Today we took a lunch vacation to Railroad Park in downtown Birmingham. If you haven’t been out to see this new park yet you’re really missing out. The park is top notch and right now the weather is perfect. What are you waiting for?
So it was up to us to show up at the hospital at 8:00PM tonight to get started on introducing our latest family addition to the world. This is the whole story…
8:00PM
We arrived at the hospital on time and got primo parking. We wondered around for a little bit until we found a nursing station and learned where we were supposed to be. When we arrived there was a line. A line to have babies, how awesome!
Our nurse, Lindsey, is really nice and there’s a Yankees / Red Sox game to watch. So, let’s get this party started!
9:00PM
We’re settled in and Mel is hooked up to all the monitors and stuff. We’re still shooting for a tomorrow AM delivery, but we’re hoping things will move quickly. When I ran down to the truck to get our bags I took a picture from the deck.
9:30PM
All hooked up, appropriate medications have been applied. Now, we wait. And hope for some miracle where both the Yankees AND the Red Sox lose this game.
Here’s a picture of pre-labor Mel:
9:51PM
My kingdom for a Sprite! So with all the recent media attention on health care costs and $300 Tylenol you would think those willing to pay $1.25 for a Sprite could land one. Not the case, however, when you’re dealing with a Coke machine that was originally intended for the 7th circle of hell.
I mean, disregarding the terribly creepy image of a doctor… ON A COKE MACHINE… you would think an organization as advanced as a top-tier American hospital could figure out the whole coin-op thing. Well, apparently they can’t. And while they’re at it, the thing won’t return your money. So I’m out $1.25 on top of whatever other expenses I accrue. Know what’s even BETTER? It’s Easter Sunday, the hospital cafe’s are closed. So now I’m going to wonder the halls until I either figure out how to get a Sprite or an orderly mistakes me for one of the characters in “The Shining” and treats me accordingly.
10:15PM
I can has Sprite! I went rogue ninja eyelaser pirate and found another Coke machine, this one without the creepy doctor on it, and used the last of my change to get a Sprite, as pictured below:
Along the way I noticed this sign on a door:
This made me wonder, is a door that is never opened even a door? Or is it just a fancy wall?
Oh, in other news, Mel has started having contractions. 😉
10:45PM
Sprite and crackers consumed. 🙂
Things are progressing… slowly. Time to catch a little sleep before we ate ready for the big show!
6:25AM
Mel is in a “great contraction pattern” and a doctor (not her doctor) came on and broke her water. Time to get a move on, little guy!
6:45AM
Wendy, Zoey and little Christopher showed up and brought me some breakfast. Jack’s biscuit, yeah! Now I have to figure out how to track down a drink…
Mel is in a little more pain with her contractions now. We’re ready for little guy to get here.
7:20AM
Zoey and I grabbed some Starbuck. Need… Caffeine!
7:15AM
Mel just asked our new nurse, Erica, for an epidural. The contractions are really strong and close together now.
7:55AM
Epidural is in and active, Mel is feeling a lot better now and is able to relax a little.
8:30AM
Bree!
9:30AM
Dr. Heath came in and checked on Mel, she said it’s time to start pushing! Here we go!
10:00AM
The room is set up and everything is a go. Go go gadget Mel!
10:17AM
DJ is here! Everything is great, mom and baby are doing awesome.
Donald Joseph Garvich, III – born April 5th, 2010 at 10:17AM. 21 inches long, 7 pounds 1 ounce.
I am so excited about the warm weather we are getting this weekend! The warm weather is like New Years to me because its like a fresh start with fun new things to come! I believe this could be the best summer I have ever had since I have my sweet little girl to share it with. I envision going to the park to swing, picnics with Donnie and Bree, swimming at Mimi’s house, ballpark days with all the Garvich’s taking up the entire set of bleachers, oh and lets not forget about the ice cream!!! My nana and papa instilled a love of ice cream in me early on and it has never left and I don’t plan on letting it!! Another thing I love is the excitment of planning and going on our family vacation, I instantly feel the sand under my feet, the sound of the crashing waves and the warm sun on my skin! I don’t really think of anything other than the beach when I think of summer vacation. Those are some my best childhood memories! Mom and dad always went all out for vacation and made it all about me and Wendy having the best time possible, which made it fun for them. I get that now…Bree is our joy! Well I hope I have inspired thoughts of what your perfect summer might be and set you on the path to creating it!!!
