Grandma Goes Home

Today Grandma Forte went home after spending about 4 weeks in Doha helping the new family figure out how this baby thing works and making sure we ate gourmet meals every night. These are pictures from her camera over the past few weeks you might enjoy. We're going to miss having her around!

Jaydon will be missing his Grandma, she makes such a good napping spot.

These pictures are of the Doha skyline taken from the new Museum of Islamic Arts.

Jaydon's first few minutes of life (notice the time on the clock).

Steve gets to meet his son - these are the first pictures taken of the Connor boys together.

Can't forget the first bath (at home).

1st Week...

Here's a few pictures from Jaydon's first week... It's never too early for a first date, this is Jaydon with his girlfriend Ella who was born 6 days before he was...going for the older women already (just like his father)

Self explanatory..."My Mummy is Yummy"

1st trip to the pediatrician, they had these great blood red lip couches that we couldn't resist getting a picture on. By the way he passed his first check up with flying colors (but still waiting to get back up to birth weight)
Jaydon's 2nd date with Ella along with Ella's proud father Derek.
It was an exhausting experience for him :-)

Sleepy boys...

Exactly 1 week old

Another cute picture with daddy

One more flower bouquet, this one from Steve's company.

Cutest Photo EVER!!

No we didn't pose him, he just fell asleep on his daddy's lap like this :-)

Jaydon Comes Home

So night No. 2 at the hospital was an eye opener. Grandma felt tired and decided to sleep at home giving Mariah and I some good quality time with Jaydon. Turns out Jaydon's idea of quality time consists of an all night crying session. There is no doubt that he has strong lungs.

After staying up all night I decided it was time to go home. We did all of the inspections and tune-ups, both Mom and Baby passed their inspections. One fun moment for me was going downstairs to pay the bill. First you have to understand that this is the equivalent to a private hospital, and we were paying cash - no insurance (we file separately back in the US). You can imagine my surprise when they handed me $500 cash back (Mariah got a discount for being an ExxonMobil employee). All said and done we only had to pay about $4,000 USD for the whole thing - room, delivery, food, shots, etc. All that without insurance. There is no doubt that health care in the US is screwed.

So we made the trip home without incident. I was worried, what with the hazardous driving conditions in Doha and all. I have to admit walking into the house with the little guy was a real experience. Very happy to have him home.

So here are two fun photos. Remember that the Arabic culture is very family oriented and built around social relationships. One standard thing here is giving gifts, and especially large gifts for new babies. So RasGas (the local Joint Venture that Mariah works with) sent us an incredible flower and chocolate basket, about three feet tall. Not to be outdone ExxonMobil sends us another basket, three feet tall by three feet wide, which included a massive bear. Healthy competition is good, but we will be eating chocolate for the next three years.

I am still behind on blogging and photos, I'll keep trying to catch up. More to come........

Welcome Jaydon Axis Connor !!!!!

Jaydon Axis Connor joined this world on the 3rd of February, 2009 at 11:43 pm GMT+3. That is 11:43 am Alaska, 12:43 pm California, 1:43 Colorado, 2:43 Houston, and 2:43 Florida (everyone else can do the math). He was the rare baby actually on his due date (with just 17 min to spare). Here is is with his first cry followed by a "save me papa". I was happy they let me hold him so quickly.

The whole labor process was painless, and I think that Mariah had a good go at it too. Mariah had a partial water break the night before and went into early labor around 1:00 am. She said that it felt like minor cramping. She took a nap at 1:00 and I packed the car. When she woke up at 3:00 she was starting to have real labor pains. The funny part was Mariah was in absolutely no hurry to go to the hospital. She was very relaxed, what a sport. By the time we saw the doctor at 4:00 she was already 3 cm. The doctor was mad we didn't come in when her water broke and immediately admitted us. We were in the labor room by 5:30 and by 6:00 she was 5 cm.

Due to a minor concern with the cord around the head, and the water break causing a risk for infection the doctor wanted to facilitate using Pitocin. Although she was not complaining about the pain Mariah decided she might as well opt for the Epidural before things got out of hand. Once the Epidural went in Mariah says "I didn't realize I was in pain, but now that is gone wow!"

From there the labor proceeded nicely, 1 cm on the hour. The delivery itself went smooth and we were handed a beautiful baby boy. I was so impressed with the Hospital, there was at least one person with us the entire time.

Need to calm the baby, more to come.....