. Even though we can be together all day long, we learn different things about Katherine, even though we're in extremely close proximity. I know, for example, how to tell when Katherine is taking a poop based on her expression, and what things do and do not help when she is crying, and am starting to understand how to deal with crying. Kara, on the other hand, is very in tune with when she will or won't sleep and when she needs food. Probably several times a day, we are talking to each other, and we realize that one of us has some piece of information that the other needs to know to understand better how to take care of KLO. It is also one of those situations where there is no room for selfishness. The baby is the only one who can be selfish right now. We are both going very hard, and are very tired, and we are both doing whatever it takes to make the situation work. I can't feed the baby, so I do more of the household chores and errands, and make sure Kara gets chance to take a nap here and there. She has the unenviable task of being there whenever the baby needs to eat.

OK, here's a refreshing non baby blog. Well, mostly non baby. It's brought to you by Katherine, who is the reason I'm still up and this hour of the evening. It used to be that I was up at 1:15 having fun doing Dave things like updating the web site, working on projects in the garage, you know? Oh, never mind.

Anyway, I have a problem with this whole smoking gun Osama Bin Laden video tape. And I kinda have a problem with all these new revelations about what he said. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't really prove anything that a court of law would convict with (the Bush/ashcroft tribunals are another thing altogether. Don't get me staaahted). What's worse, even though I don't speak any form of Arabic, I have listened to copies of the tape on the news sites, and I can barely hear anything intelligible. Even if he did say the things that he said, it was all public knowlege at the time the tape was purportedly made, so he could be claiming the success of someone else's project. I guess I'm a little frustrated because it is so hard to get good news in this country, even with all the information we are surrounded by. For example, the American news media does not show the more gruesome footage from the attacks in Afghanistan because they censure information like this from the American public for our own good. That is not the case in many of the countries we seek consent from in this action. I would rather have access to the full information, and decide what I want to see rather than have the picture presented to me by the network news media. I mean, do we really think these guys are unbiased? Why do people think we have a problem in the Arab world? I am increasingly of the belief that it is because we are shielded from the results of our own actions, and so we don't really know why other cultures are upset at us. That is not to say I am un-American, or that I don't support taking action against terrorism. However, I think it's also a time when we need to pop out of our ethno-centric world, and learn about the cultures that we are encountering in foreign policy, and decided for ourselves if we like what our government policies are. I know, I should really stay away from politics. But this videotape thing drove it home for me. I mean, here we have the government saying first, "this is strong proof, and we're not sure if we want to show it to you." And then, "we've decided it's in the best interest to release the tape with our official transcriptions." (the transcription that turns out to be inaccurate? Someone must have lost their job over the fact that they missed the part of the tape where Mohammed Atta's name was). And then we see it, and no-one can hear a thing. It could be anything. And then the Arab world sees it, and they have the same reaction I have, "big deal". This is the proof that was so important you didn't know if you wanted to release it. I mean cripes, they already speak Arabic and they can't understand what it says.

Here's the short of it, and hopefully the part that will convince people I'm American, and not an Al-Qaeda sympathizer -- we don't need any more proof on Osama. We already got it, and we've got enough of an international movement to go get him. So let's go get him, and let's be focused about it, and let's try to lose as little credibility in the Arab world as possible, because when George W Bush decides to go after Saddam Hussein, or someone in Yemen or Somalia, we're going to need all the credibility we can get.

The further education of Dave. Dave gets to do all the errands. Dave just filled up an entire shopping cart at the local Shaw's, and spent a ridiculous amount of money on "staples" that will allow us to function without disruption foodwise. Dave is pretty sure that he will have to run out to the local Johnnie's Foodmaster on a pretty regular basis anyway. Dave also caught himself carrying a large bad of cat food using the crook of his elbow and his hip, which he has never done before. I wonder why? I can tell you one thing. The muscles that hold the arm in that position, the position that holds the baby's head right, are certainly growing stronger.
'

Dave has now learned a few things. Dave has learned what it's like to have a baby that cannot be consoled, and cries and cries and cries. Dave has learned that a baby can soil diapers at an alarming rate. Dave has also learned that there are some situations where he is somewhat inadequate, since he lacks breasts that produce milk. Dave learned all of this between 3:30 and 4:30 this morning.

