On Saturday, I went biking with the scouts in Snow Canyon. I hadn't used my bike at all since last fall. The scouts are working on their cycling merit badge, so they went up to Snow Canyon on Friday afternoon and rode 25 miles and camped. I went up Saturday morning to do another 25 miles with them. I figured that anything that a 13-year-old can do, I can do. It turns out I was right, but just barely.

From the camp ground, we rode down the road to the park entrance, and then up a dirt road to the top of the canyon. Then down the dirt road to the park entrance. Then up the dirt road to the top of the canyon. Then down the dirt road to the park entrance. Then up the main road back to the campground. While we may have come up just short of the 25 miles, the dirt and rocks and sand more than makes up for that. It took us a bit over two hours, and in the last mile I pretty much bonked. Of course, the scout who was up with me (the rest were 15 minutes behind us) bonked, too. It was all we could do to make it back to the campground. Oh, and my poor little rear end didn't enjoy all those miles of bumping either.

Maybe you can please everyone all the time

So, in a bit over 2 days, you all commented on my blog 57 times. That equals the number of combined comments my posts garnered from January 23rd through April 16th. So, apparently I should keep giving you what you all want:

No posts over the weekend, because, you know what? We were dead tired. We have very few priorities around here: Julia eats, Julia sleeps, Shannon eats, Shannon sleeps. If we can make those things happen, the day is a success. Julia (I still call her Wombsly sometimes) things that it is great to be asleep all afternoon and awake all night. We don't agree. But, while she was napping on top of me this afternoon, I did manage to get a picture.

One day older and wiser, too

Julia is a day old! We actually slept last night! We were lucky enough to get the room on the mom/baby floor w/0 a nice recliner for me to sit in, just a boring ol' chair. So, they brought in a cot so I could have a sleep over w/ Shannon and Julia. It wasn't a very good cot, but since I only slept 2 or 3 hours the night before, I didn't mind. They probably don't get too many complaints about it. I, of course, was out like a light. We sent Julia to the nursery for part of the night so Shannon could get some sleep, too. Shanny reports that Julia was taken there at about 1:30. At 6, Shanny went to go get her figuring she'd be awake soon. She was still sleeping at 7:30 when I left. Hooray! I came home to shower and change and rest for a few minutes, while Shannon showered at the hospital.

Shannon's parents and youngest sister came down last night, and will be in town this weekend. Today is also the day everyone should come home (probably this afternoon, or maybe early evening).

Julia is a very anxious eater. You don't have to ask her twice if she wants dinner (I wonder where she inherited that from?). I think if you were foolish enough to get your elbow in range, she'd attack and start going to town on it. Watch out for this one!

Julia opening her eyes to see what this place is like:


Julia with her nose smashed up against me:

I didn't hardly know that we knew this many people! Good job commenting guys! Julia has had her first official visitor: Mama Lowe! For those of you who are confused, that would be my brother-in-law Adam's sister-in-law. She was in the hospital to see someone else and came and said hi. Both my girls are sleeping right now. It turns out Julia isn't very happy when we make her sit around in a diaper full of tar for a little while. But we fixed that. I've got more pictures ready to go as soon as blogger will cooperate.

Julia

10:37am -- Shannon just said "we make a good baby". Julia is sleeping quietly. It turns out that after washing out all the blood from her hair, it isn't quite as red as it first appeared. (It was never bright red or anything. Sort of a blond-red. In our defense, all the doctors and nurses said it was red, too.) I still think there's a little bit of red in it, but you have to look closely. She's got quite a bit of hair though, even if it is blond. But really, none of you want to read words anymore, you've all been clamoring for pictures!

