Mourning

Melissa's Grandma Dorothy passed away this morning. This past week she was mostly unresponsive. We can be thankful that she no longer suffers. Details for the wake and funeral will be made available as soon as they become available. Please pray for her.

countdown to Thanksgiving

Today I have a day off - a free day - to do what would take a week. Just wanted to touch base with all of you. We've done nothing exciting, but Pop can say that he has completed the cutting of Christmas puzzles. After he cuts them, he takes them apart on the dining room table to count the pieces. After that I get to assemble them, but I fell behind. There were as many as 8 at one time. Pop actually worked with me on putting them together, so now they are all bagged and ready.

I talked Bob and Mary Ann, into coming on Friday instead of Thursday night, since I have to work 5-1 on Friday. No specific plans yet for while they are here. Their main focus should be to spend time with Gram. I presume they are leaving Sunday, so feel free to include yourselves into our weekend if and whenever you're able.

I hear that Dave is back from Seattle, and D.J. should have gotten home from Philadelphia late last night. But that's for them to tell us (hint hint).

Hope everyone has a good week.

Gavin's Blog

We started a separate blog for Gavin. You can check it out here:
http://gavinchard.blogspot.com/

Today was a rough day for little G - he got circumcised. Most babies get circumcised shortly after birth but with all the other stuff he was going through, his got postponed. Today was his 2-week checkup at the pediatrician and the procedure was done right there. Brandon stayed with him during it but I couldn't bear to watch so I waited in the lobby. Apparently he did great and didn't even cry! Until they pricked his heel and squoze his foot for 5 minutes straight to get enough blood for his "routine tests". He's been sleeping a lot ever since, which is probably a good thing.

Yesterday was a bit more fun - we took Gavin for his first hike! He slept through most of it but I think he enjoyed the fresh air and I KNOW the dogs appreciated the chance to get our and run around a bit.

Gavin Video - Take 2

The magic of the electronic age comes at you once again... But this time with Gavin's eyes open. Find a comfy chair for this one - and be thankful our camera only shoots 3 min of video at a time :)

Gavin video

Testing the video capability of the blog site. We'll get a video of him when he is awake.

Happy Birthday, big brother!

Dear DJ,

Hope you have a great birthday! Bummer when they fall on a Monday, but any day is a good day to eat cake :).

Love and best wishes from Utah!

Tristan Robert

Just got a phone call from Robert. Tristan Robert (a boy) was born today, Nov. 11, at 9:42. 8 lb. 5 oz. I think it's a neat name, but Pop says it sounds like a girl. Cecilia is very pleased with her brother and told Lisa "It's my baby, not yours."

That's the end of the line for new babies for the time being, as far as I know....

We're having a lazy day today. Pop is watching the Bears play a lackadaisical game. He spent some time cutting and seeding jalapenos and stuffing them with cheese. Tomorrow I'll buy some corn flake crumbs when I get off work, and we'll finish making the "poppers."

Gram seems to be doing fine, althought she's very tired and weak. I got her laundry and stuff squared away yesterday.

We're looking forward to meeting Chris and Sami and their parents at Famous Dave's tomorrow, to celebrate D.J.'s birthday.

We're enjoying and appreciating all the pictures and updates of Mr. Gavin Chard....

Update on Gavin

He's home!! We were finally released on Wednesday around 4pm. We were all ready to leave the hospital. Gavin really started eating well and his bilirubin numbers came down to manageable levels after 36 hours under the UV lights. It's a joy to have him at home where we can watch him and be in a comfortable place. He continues to do great and eats more and more at each feeding. We had him on the every 3 hour schedule for the first day as per recommendations from the nurses at the hospital. We're now moving to an on demand schedule where the little man lets us know when he's hungry. He definitely let's us know and is animated in his actions when he is hungry. It is beautiful to watch him and see his different faces and behaviors for different stimuli. Julie is a great mother and glows with love for her little guy. It really is amazing the amount of love one can have for their offspring.

Grandma Debby and Aunt Brooke and Uncle Kenny came up last night and brought us dinner. It was nice to see them again. Julie is grateful to Brooke for her advice and help for all things baby related. Brooke really has been great. She was the only one that sent Julie flowers (except for dad of course!) and she brought up a new, freshly washed outfit for Gavin to come home in. She helps alleviate some of Julie's fears and concerns about things that come up related to the baby.

Yesterday was a busy day for the new parents. We had to take Gavin in for a follow up test for his bilirubin. While we were out we took care of some errands. The little guy does great in the car and fusses minimally. Today we have a 1pm appointment with the pediatrician. They are going to take more blood for a battery of developmental tests and weigh and measure him and just do an overall check.

Here are some more photos for all to enjoy.

Love, Brandon, Julie, and Gavin

and now there are eleven...

Happy weekend, family. No doubt there's no news that tops what's going on in Utah this week. I'm so very proud of Julie and Brandon, and so very anxious to meet little Gavin. He's had a rough time, as have his parents, and seems faced with yet a few more days in the hospital. Here's hoping his appetite picks up and his family can all go home.

We're picking up the loose ends of summer. I still need to deal with a few more storm windows and screens. Pop's been clipping dead stuff out of the garden for weeks and is nearing the end. Just Swiss chard and Brussels sprouts left to harvest. I have buckets of green tomatoes, as well as a lot of ripe ones. After I post this, I plan to go up and make a pot of stewed tomatoes. We have lots of green and hot peppers also. The weather is supposed to get sharply colder by Tuesday.

Gram is recovering nicely from her bronchitis. Dr. Kurt got her on some powerful stuff that started helping right away. She's thrilled about little Gavin, and like me, terrified at the thought of all that he and Julie went through.

