Ethan or Magnum PI?

You decide!

I just hope the large bushy mustache comes back into style!

Final Ultrasound

He is pointing to his exit! Almost time!

TV in the Nursery

I got the LCD mount today and installed it! I think it came out pretty nicely! Here are the pictures.

I know your probably asking why a new born baby needs a TV.. Well I figure when Mom Fatima is in there with the baby rocking away in the chair she can watch something.. Se can also put CDs in the DVD player and play some music.

Nursery is done!

We pretty much finished the Nursery tonight! We moved down the curtain rod and hung the curtains that Fatima and her Mom made and de-cluttered the rest of the room. Just some minor stuff left like securing the changing pad to the dresser and we are going to mount a small LCD to the wall through the book shelf so that it can retract into the bookshelf when not in use, more on that later! Here are some pictures of the finished product! I already painted over the those white spots above the curtain so please ignore those..

Curtain Fatima and Her Mom made

Fatima! Baby is almost ready!

EVL

I added the baby's initials on the wall today and got a lot of the clutter out of the Nursery. We also decided to move the curtain rod down and to not use the valance.

Nursery is almost done

Here are a few more pictures of the nursery! All we have left to do is to hang the curtains and de-clutter.

Cord Blood Banking

We have another appointment today at 2:30 where I think we will see Dr. Chen again. Last visit he brought up cord blood banking and I started wondering how much of an "insurance" policy it really was. So, like I am sure a lot of people have done, I did some research. Dr Chen said that he recomended a company called ViaCord and they had been around for a while and due to the nature of Cord Blood Banking, meaning they will be storing it till we tell them to stop, going with a seasoned company would be ideal. First a little background for all of you out there that were like me a few months ago and had no idea what "Cord Blood Banking" is. Basically, you take blood from the ambilical cord after birth because it is very rich in stem cells and you store it for possible later use. Now, here is the thing about later use. Currently the theory is that those stems cells can someday be turned into any other type of cell. So, you could possily treat things like Leukemia, Lymphoma, Sickle Cell Anemia, and others. Now that sounds great and does bring some benifit but this practice is still in its infancy and really not fully supported by many medical associations for every person [AAP and ACOG]. It turns out that not many of these associations even take a stance on the practice other then to say the Doctor recomending it disclose any finacial benifit they might recieve from your choice to do it. And as far as I can tell the probability that you would even use it ranges from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 200,000.

I think this quote from an article for WebMD says it best:
"Other estimates range widely. Advertising from one private cord blood bank puts the odds at 1 in 27. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests it's more like 1 in 200,000. Indisputably, there are very few documented cases of a child receiving his or her own banked cord blood as treatment. The Institute of Medicine says that there may only have been as few as 14 total of these procedures ever performed. One reason is that the conditions cord blood stem cells could help treat just aren't that common. "The diseases in children that we can treat with their own cord blood stem cells are really rare," says Feig."

In all, I think the whole thing boils down to a few comapnies jumping on the stem cell bandwagon and feeding off the good intentions of soon to be parents. This is what it takes to get your baby's cord blood privatly banked: Setup fee of about $1800, Yearly fee of between $100 and $500. I hope I don't sound like someone that doesn't care about my baby, but thats a lot of money to spend on something that will more then likely never be used.. What do you all think?

Baby Class

So, I have a whole new respect for the ladies now that I have a visual record of what they go through to bring another human being into the world. I also have a whole new respect for Fatima because even after seeing all of that she still wants to do it drug free! It is funny that even now, having just watched a birth video, I feel so helpless in the process. Us guys have it so easy and I think we take it for granted a lot of times. As you can probably tell, we just went to a baby class that pretty much prepares us for the birth of our son. We learned a lot of stuff about the various things involved with birth. I think the best information that we got was on when to come to the hospital. They say that when your contractions are about 5 minutes apart, on average, and constant for about an hour that you should come to the hospital. I know this sounds really quick but you have to keep in mind that the contraction really will only last about 30-45 seconds, so there is still a lot of down time between them. Overall though, I think the class was worth it and during a day of so many unknowns and ever changing variables it will be nice to know a little about what is going on, even if it just so the doctor has a few less questions to enoy him/her with!

Cool Picture

I couldn't sleep so I was playing around with my camera and took this picture of our nursery with the turtle night light that I got.

I thought it turned out pretty nicely! The light from the window that is to the right of the mural light up the monkey and help make the mural visible underneath the stars from the night light! I had to get creative with how I kept the camera still because I couldn't find the mount for my tripod and I didn't want to wake up Fatima but it turned out ok.