Taken 2 or 3 minutes after she was born:


During her brief visit to the NICU:

5 hours old:

Julia Diane Blockburger was born this morning at 5:22am. She weighs 7lbs 11oz and is 19.5 inches long. She is doing pretty darn well. Shortly after she was born, she was having some difficulty breathing, so they hooked her up to some oxygen and took her over to the NICU to keep an eye on her. I went with her, which is why we went so long w/o any updates. She's still down in the NICU, but she's been unhooked from everything and should be up to be with us soon. The breathing thing was a concern, but never anything super serious.

Oh, and she's got red hair! I'll put up some pictures soon. And more details about the labor, too.

The baby is here! Everyone is ok! More details in a few minutes. We're still calling our parents and siblings.

3:09am -- This is the way to go through labor - sleeping. Shannon is fully dilated! Shannon and I were both kinda sleeping for the law few hours. I was at least partially awake at about 1am when she was dilated to 5cm. At that time they put in internal fetal monitors. (As opposed to the ones on Shannon's stomach.) Obviously the epidural was effective enough for us to both get some sleep. Just a minute or two ago the nurse said Shannon was dilated to 10cm and almost-not-Wombsly was at +1 station. (Remember, that's a measure of how far down the baby is. +2 means you're basically ready to deliver and +3 is described as "crowning".) It's pretty amazing that we made so much progress in just a couple of hours while we were sleeping.

11:50pm -- Shannon is dilated to 4cm and just started a very low dose of pitocin. Wombsly's heart rate drops somewhat with each contraction, and they don't want to turn that into a big problem with lots of pitocin (which ramps up the contractions to move things along). Things are pretty well numb, or that's what I gather, since Shannon will ask me if she is having a contraction. (I can see the numbers from the monitors easier.) We're going to try to get some rest so we have some energy when things start getting exciting again.

11:15pm -- Shannon is more numb, but not completely. And we're both getting pretty tired. The shakes are better, and Shannon has been put on a little bit of oxygen. No pitocin as of yet. Here's a picture.

10:30pm -- We've got the epidural! It turns out that it really wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Not as immediately effective as people make it out to be. Shannon's got the shakes pretty bad, is nauseated, and did throw up once. (Hopefully that isn't a prelude of things to come.) The epidural's been in 15 minutes or so, and is being fairly effective. It wouldn't be fair to say Shannon isn't feeling any pain anymore, but it has at least dropped from the 6 range to perhaps the 4 range. It should keep subsiding as the epidural continues to take effect. She just got checked again and is still dilated to 3cm. The earliest they would start the pitocin would be 11pm, as they want to wait 4 hours since the last dose of the cytotec.

As a side note, I wish I had a counter on my blog tonight, because I'd be racking up the hits! We appreciate everyone's concern and comments! (13 comments in the last 12 hours alone!)

9:15pm -- Shannon is increasingly uncomfortable. I guess contractions will do that to you. She rates her pain at a 6/10. Shannon is still chugging a long pretty well, considering. She's dilated to about a 3. She's had some broth and jello to keep her going, but we all know that a hungry Shannon is not a happy Shannon.

6:45pm -- The OB came and checked Shannon. She is dilated to 2cm, 80% effaced, and the baby is sitting at -2. (This is a measure of how low the baby is in the pelvis, where positive numbers mean the baby is deeper in the pelvis.) We'll be doing a third dose of cytotec in just a few minutes. Then waiting for a few more hours. Hopefully the cytotec puts her in real labor and things progress more quickly. If they don't, we'll switch to pitocin to help out. Regardless, it looks quite unlikely that Wombsly will be making her appearance any time soon, or before midnight. It looks like we may need to be thinking about trying to get some sleep so we can be of some utility tonight when the real action starts.

6:00pm -- We've got 30 second long contractions every 3 minutes or so! It's actual labor! Up until now, this has been pretty boring. (Shannon agrees with me on this one.) We've just been sitting around and waiting and waiting until this recent progress.

4:00pm -- Shannon just received a second dose of cytotec which softens the cervix and starts dilation. She'll get checked in another 3 hours, at which time it is likely that she will start getting pitocin which should get the contractions started.