Whew, I'm tired. We took our first trip out today, to where else, the baby store. We had to get a few things that we'd forgotten that might make our lives a bit easier. It's pretty easy to drop a lot of coin quickly on a kid. Luckily, infants (or at least, our newborn), love to ride in cars. There is a warm gentle swaying, and she just slept and slept the whole way there and back.

I have been wiping butt a bit. There's no dignity involved for little Katherine, or for me. Today, I did the first of years of diaper changes, and as I got the new diaper on her, she peed all over my hand. Kid goo, though, whether it's urine or poop, doesn't seem as bad as adult by-product, although I'm sure that will change as she gets older.

Last night was a bit rough. I did OK, I got her to bed in the bassinett after about 30 minutes and she slept for 90. Then Kara and I traded duty, and Kara was up much of the rest of the night. I had a meeting to go to at Trellix today, and so Kara didn't want to wake me, so I got spared the brunt of it. Tonight, I will not be spared, for sure. I actually may go sleep right now so that I can be somewhat alert when the wee hours of the morning roll around.

Will blog soon. Very busy taking care of wife and wiping butt.

I have been pretty busy. I had so many things to do last night I didn't even get in front of the computer. Kara and Katherine came home today, so I had to finish up a bunch of stuff, mostly in the nursery. Katherine is home and well. I've just started catching up on pictures. I'm sure I'll get a lot more out in the days to come, but for now, I'm struggling a bit to keep up.

So far, she's a dreamboat, but we'll see what happens after a couple of days home. She's been mostly sleeping or eating at this point. Once she starts to spend some time awake, well, that's when things are probably going to get very interesting around here.

The cats reacted very differently. Piggie checked her out, gave her a good smell, and then promptly resumed his own special brand of aloofness, and went to find a nice warm spot to sleep. Maggie is pretty unhappy. She avoided the baby for some time. She still is avoiding her somewhat, but is warming up a little.

Hey! Blogger's back up, so let me tell you a bit more about Kara's labor and delivery.

As you know, we got to the hospital around 10:45 or 11:00 AM Saturday (12/15/2001) morning. Kara had an examination shortly after, and she had 3 cm dilatation. Those of you in the know know that 10 cm of dilation is when birth labor begins. I asked the doctor if we'd be sent home, and she looked at me and said, "are you kidding, we're ready to put the epidural in." And Kara was in considerable pain, so they did put it in. After the epi, Kara felt great. They had a drip going that removed the pain, but she was alert and in control. She slept for a good part of the afternoon. All the while, her contractions and the baby's heart beat were on a monitor in the room, so I could look at them. Actually, all the women delivering were on the monitor, so I could see the condition of all of them. Anyway, things really broke down around 5 PM Saturday. The epidural wasn't really working well at that point, and Kara was in severe pain with each contraction. They tried to use pitocin to regulate the contractions, but the baby's heartbeat was not responding well to it. Then they tried moving Kara on her side, but Katherine didn't like that either. Katherine was in the "OP" or posterier position, which can lead to very painful back labor. So Cynee, the day nurse, finally left at 7PM saying, "you definately be done by the time I come back at 7 AM tomorrow." Kara was at 5 cm at this point. However, the epidural problem became acute. Throughout the evening, we worked with the anesthesiologist to find some solution that would relieve the pain that Kara felt. The anesthesiologist was great -- she came up with a cocktail that Winchester Hospital has not used before that helped. But by the wee hours of the morning, even that was not working, so they ended up replacing the epidural catheter. After this procedure, Kara again had relief, and we both slept more. The night nurse, Mary Jo, was great. But by 3 AM or so, Kara was in great pain again. So the adventure with anesthesia continued. By this time, Kara was at 8 cm, but there was a cervical ridge that would prevent the baby from coming down the birth canal without an injury. We tried to sleep, but it was too painful for Kara. At about 5:00 AM, the anesthesiologist finally came up with something that worked, but at this point, Kara was in transition, which is tough. So we both tried to sleep, but Kara was very uncomfortable, so I got up and sat with her.

