Monday, February 26, 2007

So much for an up to date blog on the proceedings at home

So here I am with my good intentions to blog about Jay, Ray and Olcay and my well being in their company on a very regular basis now that Ray is born. But it has been more than 2 weeks since my previous blog. I'll make it an effort to blog more often from now on.

What's been happening lately? Not too much I must say. Let's see, last time I blogged, Olcay and Ray came home and we're one happy family at home again.
Ray is doing fine, although breastfeeding was a bit of a problem, resulting in Ray not getting enough nutrition we moved to the bottle approach and that is going really well. Although he's one little sleepy boy, so typically somewhere halfway the bottle he's vast asleep and we have a hard time waking him up.
Olcay's hernia is retreating, ever since the burden of the big belly (BBB) is gone, she's healing quite fast. That is something to cheer about, so here comes; HURRAY.
Jay is being the big brother all over and he's doing really well. One of the things to keep in mind is that he was already used to not getting all the attention from Olcay because of her illness. So that's not much of a change. And he's accepting me to hold Ray more or less. The fact that Ray is only 3 kg or something like that allows me to practically move around with him in my hands without noticing this. So I can still play with Jay. But it is really comforting to see Jay walking up to Ray giving him a kiss when he's crying.

Bit of a downside is that Ray still doesn't understand that he needs to sleep all night, well one bottle of milk is ok, but after that he's crying... big time. Such a little fellow, such a big mouth. At least it was like that the last two nights, which is killing. But my friend Ravi told me it can be worse. His daughter woke up hungry every 2 hours, Ray at least sticks with 3-4 hours in between bottles.

That's about it. As I've said in the beginning, not much happened the past 2 weeks or so. But from now on I'll try to blog more regularly.

Iwan

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Brotherhood of the unexpected

Hi,

Last night was Ray's first night at home, and with that my first night with him. I'd already forgotten that when they wake up it takes roughly an hour before they're fed and put back to sleep... really sleeping. So that was an eye opener. But all-in-all it was an okay night. Jay woke up but after putting him back to bed, that was nothing more than an incident. This morning at 6:30 he came back to us and we took him in bed. After some baby-watching he slept for a while and we woke up around 7:15. Sesamestreet bought us another 30 minutes.

Today we had the nicest and sweetest experience with Jay giving Ray kisses and wanting to help Ray when he was crying, because according to Jay, Ray was in pain. That was really great. So we're happy that he in fact is very big brother like already. One pitfall we don't want to find ourselves in, is expecting Jay to be older than he is. That is hard, because all of a sudden he really is a 'big boy'. But we'll manage.

It's gonna be a week of happy family the next week, so little sleep and loads of diaper cleaning.

Iwan

Friday, February 09, 2007

Back home

Hi,

Today Olcay and Ray came home. It was Ray's first trip in a car, and his land speed record to date is 140 km/hr. Not too bad for a 2 day old.
All is fine. Ray's kidney is something we will be checking up on in the next few weeks. We need to keep an I on his peeing practices, and in about 4 weeks he'll be checked in Amsterdam, to see how much his kidney is taking part in the whole process.
Well, Jay is doing great as well, doesn't care too much about Ray at the moment, although he's okay with his brother and gives him kisses. But since Ray is still a bit inanimate, especially in Jay's eyes, there's not much interest in that area.

Iwan

Thursday, February 08, 2007

How once there were 3 and now 4 of us...

Hi,

Let me just put out the word straight out: Ray was born yesterday. Who Ray is? He's our son and his full name is: Raiden Sidar Eising. He was 2915 grams at birth and is doing great.
When you've subscribed to my blog and kept yourself up to date, you know that Olcay was suffering from a hernia and that she was onto morphine for quite a while. Although she's not using it for about 3 weeks now, we are still a bit concerned about Ray's health and the impact of Olcay's medication on it. So they're staying in the hospital until tomorrow afternoon and the pediatrician will do a full check-up on Ray. As of yet, there's nothing to worry about though.

The story is that yesterday around 3 PM Olcay called me in the office to tell me that 'it had started', her water broke (if that is how to put it). But she wasn't in labor yet, contractions what so ever. Because of her hernia this actually might be a sign of a serious regression of it and instant surgery might be imminent. So when I got home, we called the hospital and drove over there. As it turned out, labor had started, and she was supposed to stay in the hospital which was fine with us. At 11 PM she called me that the contractions had started and at 12:30 AM today she called me to get to the hospital. Things were getting serious. I called Desiree and Olaf to come and watch Jay while I was in the hospital and when Desiree arrived I went to Olcay. At 1 AM I got to the hospital and 2:51 Ray was born. It was a smooth easy job, were it not for the fact that Olcay was scared as hell for the pain and the impact of the contractions on her hernia. She focussed more on the pain, than on relief of the contractions. Under normal conditions it would've been a breeze, but it was tough nonetheless.

I came home at 5:15 this morning and at noon I was back with Olcay and Ray. Jay was taken there by Desiree already and for him this is still something hard to grasp. Well what is there to expect from a 19 months old great little fella? He's doing great as is his little baby brother. We're all happy and consider this as an end to a couple of months of misfortune.

Iwan