1:45pm -- Upon arrival at the hospital, the nurse said Shannon was dilated to 1cm. A new record! They've got her hooked up to the IV, EKG, pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff, baby heart monitor and the contraction monitor. They've given her a drug that is supposed to get things moving and we're just waiting around for a while now. We've got Wifi at the hospital, but gmail chat doesn't seem to be working for me.

Baby Update Center

It is 11:15am, April 16th, 2008. We're heading to the hospital to have a baby.

This is now the baby update center. We'll see how many posts I can make in the next 24-48 hours, so check back often.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations

Another book is finished. This time it is "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman". Yes, I've gone somewhat Feynman crazy lately. Since Feynman himself published all sorts of accounts from his life of funny stories, you'd think reading letters he wrote would be pretty bland. But for the most part, the book was quite interesting. To me, at least. Being from a much earlier generation, Feynman wrote letters, not 13 word text messages, which his daughter has read through and condensed to a scant 416 pages. Feynman is the American physicist of the middle of the 20th century. In the continuum of notable physicists he occupies the space between Einstein and Hawking. And he'd completely hate that I just wrote that. He routinely asked to not be described as a Nobel prize winner, not out of disrespect for the prize, but because he didn't like the way everyone's reaction to him changed because of the prize. He learned to draw later in life, and refused to sell work to anyone who was looking for a drawing from a notable physicist; he would only sell his work to people who liked it for what it was.

Feynman lived in the middle of all the big events in physics in the middle of the 20th century. As a winner of the Einstein award, he was contacted for his opinion about a potential recipient of the award: Stephen Hawking. At a conference, he was talking to another physicist when a young man came up and asked the other physicist what he thought of his new theory to describe super-conduction. Feynman says he didn't understand any of it, but that the other guy was impressed. His letter on the subject just comments "Could this have been Cooper?" Um, as in "Cooper pairs" Cooper? It's a nerdy book. But me and Feynman, we're nerdy guys.

Super Dumb

From last nights NCAA championship game (more or less accurate): "Kansas knows what it's like to be in an championship over time game. They lost a game in triple overtime to North Carolina in 1954."

Yeah, because that game 54 years ago really helped them build character and maturity that they've been saving up now for over half a century. I don't suppose there is a single individual who was a student at or employee of Kansas for both championship overtime games. It must be the physical campus that stored up the experience, waiting until the appropriate time to bestow it upon the right basketball team.

Season Finale

Ward basketball ended last night, for my ward at least. We lost by half or a dozen or so, and committed about 50 fouls in the last 2 minutes trying to extend the game. The other team hit enough free throws to hold us off. I think I ended the night 2/4 from the field and 1/2 from the line. I also had what I am calling a "mind numbing block". You know, the kind where the ball never really makes it out the guys hands and you send it flying out of bounds? Yeah, that kind. It felt good. And if I'd had a dozen more of those, we might have won.

Jack Sprat

As the devoted readers of my blog that you all are, you've no doubt thought that I read books that you would never read. A book about the number zero, the number e, and even 1,100 page books about physics. You have haven't even begun to imagine the books that I read that you never will, because last week I finished off "Lean Transformation: How to change your business into a lean enterprise". As you might have guessed, I didn't really read this one for fun. At work, people are always talking about being "lean" so I thought it a reasonable idea to read a book on it.

It turns out that "lean" is a pretty simple idea. Basically, the book was 200 pages of "don't do stuff that you don't need to do. Look for ways to cut out the unnecessary stuff." Simple idea. And yet, most companies to tons of stuff that they don't need to. So, it's good to think occasionally about how to be more efficient.

Of course, the book is unnecessarily full of claims like "once your factory becomes lean, you will make 11 times as much stuff per day, and it will only take 4 minutes to fill a new order." And half the suggestions they make really wouldn't work at my work. But still, there are always useful ideas mixed in with the silly ones that don't apply.