Bree is now more than 10 weeks old and there have been hundreds of pictures taken of her by us… and many more by other people… and most of the time people want to actually see those pictures at some point.  So today, since I was home, I set out to get all of our pictures uploaded, categorized and tagged for easy searching.  That way, anyone who wanted pictures that we had taken could easily get them.  And by get them I mean you can:
- Search all of the pictures
- View them in categories
- See any size, up to and including the original hugemongous size straight from the camera
- Get prints of any pictures you like
- Turn the pictures into wallpapers for your computer
Sounds great, right?  Well, there’s a catch.  You have to do a little to get a lot in this case, which means you have to have a Flickr account and get in touch with me on Flickr so I can give you permission to see the pictures.
There’s a couple of ways we can make that happen.  If you don’t already have a Flickr account, I can invite you directly by using your e-mail address.  So if you want to be invited send Mel or me an e-mail and I’ll get your invite sent out soon.
If you already have a Flickr account, even better!  Just send me a Flickr message to ask that I give you permission to see the pictures (and videos).  If your username isn’t something obvious that I’ll easily recognize, let me know who you are… otherwise I may just assume you’re another one of those crazed Taylor Hicks fans looking for my pictures of Taylor Hicks playing with The Allman Brothers Band here a while back.
In order to whet your appetite and hopefully entice more of our family and friends to get on Flickr, I’m including a gallery of some of the pictures we have uploaded.  You can get all of these, in high quality surround sound, once you’ve signed up for Flickr and gotten added as our friend.  Neat, huh?
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- Napping
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- Play Time
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- Napping
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- Play Time
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- Napping
It has taken me nearly a month to get around to posting this. Usually when I post a story this late I set the date to be the date I intended the story to be done on so that in the future I don’t look like such a procrastinator. But with this one, I’m going to just let the date show how long it took me to get to sit down and write this article and touch up the photographs for it. So in the future, if and when I look back at this, I’ll laugh and recall how much fun it is to hang out with Bree.
So this article is basically going to be about the day Bree was born, from our perspective. I’ll include a photo gallery at the end of the article of never before seen footage.
The day started early… really early… but not so early that Mel and I weren’t both already awake when the time came to get ready and head to the hospital. We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 5:30AM (I thought there was only a 5:30PM and had to be corrected several times on this) and while we’re often late for things, we were NOT going to be late for this!
So at 4:30AM I told Mel, “From now on, things are moment to moment, you can plan with these little guys, just take things as they come…” and I proceeded to snap the following shot with my iPhone.
Off we went.
The drive in was rather pleasant. It’s a road I drive every day a couple of times and the people driving it at 5:00AM are much nicer than the people driving it during rush hour. So the trip was uneventful and we were able to find a really nice parking spot at the hospital.
Walking into the hospital and getting situated was a bit of an adventure. First, there was a huge puddle in the parking deck that completely soaked both of our feet. Then, we got into the elevator and it was the hottest spot found on the planet at that hour. I’m almost positive you could have seen the heat signature of this elevator from space with the proper equipment.
Once we got off the elevator we found a nurses station. When they asked, “Can we help you?” Mel responded with, “We’re here to have a baby!” It sounded weird and sent just about everything into a surreal world at that point. Of course, I was quickly brought back down when the nurse pronounced our last name as “Garlic.” Um… yeah. Either way, she directed us where we needed to go and informed us that our nurse, who was supposed to assist us for the entire day, was either late getting to work or MIA altogether. So much for us finally being on time for something!
The other nurses got us settled into our room, where Mel and I started coming to the realization that we were having a life changing event (it never quite fully sets in). Before too long, Mel’s mom showed up… and so did her cell phone. The thing was ringing off the hook and her ringer is set to “A Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin. So for the next hour or so that song was, literally, stuck in our heads.