Got a call from my brother yesterday, offering congrats, which I offered to him as well for their new little Henry. He also told me that they're coming for Thanksgiving. It will just be Bob, Mary Ann and Julie, and they plan to drive down on Wednesday night. Can't believe that it's only 2 1/2 weeks from now. I'm formally inviting all of you who wish to and/or are able to come. Let me know if possible. I have a lot to do around here between now and then, and we're also preparing to go to Utah on the 2nd of December through the 9th, so we lose a week of Christmas preparation time. Pop is busily cutting the last of the Christmas card puzzles, and right now there are a half dozen on the dining room table awaiting assembly.

We had a very pleasant day last Monday, meeting the North Aurora branch of the family on the train, then taking the CTA to Navy Fear at Navy Pier. It was a beautiful autumn day and we wore ourselves out walking all over the place.

Note to my 2 boys: have you considered phoning your sister with some good wishes? Her cell number is 435-245-2837. She'll be at the hospital for the next few days, pumping milk and delivering it to the nursery every 3 hours, where it's currently being fed to Gavin through a tube into his stomach, until he starts feeling better and develops an appetite.

Sue and Tom have officially taken their house off the market and cancelled the contract to buy the new house in Hampshire. She's happy to be re-hanging her personal stuff on the walls that the realtor had her remove.

Pop's Pontiac is in the shop :( - he thinks there's a problem with the transmission but they can't seem to find anything wrong. Since we can't afford another car, it might become somewhat inconvenient but we'll be driving the PW when we have separate destinations.
Doesn't make any sense to buy another car to take us to jobs that pay less than a car costs.

Brandon, that was a super blog post on Saturday. Thank you so much for all the info and of course for the pictures of your little family. Julie told Gram that she gets tears in her eyes when she sees you holding Gavin. Joyful tears, of course!

Love to you all - hope to hear from some quiet corners of the world....

Mom

Gavin Kent Chard

He's here! Born at 3:33 am on Friday November 02 2007. Nearly 6 lbs (5 lb 15 oz) and 19 1/2 inches long. It took some doing to get the little guy to come out and meet us. Julie was only in active labor for about 8 hours, but her water had broken the previous day at 8 am. We didn't get to the hospital until around 4 pm and they determined Julie wasn't having very strong surges. The doctor was a bit concerned about that due to the risk of infection, however she allowed us to try to do what we could to get Julie to go into labor. We walked and walked and tried few other natural methods, but it just wasn't happening. The doctor gave Julie 12 hours then had to start her on pitocin to get labor to start. She was started on a very low dose, but that wasn't doing much so they bumped it up over several hours until the labor really started. Julie's surges started coming fast and furious around midnight and really got crazy around 2am. That was about the time Julie started thinking seriously about some pain meds, but by that time it was too late. Around 2:45 Julie got the urge to push and we called the nurse in and they checked her and found out she was dilated to 9 1/2 cm. So the doctor came in and things started getting really crazy! The baby moved down and started to come through the birth canal but got a bit stuck. His cord got pinched by the tight fit and his heart rate plumetted to an alarming level. The doctor said at that time that "this baby has to come out within the next 2 minutes one way or another", so she used a vacuum extractor to help Julie move the baby out. Additionally, the doctor had to do a "stem to stern" episiotimy to make room for the (not so) little guy. After much pushing and pulling Gavin finally came into this world. He was in a bit of distress coming out, so we didn't get to have him cuddle with mom as they needed to get his respiration rate up. I went with the nurse to the NICU where they put him on positive pressure ventilation to keep his lungs open and help him breathe. His oxygen saturation was good as was his glucose level, but there was concern about infection in the lungs and he was having a hard time breathing. Quite an emotional and exhausting chain of events. Even though Gavin was 3 weeks early, it was probably a good thing as the doctor said that if he was any bigger he probably wouldn't have been able to fit through Julie's pelvis.

Julie finally got to see Gavin around 10am later in the morning. They had the poor little guy all hooked up to sensors and IVs and respirators. They had to put a tube down his throat to his tummy to help ventilate extra air from the respirator. They ended up taking 3 chest X-rays to determine the cause of his breathing problems. The results of the X-rays is that he has what's called pnemothorax. Basically his lung partially seperated from his chest cavity and air got into the space between and caused him to have a hard time breathing. Apparently it is healing on its own. Pretty sad to see our little guy with all the extra hardware, but we knew it was for his own good. Luckily Gavin started breathing well on his own later in the day and they were able to take him off respiration and he's now breathing great. He is still on low dose glucose and on a broad spectrum antibiotic due to the chance of infection because of the ruptured membranes. Another problem they found is that Gavin broke his clavicle on the way out and that's causing him some pain as is the huge bruise on his head from the vacuum extractor. These pain problems are causing him to not eat well and this is the newest issue to deal with. He's not the best eater right now so they are keeping him until he starts eating better. This could take up to a week, but they think once his pain subsides he'll probably start eating better.

Julie is doing great. She was pretty sore for most of yesterday and had a hard time moving around, but is up and practically running around today! She is such the trooper. I can't believe she went through all she did with no pain medication. We are going to go "hotel stay" at the hospital until we can bring Gavin home. Julie needs to be here to try feed him every 3 hours, or at least pump milk for the nurses to feed to him.

We appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers and know our little guy will make it through this. As the doctor says, all he needs is a bit of time and rest to recover from the trauma of the birth.

We'll probably start our own blog for Gavin, but we'll send everyone the link so you can stay up-to-date on his progress.

Brandon, Julie, and Gavin