Wierd mystical moment: When they put a second epidural catheter in, I asked if I could stay in the room (they did not let me stay for the first one). They sort of hemmed and hawed, and then said, go to the family waiting room. I was dog tired at this point, it was like 3 in the morning, and I'd been up since 6:30 AM the morning before on 5 hours of sleep. The family lounge had a loud TV in it. It took me like five minutes to figure out how to turn down the volume, and then I said, to hell with this, I am going to sleep. There was a terrible high-backed, high-sided love seat sort of thing in there, and I dumped by six foot one inch body in it, cranked my head to a 45 degree angle on the armrest, and tried to sleep. About 10 minutes later, I heard a rolling noise, and I saw a maintenance guy go buy pushing one of these cloth covered, wired framed carts by. I was a little self conscious, because I was in a very wierd position in this chair, but I said, "hey, to Hell with it - they must be used to it by now." So anyway, I fell into a light sleep, and became gradually aware of a prescence in front of me. I opened by eyes, and there was the maintenance man with a pillow, pillowcase, and blanket. He put the pillow into the pillowcase, and said, "I thought you might be more comfortable with these." I looked up, and in a hazy, slurred voice said, "I won't be here for very long." He didn't bat an eye, but proceeded to hand me the pillow and blanket, and said, "well, at least you should relax while you can.", or something like that. So I put the pillow under my head, and the blanket over me, and immediately fell into a deep sleep. God bless you, whoever you were. The next thing I knew, Mary Lou was standing over me saying I should come back.

But I digress. So I'm trying to comfort Kara, who's increasingly having a rough time of it. In fact, they tried having her push at this point, but the cervical obstruction was such that they stopped and made us sleep some more. Finally, around 5 AM, the doctor came in, and was confident that she could massage or otherwise get the cervix out of the way. Kara had been totally effaced for quite some time, and was 10 cm except for the cervical thing.

So an incredible cadre of wonderful people came in, broke the bed down, and generally got us ready for the delivery part of labor. Kara started pushing around 6 or 6:15 AM. She did GREAT. Cyndee came back at 7 AM, and I gave her a really hard time. I said, "you promised that Kara would deliver before you got back." It was all in fun, though. At any rate, Kara did a fantastic job of pushing. She was still in pain, and she told me later the only way she could deal with the pain was to push. I did, however, lose all my brownie points during this process. I guess I talked to much, gave her too much advice, and didn't have enough ice chips or anything else.

They were worried about the babies' size, so the spectre of a C-section was raised. However, Kara did so well pushing that the doctor ended up telling the charge nurse that a C-section would probably not be needed. And you know the next part of the story. At 7:41 AM, she pushed the baby out. Actually, she crowned, and the doctor basically pulled the baby out. Earlier in the morning, there had been some discussion of whether or not I would like to cut the cord. It may sound strange, but I really didn't care. However, when the doctor broke her water the evening before, she detected meconium, so they decided to get her to the pediatric doctor for an exam as quick as possible. I think that's part of the reason that the doctor hauled the baby out so quick. I think she was also concerned about Kara, who had been at it for 25 hours. At any rate, she put clamps on the cord, and cut it, and gave the baby to the doctor. It turns out that the baby did rotate out of posterior position, which probably helped the delivery. The doctor did also perform a small episiotomy. After the birth, things got a little tricky. I won't go into to much detail here, except to say that the placenta was problematic. The doctor had to use a few tricks to get it out, and it was a bit messy.

And then we experienced that wonderful scene where Kara, exhausted, and in pain, got to look over and see her daughter crying on the examination table. Wow. We all cried, and it seemed like there were 10 people in the room because everyone at the hospital was so concered and caring about the birth. I got to see the baby and hold her first, as the doctor dealt with the placenta. Kara got her time, though, and showed me up in the end. She had some kind of pregnancy metabolism thing going. I totally crashed shortly after the birth, but Kara went strong until about 7 PM that evening. By that time, I had taken a nap, and was generally feeling a bit better.

OK, now I really have to go. I'll put more thoughts together tomorrow, but for now, consider yourselves informed.

By the way, I highly recommend this vehicle for dissemination of information. It really works.

25 hours of grueling labor past, and we are the proud parents of a 7 pound, 12 1/2 ounce beautiful, healthy baby girl! More details to follow, later this evening, after I've made all the calls, slept, had another visit, and so forth.