Eventually our nurse showed up and began the process of getting Mel hooked up to the various machines that are required to have a baby including an unbelievably painful IV. Luckily, our niece was on location to hold Mel’s hand through the IV / knife fight.
The doctor arrived on location at 6:08AM and told us to get started with Potosin. Game on!
Mel asked for an epidural at 9:30AM and pushing started at 12:30PM. One of the last things I remember before things got serious was noticing that we were going to spend the entire rest of the delivery with the television showing “Tom & Jerry.” Fitting.
The delivery was an adventure that I won’t post here. If you want details, feel free to ask us in person and we’ll give you the entire dramatic story. But here it should be enough to say that in the end everyone was ok and we’re ready to begin our life with our new little bundle of joy!
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- Mel – before delivery
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- Mel and I
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- Our Suite – Pre-delivery
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- Bree’s first photograph
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- Bree’s feet
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- Bree’s first nap
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- Our Suite – Post Delivery
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- The sunset on Bree’s birthday
Getting this posted has taken longer than I had hoped, my time has been spent on other things as anyone who is a parent can attest to. But I did want to get a post up and online with an annoncement that our baby girl had been born and both baby and mommy are doing well with mommy well on her way to recovery.
So, without further delay, here are the stats:
Melanie Bree Garvich – Born at 2:36PM on September 15th, 2008
Weight: 8lbs
Length: 21 inches
I have a LOT of pictures on our camera’s memory cards but they’re huge and I haven’t had a chance to edit them to make them suitable for the blog. For now, you can get some on the spot, candid shots of our little bundle of joy taken with my iPhone over on the right side of the blog.
Obviously, I’ll have higher quality pictures and more detailed articles available as soon as I can get around to it. I took notes all day on her birthday so I would have plenty of details for an article, hopefully I’ll be able to turn those into an article really soon. Until then, this will have to do!
Our great friends Kim and Jeremy were blessed with a new arrival early this morning. Their plans had been to be able to blog and post pictures from the hospital, but at the moment they are experiencing technical difficulties while trying to get their laptop to connect to the hospital’s wireless network. I’ll let them post the more detailed official announcement over on their blog, but since we got a chance to hang out with them tonight and to meet the new addition to the family (and use our new camera) I figured we could at least mention it here. So congratulations guys, we look forward to dual stroller outings in the near future!
It doesn’t seem like it, at all, but the fact is that Mel and I have been married for 9 years now. We dated for a year and were engaged for one, so that puts us together for 11 years. Pretty amazing.
I’ve mentioned before that when we got married we said that we would like to go somewhere new every year for our anniversary. Of course, that was before our little plan changer came along, so this year we weren’t able to travel. Instead, I went to work and had a full day of Dilbert-worthy situations and we decided to go out for the evening and buy a camera, something we had been needing for a long time and something we would need even more in the very near future.
We went to Firebird’s, which is still one of the best steaks money can buy, and headed to Best Buy to see if we could get a discount on the camera we had chosen. As it turns out, I’m really good at picking out expensive gadgets and Mel is really good at getting them cheaper than sticker price.
We ended up with our brand new Canon EOS Rebel Xis in hand, while saving right at $100 on the camera, bag and two filters.
I’m sure the blog will soon have more artistic images added to it using this new piece of equipment. So, happy anniversary to us!
Well, I guess not technically we, but at least Mel is. It turns out that sometime around September 20th we will be making an addition to our family… and tax exemptions… and extra room… and dog’s stress level.
I think just about everyone who checks our blog has already been told in person, so I’m finally getting to post here so I can document the occasion.
We had our first doctor’s visit this past week which turned out to be a nice opportunity for me to meet a new doctor in my life and for us to confirm that we were, in fact, on our way to having a baby.
Of course, I’m sure the blog will go from being an “occasionally posted to by Donnie” area to a “always being posted to by Mel” area so stay tuned for the latest in pictures over on our sidebar (via Flickr).