Chicago

Last week was a ride. Literally a ride. About 34 hours to be exact!

Are creative planning team (sans our graphic artist) drove to Willow Creek Community Church for their creative arts conference. Just to give you an idea how big Willow is… they had 75,000 people attend their Christmas services!

I learned a few things but the greatest part of the trip was seeing two old college friends of mine: Conor Scholes and Kyle Isenhower. Conor brought his wife and their second son Jack who was only 6 weeks old. Ihadn’t met him yet and Jenn was jealous

It was also great to hang out with Kyle! He works for a large church in San Antonio and has a job very similiar to mine. I hadn’t seen him in over 5 years so it was wonderful to catch up with him!

By the way, there is only one pizza place in Chicago… Giodani’s!

Visits!!

Thank you to all of you who have visited our home welcoming Felicity into such a wonderful family and group of friends. She continues to develop so fast!

Who does she look like? Well I’m not sure… All I know is that I might have a paternity test due to my suspicion of the Michelin man

Update Coming!

I will be adding updates soon! Sorry for the lack of info lately, but they are coming!

Quick Post Update

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  With Easter around the corner, my life has gotten quite chaotic.  Hopefully after the 14th, things will get better!  Quick FYI on our lives:

Felicity and mom both got good checkups from their doctors last Thursday.  At 19 days old, she had grown an inch and a half and gained well over a pound.  She had dropped to around 6 lbs 8 oz after her birth and weighed in at 8lbs 1 oz the past week.  She also received her first vaccination, hepatitis B, and is scheduled for her next doctors appointment on April 29th.

Currently, Jenn is planning to return to her job on April 30th.  She will have 6 weeks of school left to finish up with her kiddos.

Curious about Easter at PTCC this year?  Here are two hints: Numero Uno and Numero Dos

Toilet Seats to Diaper Champs

Ten years ago today, a senior band nerd started dating a sophomore dance team member.  Now after a decade of countless movies, meals, and make out sessions, we have a wonderful family addition that will provide countless memories.

More than five years ago, Jenn and I were married and one of the first things I declared in the Chambers kingdom was that Jenn would be required to always leave the toilet seat up (whether or not she heeded my requirements is another story).  All my life, I had grown up in fear from seeing our culture berate men in regards to positioning a toilet seat for maximum standing efficiency.  I figured that the only way to break the pattern was to put the woman on the defense first.  So why not place the responsibility on Jenn?

But now we have a child.  A daughter.  Two against… er… wait a minute… even our dog is a female.  Three against one.  The odds are not looking good for the home team.  The reality of my situation is quite crushing at the moment as I type out this blog post.  I’m being feminized.  Case in point: Felicity’s pink blanket is lying on me, Jenn and I are watching “The Holiday”, and I’m humming “Big Girls Don’t Cry” as Felicity is making a face that is either pouting or gassy.

So it begins.  I will soon be sitting in chair that is a quarter my size (hard to believe, with my height) daintily holding plastic cups with invisible tea while trying to carry a conversations with a plethora of her plush pals.  Playing house, inside my own house, with yet another female telling me what I need to do to help out with cleaning.  Trying to figure out whether malibu barbie likes businessman Ken or surfer Ken better.  Oh the days to come where the only colors in my discussions are those named after flowers.

Sad thing is… I am secretly going to enjoy it.  A little bit

Thursday is our big check-in and check-up for both Felicity and Jenn.  Felicity in the morning, Jenn in the afternoon.  Til next time!  Chambers head count three!

Just the Facts

Baby.  Like there is any other word right now that depicts our life at this point.  In fact, the day that Felicity was born, nearly 11,000 other babies were birthed that same day in the United States.  They will be part of a generation that we will develop, encourage, and place our hopes for the future.  Seems like a pretty nice concept unless you are Stephen Colbert.  He believes that it is pure idiocy to invest in your replacements.  What will you get? If you’re lucky, a nursing home and perhaps half of your required medication.  ;)

Believe it or not, hospitals also have a pretty harsh expectation of babies.  Last week, as we were filling out our information for another bilirubins lab test, Jenn and I got a good laugh.  The admissions worker was flying away on her computer, entering Felicity’s situation when we came across her politically correct identity in their database. Since Felicity’s release from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital for her birth, she is now considered an “Unemployed Minor”.  My daughter was an underachiever by 4 days in age!

You know, it is easy to get caught up in how my life has changed, or how Jenn’s life has changed.  But things haven’t been all that perfect for Felicity (and no, I’m talking about how she has to deal with me being her dad).  She goes from her cocoon (complete with room service) to being swiped out into bright lights while enduring pricks, prods and probes.  Think about it: bright lights, snatched away from your home, probed… Sounds like an alien abduction experience to me!  

At least if she has any residual fears from this experience as she gets older, she can opt for “Alien Abduction Insurance”.  That’s right, you too can be insured from being whisked away as a universal science experiment.  Concerned that the aliens might be a little too frisky?  No problem.  They cover alien impregnations as well; impregnations for both women and men!

