Now with bigger thumbnails!

Another long night, but another rewarding experience. Isabella is still on a schedule that only she truly understands, but Cori and I are starting to catch on... we think. We stopped by the pediatrician's office this morning to have an early weight check done, and she's started to gain back a little of the weight she had lost in the hospital, so that's good. The doctor agrees that she is the most perfect child ever born, and swears that she doesn't tell everyone else the same thing about their kid. I choose to believe her.

Oh, and last night was Isabella's inaugural sponge bath at home. Yes, of course I took pictures. I'll stop talking... We all know you're not here to read.

Well, one thing is certain...

...There certainly won't be any lack of proof that this child exists, at least not if I can help it. Here's another round of photos for this evening:

Getting settled

Last night was a mostly sleepless one, but I'm told that is to be expected with most newborns right after arriving at home. Cori and I were up most of the evening with Isabella, but it wasn't nearly as frustrating as I thought it would be. Somehow even the sound of her crying makes me warm up from inside. As much as I want nothing more than to soothe her and make her happy, just knowing that this tiny life is calling out for some unspoken need and knowing that Cori and I are blessed to be the ones who are charged with answering that call... I think her cry may be the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

My mom e-mailed me some of the photos that she got with her camera while she was here, so this batch doesn't line up with the rest by way of chronological order, but you get the idea:

Home again, home again...

Well, we're finally home, and it sure does feel different with a baby around. The dogs will be slowly introduced to her over the next day or so, and Cori's mom and sister will be helping out with the housework for the next week, so we hope to settle into something that resembles a routine very soon. I will of course continue to spam this blog with photos, mostly so I can avoid being mobbed by the extended family.

To your right you'll notice a new "picture slideshow" option as well. This is so you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom and work your way up to see all the pictures. At any point, you can pause the slideshow and click on the active picture and you will be taken to the higher resolution Picasa listing for that image.

This afternoon's update:

Isabella the model

We just got our prints from the in-house photography studio at the hospital, and I'm here to show them off. If you click on either of the images, you'll be taken to the ridiculously high-resolution version of it on Picasa. From there, you can download it and take it on disk to Wal-Mart or Walgreens or wherever you want to have your own prints made if you so choose.

By popular demand...

...Because pictures of my wife and I are so last week:

More pictures

As promised:

Welcome!

I'd like you to meet my beautiful daughter.



This is Isabella Rose May, born at 1:19pm today. Weighing in at 8 pounds, 2 ounces, and 21 inches long, she and her mother are both very healthy, very happy, and very tired.

After 12 hours of labor and very little progress made (nearly no dialation), the decision was made to go with a C-Section. Cori was pretty disappointed that it didn't go according to plan, but she put on her bravest face and came through the surgery like a champ. I'm sitting in the recovery room with Cori and Isabella right now, and if you ask me, they are the two most beautiful girls in the world.

More photos to come later.

No time like the present

Well, tonight is the night. Cori's mother and sister arrived a few hours ago, and they're tearing the house apart in preparation for the arrival of the baby. I've decided that the best place for me is "out of the way" for now, unless called upon to lift something heavy. Really, since this pregnancy began, that's been my primary role... Stay out of the way, and lift stuff. I'm okay with my role, really. It's simple at least. Cori's job has been much more difficult. I'll take "lift this here heavy thing" over "safely incubate a precious and fragile life for the better portion of a year" every time.

So, in about an hour and a half or so, we'll throw the bags in the car and head off to the hospital. I tried to catch a few hours of sleep earlier in the afternoon, but it simply wasn't meant to be. My mind is racing at a hundred miles a minute, and there's just no way I can sleep right now. I figure once we get there we'll be too busy to sleep as well, so it's looking like maybe tomorrow afternoon or evening will be the next shut-eye for both of us.

I wish I had more clever things to say at the moment, but sadly, the baby-related stress has numbed my brain. I'll be taking my laptop computer to the hospital, and I'll be sure to post any breaking news or photos as soon as possible.

The Cure would be proud

♪ I don't care if Monday's blue

Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too

Thursday I don't care 'bout you

It's Friday I'm in love ♪

For those of you who aren't music trivia nerds like me, the above is an excerpt from the song "Friday I'm In Love" by The Cure. It was the #1 song on the Billboard Modern Rock charts from June 13th to July 4th, 1992. What does this song have to do with my wife and unborn child? Not much... Oh, except that Cori is going to be induced on Friday.

I'm so excited that I may just break into spontaneous song, complete with choreographed dance and orchestral accompaniment. I'm also envisioning a wild west themed set and a silver-haired cowboy with an old beat-up guitar playing the role of the narrator. What do you think? Too much? Okay, never mind then.

Regardless, I'm totally jazzed up about it. Having an actual date on the calendar makes it seem startlingly real to me. That's not to say that it wasn't real before now... I certainly wasn't under the misconception that Cori had simply been smuggling beach balls for the last few months, it's just especially real when we're measuring the time until the event in hours. Before yesterday, the birth was a just terribly exciting moment to be discovered at some point in the eventual future. Now it's Friday.

I'll be sure to post plenty of baby pictures as soon as I get them.