Sam's Visitors

So this post is about a week old, but in our defense we have a new baby, so...yeah.

This will mostly just be a picture post, so here goes.

Here's Sam with his Grandpa and Grandma (or Gramps and Granny; we haven't decided for sure what we'll teach him to call them yet). But whatever we call them, Sam definitely enjoyed having them around, as did we. Sam is their first grandchild and we think they're naturals as grandparents. Sam is one lucky kid.

Hopefully Sam will get some of his Grandpa's (and his mom's) artistic talent. Emily decided Sam's room needed more stuff on the walls, so she got her dad to paint a picture of Sam-I-Am while he was here. As you can see it turned out really well. Emily also painted these wooden letters for the room, just in case we forget whose room it is.



My parents came to visit their latest grandchild also and my mom was able to stay for several days, so Emily had two full weeks of help before having to be on her own with Sam all day. We're very grateful to have such good parents. One of Grandma Stacey's favorite jobs is giving the new grandkids their sponge baths, and she is very good at it. We've been getting better at it, but taking a bath has been one of Sam's least favorite things to do ever since Grandma Stacey left.



Our friends the Bergers were some of Sam's first visitors in the hospital. Emily was Lucy and Lawren's nanny, so it was fun to see them with our first child. As you can see Lawren was fascinated by Sam. Lucy is obviously an experienced big sister.



Our friends the Handly's came by to visit Sam also. They will be getting a new baby brother in October, and they seem like they'll be ready. Both Aubrey and Morgan did a very good job holding Sam and keeping him happy. We didn't get a picture of their youngest, Sarah, with Sam, but she has been as fascinated with him as Lawren (they're both about a year and a half old). We sit behind the Handly's at church and throughout the meetings today Sarah kept turning around and pointing to Sam and saying "Baby!"



Sam couldn't decide which of his visitors he liked best. He had so much fun with all of them that we think he gets bored with just mom and dad sometimes.



We frequently catch Sam smiling when he's asleep. I wonder what babies dream about.


A lot of people have said that Sam looks a lot like Emily. I kind of agree, but he definitely has some Burkinshaw in him too.

R-R-R!

One Week Old

So Emily has been pretty busy with being a mom, and I'm finding that being a dad for a newborn doesn't require too much work yet (which is why I am writing the blog again). I change his diapers, but he's only had three messy diapers so far, so that's not too hard; I gave him his first washcloth bath this morning which took all of five minutes (there's not that much of him to wash, and his screaming encouraged me to hurry); and I hold him when he's sleeping just so I can feel like I'm contributing to his care, because it seems like whenever he's awake Emily is feeding him.

So I take pictures. Here's a few from Sam's first week of life.

He likes being swaddled and he loves his pacifier.

I remember loving it when my dad pulled out his guitar and sang us songs before bed. So I pulled my guitar out and started playing, and this is the reaction I got.

Here's a few of him trying to wake up.

I guess there's a reason they call it sleeping "like a baby".

And then there were three...

Here's the story of our exciting weekend...

On Thursday night (July 16th) Emily and I decided to go see the new Harry Potter movie since we figured it could be a while before we had a chance to see a movie in the theater again. The movie was okay. Emily had been having some very small Braxton-Hicks type contractions for the past week or two, but during the movie she started to have some that were a little stronger. Not sure what to do about it, we went home and went to bed. Actually, I went to bed and Emily stayed up as the contractions got a little more regular. About 3:00am (July 17, 2009) I woke up and we started timing them. I still wasn't convinced it was anything to get excited about, but Emily decided it would be better to err on the side of caution.

When we got to the hospital they took us in to their observation room and hooked Emily up to to some machines to measure her contractions and the baby's heart rate. She was dilated about 1cm, so they told us they'd be back in an hour to check her again. She continued to have fairly regular contractions, and an hour later she was 2cm. I guess that's still not much, but after another hour she was almost 3cm and they decided that this would be the day.

Emily hooked up to the monitors

The room was pretty nice

Emily read this book about the Bradley method of husband coached child birth and had thought she wanted to try going without an epidural, relying only on the comfort of my presence to get her through the pains of labor. Not surprisingly, after about five hours of contractions that were getting steadily stronger she decided that as stimulating as my company was it was no substitute for that of a CRNA (a nurse anesthetist). The epidural went in and the next couple of hours went by pretty quietly.

Emily hooked up to even more machines

About 1:00pm she was fully dilated and started pushing, and at 1:18pm the Dr. Gilliland welcomed Samuel Roberts Burkinshaw into the world with a suction bulb in the nose. Seemed a little harsh to me, but it was nothing compared to what the nurses did to him after that.

Sam weighed in at 6 lbs 1 oz and was 18 inches long. Not bad for 11 days early!

The proud parents

I've been asking Emily for a couple of weeks now if she was ever going to have this baby, but it seemed to all happen so fast and caught us both a little off gaurd. But we're quickly getting used to it and are very excited to have Sam with us.

Emily's parents, Gerry and Candy, arrived later that day and have enjoyed having some time with their first grandchild. Emily and I have enjoyed having someone around to do the cooking and cleaning.

Sam loves his grandparents

New babies sleep alot...

We heard that to prevent jaundice you should put babies in the sun, so this is Sam sunbathing in front of our storm door.

We've had fun debating which one of us Sam looks like most. Here's some pictures of all of us as babies. We'd be curious to hear any of your opinions.

That's about all the blogging I can handle for now. I'm sure Emily will want to tell her side of the story and share futher updates so check back soon.

Here's Sam signing off.

BAM!