Fortunately, I have only come across aliens from our southern border.  But I guess our hospital must get a lot of people from different nationalities through their doors because of an observation by one of the lactation consultants.  Helping countless mothers figure out the intricacies of nursing their newborns, she has noticed a distinct trait between american  mothers and their international counterparts.  Mothers native to the U.S. view feeding challenges as, “What am I doing wrong?”.  Foreign moms approach the situation as “What is wrong with the baby?”!

Well, after getting back a lower bilirubins score from the lab this week, turns out the only thing “wrong” with our baby now is the fact that she is unemployed.

Sarah, One of Jenn’s 4th grade co-workers and friends.

Mindy, another 4th grade co-worker and friend to Jenn. She has the best teaching team!

Baker-man! Jeremy is in our lifegroup and leads my mens group

Becca, Jeremy’s wife, having a staring contest with Felicity

The Walkers are great friends and lead a church in Celina!

After bringing a generous meal, the Kanapkey’s turned their attention to baby time

Field Trips

So things have been a little crazy lately.  We have been to the hospital everyday for the past week except for Wednesday.  Felicity’s Bilirubin (thanks for the spelling Trey) count has been a little high, near 15, but not high enough to warrant medical attention.  we’ve been getting lab test done almost every day and this is the first day it hasn’t dramatically increased.

We also had a scary moment last night.  Jenn passed a blood clot about the size of a quarter but our doctor told it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about unless we get more of them or if there is an increase of bleeding.  Everything else seems to be doing really well.

Honestly I don’t know how you moms do it.  I’ve been watching Jenn and she is feeding every 2 hours, for the past couple days and that means she gets a maximum of around a hour’s worth of shut eye in between those nursing. Isn’t that some sort of Navy Seal requirement?

 

Sweet dreams of Nanos, macbooks, and iphones

After Felicity’s hospital visit today, we made a brief trip next door.  A land filled with joy and wonder.  Her first field trip into pure utopia… the Apple Store.  I am hoping to revamp chamberschapters.com soon and Ilife ‘09 would be a great tool to use in doing so.  Plus, I figured the apple store would be good for my daughter because you of how the saying goes: an apple a day keeps the doctor away!

A 3 am Posting…

It is 3am and my daughter has taken my insomnia trait. Also, she has incredibly forceful poops. She just dropped three consecutive bombs in my lap. I will wait a second to make sure she has no other “surprises” for me.

(Jerod changes diaper)

Ok, that was a massive strike on pampers. I guess the army isn’t the only ones with artillery capability.

In a few hours, we will be back at Plano Presby Hospital for a lab on her bilirubin count and for further consultation on her feeding. Jenn has been awesome with scheduling a routine for Felicity to nurse. She just can’t get her to feed without some major hoops to jump through. I think it is getting better each day, so I’m hopeful for the future.

By the way, Felicity had her first spit up today. I was looking into her eyes as she laid on her back when she began to froth at the mouth. Luckily, her vomit is not as strong a projectile as her poop. But I may have to declare a three foot radius as a splash zone if she keeps this up.

Here’s to hoping she goes to sleep soon…

Going Home

We have been discharged from the hospital.  I’m not sure when we will be home, but we have some final things to wrap up before they let us go.  One thing that has popped up is that Felicity is jaundice.  Her reading came back at an 11 this morning and the pediatrician  said that there can be concern when that number approaches the teens.  We have a follow up on Thursday to make sure everything is fine.

We are pretty tired and last night was not too restful.  At least now we get our own bed!

Eat, Cry, Poop

I kind of feel like I’m playing a version of “Paper, Rock, Scissors”, except that it has been changed to “Eat, Cry, Poop”.  The only difference is that in this game, crying beats everything else.

You could get lost in that stare!

Felicity wore us out yesterday, spending a large portion of her time balling, but today she graciously had mercy on us.  In fact, she fed really well, never cried, and just stared around with those fantastically dark blue eyes that you can just get lost in.  I’m probably going to jinx myself, but she has not spit up anything yet.  I just know there is coming a time when she will be looking up at one moment and covering me in a nice shade of Gerber the next.  Maybe I will just burp her facing mommy until her first unleashing.

Jenn is doing really well.  She is up walking around and is taking very little pain medication.  She is quite bruised from nursing but other than that, she is hoping that she might have the opportunity to go home tomorrow.  We should find something out in the morning.

For those wondering about my fight with the crippling couch/ paralyzing pullout, I think I have found a solution.  Starting last night, I realized that the nurses are on 12 hour shifts, covering three different positions.  The nursery nurses, the care nurses, and the administrative nurses.  Patiently waiting for each one during a rotation, I began to ask them for an extra pillow.  Once I would get one, I would quickly hide it away and ask the next nurse for a pillow.  Here is the result:

Now that is a true pillow top!!

Awesome.  I’ve taken what must have been bought from Guantanamo Bay as a torture device and turned it into something that the Michelin Man would approve of.  If we stay another day, I’m going for the double pillow stack…

Jennifer’s Aunt Louis with Felicity. She makes AMAZING custom cards!

John and Jeri Taylor, INCREDIBLY thoughtful people that Felicity will absolutely love!

Pam is a part of Jenn’s women’s group and is an awesome friend to her

Janna, also part of Jenn’s women’s group. She is GREAT!

You could get lost in that stare!

Now that is a true pillow top!!