Ian's First Week at Home

Coming home from MGH...

Grammy and Jocelyn's treat for us when we arrived home...

Modeling his new outfit from Aunty Cathy, Caitlin and Mike...and loving it:)

Snoozing in his crib while Grammy and big sister are at reading hour...

Ian's arrival!

Ian James Gesner was born at 9:15 am on Tuesday, March 24, 2009. He weighed 8 pounds 14 ounces and was 20 inches long. He was delivered via C-section. After the procedure, the doctors said it was very straightforward with no complications whatsoever, and neither he nor Julie show any ill effects. He is eating up a storm, and Julie is already up and about taking him for strolls around the nursery floor of the hospital.

Here are some shots from the first couple of days:

Here he is having a nap after filling his belly. You can't see it here because of the cap, but he has dark hair, and we think dark eyes like Julie (he hasn't opened them very many times yet). The shape of his facial features remind me a lot of Jocelyn, but Julie and her Mom both think he and Jocelyn look very different.

Here's a shot the anesthesiologist took in the OR after Ian was born but before they had finished stitching Julie back up. I was there during the entire procedure, but they wouldn't let me actually watch too much of what was going on behind the sheet. The nurse told us they had an incident where a husband passed out and took out one of the doctors when he fell. Pretty funny.

Ian seems to be much more aware of what is going on with his hands than Jocelyn was at this stage. He sometimes uses them to hold the bink in place, as shown here, and today when he took a nap he had them folded over his belly, fingers interleaved. Pretty graceful pose for a little guy, which I guess you would expect given that Tuesday's child is supposed to be full of grace. (Jocelyn was born on a Monday, and is definitely fair of face, in my humble opinion :).

Here is a shot of Ian's dark hair. Looks like he was telling us he was hungry when this was taken - when that happens, he opens his mouth and lets out this high-pitched cry. Sounds like a little baby pterodactyl. It's pretty funny.

Here he is with most of his harem. As you can see, Julie looks great for just having had major abdominal surgery, and Grammy is very proud. As for Jocelyn...

...she didn't take too kindly to Ian on her first visit the day he was born. When she came in the first thing she saw was Julie holding him, and she started crying, which woke him up and started him crying, which upset her even more. We had bought her some presents in anticipation of her visit, and eventually we were able to calm her down after a bit enough to play with them (above). The second visit the next day went much better - Ian slept for much of the time in Pepere's arms so Julie was able to give her some extra attention. I think this will be a work in progress for a while.

A little redecorating

We changed the layout and color scheme in anticipation of the little man's arrival...mainly to have something a bit more gender-neutral. Hope you like it!

The I-Man Cometh

We had an ultrasound this past Wednesday. Other than to check in on the little man's well-being, the reason was to get a sense for how big he is. Given the problems that Julie had during Jocelyn's delivery, if we learned that he would likely be as big on his due date as she was on hers (i.e., 8 pounds 9 ounces), then the plan was to schedule a C-section so that Julie didn't have to endure a similar experience this time. Well, as it turns out, he is already that size with a week left to go. In fact, given that there is a pretty big margin of error with the projection, he may already be well over 9 pounds. So, we went ahead and scheduled the C-section for next Wednesday (the 25th), and put ourselves on the wait list in case there is a cancellation the day before.

We learned from the ultrasound technician that Ian is doing great. He is very active, his heart is going like gangbusters, and apparently he is doing something called "practice breathing" in preparation for his grand entrance. All great signs, she told us.

We were amazed at the level of detail on his facial features that some of the shots showed. Looks like he will have Jocelyn's chubby cheeks. The technician also thought he will probably be as bald as she was when she was born! Here are a few shots...

This one probably shows the greatest amount of detail. To me, he looks a lot like Jocelyn, chubby cheeks, lack of hair and all.

You can make out his little hands right under his face if you look closely.

Just hanging out waiting for the big day to arrive! We are very excited to meet him.

Oops ~ You Caught Me!!

Jocelyn Loves the Remote Control...

And Knows She Shouldn't Be Playing With it!!

Ian's Nursery Compliments of Poppa

Poppa spent a Saturday painting the nursery to match the Noah's Ark theme we decided on for Ian. He is a much better painter than I remember him being when we moved in the South End condo and painted many of the rooms there. I am not allowed to complain about his edges anymore since he had to cover some of my paint job errors from when we moved into Oak Street a year ago:)

Since we had a number of built-ins already in the room, we decided to stock the shelves with baskets, books and stuffed animals to match the bedding. I was at a work meeting a few weeks ago and must have mentioned the difficulties in finding a stuffed elephant that was blue and not gray. Lo and behold, one of my co-workers found one while she was in Florida on vacation with her family and brought one all the way back for Ian. Thank you Cherrice for your thoughtfulness!! It was a perfect match!

We have a couple of things left to do for the room but this is very close to the finished product and wanted to update the blog before his big arrival in 10 days or so!! We are anxious to meet the little guy!

Ian the Torpedo

No, not that Ian the Torpedo. This one...


The little man has begun to forcefully announce his presence. Julie and I both think she carries him much differently than she carried Jocelyn - her belly seems to shoot straight out with him (hence the torpedo reference), whereas Jocelyn sat much lower. He also seems a lot more active than she was at this stage - when we are hanging out at night I often look over at Julie because I thought I saw her move, but in fact it was just her belly swaying from side to side when he kicks around. We keep thinking that she should be at the stage in the pregnancy where there's no more room for him to shift, but we haven't gotten there yet!

We are both very anxious to meet him. For the last six weeks or so, the nesting has been in full swing - our weekends have been spent preparing his nursery, installing car seats, getting his clothes and supplies set to go, etc. I think we are pretty much set to go. Of course, I thought that with Jocelyn and was later informed that we were much less prepared than I thought. :)

If the doctors have his due date right, he will be here a month from yesterday. I have a hunch he will arrive a few days early and his birthday parties will always have a St. Patrick's Day theme...not a bad thing for a little Irish guy. We shall see!