While Chase gets his few minutes of nightly sleep, I should be napping so that I am a worthy caretaker through the rest of what I am sure will be a long night (aren't they all?). Instead, I've updated the page to include a Chase link. The Chase page has little information on it, but includes the vitals and a few other tidbits. It will provide a place for people to go directly to information about Chase and skip all the nonsense about me. The Chase page also has a link at the bottom that goes to the old "Baby!" page. That page includes ultrasound images and Emilie's journal entries regarding each one.

That being said, it's time to go get a couple zzzzzzzzzz's while I still can.

Baby Chase has only been with us for a week now, but he's already become a big part of our lives. Primarily during the night when we want to sleep. We try to go to bed early and nap frequently during the day, but I have work things that need to be done, which makes it difficult to nap on demand. In any case, he's been a big blessing and we thoroughly enjoy having him in our home.

I have some very bad news, but I'm going to bury it at the end of this entry. First, here are a few more pictures - these ones with open eyes and hair showing:

I regret to announce that a penalty was called on the declaration that "Don" made the first Chase joke. It is undisputedly the funniest of the Chase jokes, but not the first. The first joke was derived from his first name coupled with his middle initial. This makes his name Chase A. Carpenter. The second joke came from using only initials, which makes his name C. A. Carpenter. A related joke comes from my name using initials - B. A. Carpenter. While this is not a "Chase" joke, it nevertheless adds to the punchline. So C. A. Carpenter, B. A. Carpenter or Chase A. Carpenter. The choice is yours.

Don - we're going to have to ask you to return the prize. If you cannot return the prize to us, cash will be accepted as a substitute.

While Chase continues to do very well, Emilie continues to be defiant. Her blood isn't replenishing so they gave her a blood transfusion today. The first unit went in without a hitch and made her start feeling better fairly quickly. The second unit caused her blood pressure to suddenly jump so they stopped it not too long after they started it.

Last night Emilie and I finally got a little extra sleep. Since the main focus right now is to get Emilie healthy again, they kept Chase in the nursery all night so that she wouldn't have to worry about him. There were only a few interruptions by the nurses during the night, so it was quite relaxing.

Emilie's sick of the hospital, but things are going good. We're still hoping for a Christmas Day release, but we don't really know yet what the plan is. We can't really complain since we received a pretty nice Christmas present.

I would like to thank Don in Reno, NV for making the first joke about Chase's name. He commented that they had to "cut to the Chase." Get it? His name is Chase and they had to do a C-section. Thus, they "cut to the Chase" quite literally!

Congratulations, Don, on such as funny joke! You should be receiving your prize soon. Expect it around the 25th of this month. It may not be labeled as a prize from me (it could be labeled as a gift from your wife or other family), but when you see it, rest assured that the prize was justly earned for such witty joke-making!

Emilie continues to recover and is feeling pretty good today. Although she still isn't eating solids, she is enjoying a wider variety of liquids. Cranberry juice continues to be among her favorites. She has also enjoyed some chicken broth and fruit-flavored gelatin.According to the doctor, water can help to re-hydrate her. I've never heard of any link between water and hydration before, but they're trained professionals and I'm not.

I'm still shooting for a trip home on Christmas day, but it's not looking very likely that we'll get out of here by then. Emilie lost a lot of blood, which is complicating her healing process. All in all, Emilie has handled the whole situation miraculously. In addition to dealing with the traditional trauma of childbirth, she's had so much extra excitement that I'm sure she glad it's mostly behind her.

I'll try to include an open-eyed picture in the next update.

Emilie is doing much better this evening. The contractions have calmed down and she isn't in so much pain. She's actually alert and has been able to spend quite a bit of time with the baby.

Everyone is doing fine. Here's a picture of Chase after they cleaned him up:

Baby Chase is here! He arrived this morning at 6:37a, was 6 lbs. 13 oz. and 20" long. While we are thrilled about the arrival, the journey was not much fun for Emilie. We went to the hospital at about 5p yesterday for the induction. They started Emilie on Pitocin and then a bit later gave her the epidural. They suspected preeclampsia since her blood pressure was extremely high, but it eventually dropped to a safe level. At about 3:00a she started having fairly severe labor, but every time she had a contraction the baby's heart rate dropped very low. The baby apparently had the cord around his neck. Additionally, after quite a bit of painful pushing they discovered that the baby was "occiput posterior". They tried for quite a while to push the baby out, but without making any progress they decided to do a C-section.

