Adilyn Renee

Sorry I've been slacking on my blog... My wonderful, amazing wife gave birth to another beautiful baby girl on April 1st, Adilyn Renee Hartberg. It was a pitocin-induced labor with an eventual epidural about halfway though the 7 hours of contractions. But fortunately the active labor (pushing) only lasted about 10 minutes and both mother and baby did great. Adie (for short) came out at 7 lbs 7 oz and 19", with a cute little nose and mouth and big cheeks. She made an instant connection to her mother and has been a great baby so far. Unfortunately Christy was "given" a spinal headache, which is when the epidural needle punctures the sack holding the cerebralspinal fluid. It can take upto 4-6 weeks to heal on its own so she had to have two blood patches to help eliminate the headaches. (A blood patch is when they take blood and put it by the spine so that the blood will clot and plug the hole in the spinal fluid sack. First one didn't take completely, but the second seems to be doing well.) You can see pictures of her on Christy's blog (link below and to the right), but you'll need a google username and password to see pictures of our kids, so let me know if you need that. Otherwise take our nurse's word for it, "She is the cutest baby in the nursery."

As Christy had mentioned in her emails/blog, we are forever indebted to all of our friends and family that have, and continue to, pray for us, babysit, visit, bring food, call, offer to help, etc. We are truly blessed to have a network (read: system) of such wonderful people around us. I don't know how we would have gotten this far with them/you.

Similary, after watching Idol Gives Back, its amazing how good we have it here in America - at least my family. I don't have to walk the streets begging for money every day, and yet when my wife has a baby and needs two more anesthesiologists to give her blood patches, our insurance takes care of everything. I feel fortunate to have access to health care so that my wife and children are taken care of whenever they need it.

I'm reading a good book called The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker right now, so I hope to gather some good information for future blog entries.

God Bless