The C-section turned out to be a good thing because the cord was wrapped all around the baby. Additionally, the cord was very thin. This was causing that distress that the baby experienced during labor.

Chase is doing very well; however, Emilie is in a lot of pain. She'll be here in the hospital until Christmas Day, but hopefully she won't be in as much pain the whole time.

Anyway, here's a picture taken just moments after Chase was brutally ripped through a hole in Emilie's stomach:

Things are plodding along swimmingly, but still no dramatic events. Due to a fear of preeclampsia, they are trying hard to deliver the baby as soon as possible. Emilie received an epidural not very long ago because of the suspected preeclampsia. More to come...

Tonight is the night! This post comes to you from the maternity ward. There's been a little bit of excitement, but not much. The doctor recommended inducing, so they're doing the induction thing. The nurse predicted birth to be at around 3 or 4 tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for updates!

The message below contains super secret messages! To discover the message, highlight the sentences below with your mouse.

Emilie actually loves being pregnant. Not. She generally feels pretty good (Not) and is not looking forward to being pregnant again.

Still no baby. Today is the due date. Emilie has an appointment with the doctor later this morning, so hopefully he'll give us some more information.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon two nights ago.

Speaking of the Book of Mormon, I watched the trailer for Apocalypto (Mel Gibson's new movie) this morning. I don't know what it's actually about, but it looks eerily like a movie about 3 Nephi. It takes place in ancient America and talks about civilization destroying itself from the inside. It shows the people dressed in fine clothing with many jewels on their faces. It shows the people to be very bloodthirsty. The trailer ends by showing the sun being eclipsed and then has an allusion to a bright light coming from the sky. The story may be completely different, but watch the trailer and you'll know what I mean...

Finally, I've typically been a Maxtor fanatic. I don't buy any hard drive other than Maxtor for my personal use, with the exception of an external Western Digital USB drive that I got for very cheap. With today's announcement, all that has changed. While Maxtor tends to be the best, Seagate tends to be one of the worst. The only company that has ever competed for the position of worst hard drive is Fujitsu. To be fair, Fujitsu is pretty consistent at being the worst, but Seagate gives Fujitsu a pretty good run for their money. If Maxtor drives become Seagate drives, then Brad's drives become Western Digital drives. They're noisy, but reliable.

Well I am still pregnant as of today.
Here is my story...,
Last week Brad and I went to the doctor and I was 3 1/2 centimeters dialated and about 80% effaced. The doctor tried to stretch the cervix out to get labor started. He then gave me the option of inducing on Sunday (yesterday). I thought for sure I would go naturally by then and opted out of the induction. I was wrong.
Still here and nothing is going on.
I am nervous because my doctor is going on vacation in a few days so basiclly if I dont have this baby by its due date which is Wednesday then I will not get my doctor. Sniff Sniff.
So Wednesday is the next appointment with the doctor and maybe I will find out some more information then. Untill then Baby Chase is still hiding out!

I just found out that Richard Pryor died a couple days ago.

I went to the optometrist last week for my regular check-up. It had been almost two years since my last visit (making my "regular" visit somewhat irregular), so it was time. During the visit he informed me that I have a freckle inside my eyeball. A freckle inside my eyeball! I don't know what's up with that.

News got worse as I was driving home. A radio commercial informed me that there are opportunities in my area to be a secret shopper. Just for doing this you get $1000 worth of merchandise! They will pay you to shop! And best of all, they have opportunities in my area! It sounded too good to be true. I was so excited! I got ready to call the number and then I heard the disclaimer at the end of the commercial: "Not available in Nevada." That's it. The entire disclaimer was "Not available in Nevada." Opportunities in my area my b*tt.

There is a silver lining! I've been playing around with trying to setup my own server for FTP and HTTP access. I finally have a mostly functioning box that runs on an old Grape iMac. It's been interesting trying to get all the pieces to work and to lock down the services, but it's been good learning. It will be pretty darn handy.

No news on the baby yet. Emilie's pretty much ready, but the baby isn't. He needs to cook just a little bit longer...

I never go to MSN; however, while working on an issue today I opened Internet Explorer on a user's computer and they had their home page set to MSN. Before changing sites, I noticed an interesting link at the top of the page. It's apparently a rotating trivia-style question that is probably an attempt to get people to use their search engine. Anyway, here's a little screen shot: