Them Veins

My pregnancy was uneventful,  the delivery was flawless and my recovery is going well.

With one exception: my veins. I was laid up for 24 hours after the c-section unable to walk or move around. I have a few varicose veins in my left leg that decided to do their own thing and become a new problem: superficial vein thrombosis. 
Two days after surgery I showed Dr. Oh my left knee/leg area where the veins were protruding and painful. She was quite worried so scheduled immediate doplar sonogram for both my legs to check for deep vein thrombosis.  No DVT but it is superficial vein thrombosis. The head vein surgeon came with Dr. Oh to our hospital room to explain the deal. An appointment was made for May to discuss further treatment.

My veins in the same leg began to get reddish and painful and feel warm to the touch so yesterday when we brought Jasper to the hospital in Seoul for his wellness exam we showed Dr. Oh my leg again and she made me an appointment with the vein surgeon for today.  Hopefully no surgery yet. We shall see.
Joseph is on vacation for this week so he stayed home with Jasper while I am headed to Seoul for the 2nd time this week.
Thursday we go to the US Embassy to get Jasper set up with his SS card, passport, and to register his birth. Then Friday finds me coming back again to get my stitches removed from the c-section.
This is such a busy week. I cannot wait to sit at home and hold Jasper all day.

Emergency Rooms in Korea

Jasper had jaundice and was having trouble eating and was acting less active than earlier in the day so Joseph and I took him to the ER.
We have never been to the ER in Korea before this time.

Welcome Jasper!

This past Monday, February 9, 2015 at 2:12pm our son, Jasper Vincent was born.

50cm long and weighing 3.49kg (7.69lbs). 

It was quite an interesting story as well.

I completed my final day of work the Friday before.

Monday at 5am I woke up to go pee and it just kept coming.  Since I had been peeing so little this concerned me. Every time I thought I was done and stood up there was a little more. I called my mom who suggested I call the hospital. I did and they told us to come in. I was also speaking with my best friend and sister in law about what was going on as well.

I woke up Joseph and he got things ready for us to leave. Taking care of Eddie, etc. Thank goodness I had everything all packed ready to go.

Firsts

Our first week with our new son and our first week as new parents. Being parents to a newborn is a decidedly scary time period.
They cannot talk. The just eat, sleep, poop and cry.  Jasper isn't crying too much unless it is a diaper change and the wipes are cold or his first sponge bath at home.

We hold him a lot. ♡

Hospital Diaper Bag

My sister in law recommended we purchase the Skip Hop diaper bag.  She has been through a few of them from really expensive and adorable to meh. She and her husband have discovered that Skip Hop offered them the most bang for their buck and it attaches to the stroller so you can be hands free. Nice.

Since the hospital we will be having the baby at is in Seoul and is about 2 hours away we are packing some things that you may not need if you live much closer. We will not have the option of coming back home to grab something if we need it so we opted to be over prepared without going nuts.

Everything for the baby going home is provided by us and everything while the baby is in hospital is provided by the hospital. 

Baby Names

I am a bit hesitant to write this post however, it is fun to think of baby names and the different thoughts people have when thinking about what to name their kid.

It took a long time for Joseph and I to select a good name for the baby when we thought it was a girl.  This time, we don't have as much time to think of a boy name.


We have decided that it is more enjoyable to think of girl names as it seems there are more options, somehow.

We decided to name the girl Caitlin Evelyn which is such a lovely name.  So if we have another baby and it is a girl, that will most likely, maybe, be her name.

Since Joseph and I began seriously dating and began talking about kids way back then--11 years ago--I promised him if we ever had a boy we could name him Joseph Anthony the 4th (Joseph is the third).

When we learned this baby was most likely a girl, Joseph began saying he may be having second thoughts as to naming it Joseph Anthony the 4th (insert sigh of relief here).  However again, when we were just told last week that this baby was a boy Joseph didn't want to budge on the name.  Agh!

In lieu of me beating him with a pillow, I made a nice dinner and then after he ate asked him if he could perhaps be a little more open minded and see what else he and I may like for the boy.  If he still wanted to keep Joseph Anthony then fine, but I would like for him to explore other names as well. Food worked and we began discussing a few names.  By "a few" I mean a thousand.

We have kicked around a lot of names and Joseph nixed 99.9% of them.  We looked at old British names and one that has jumped out at Joseph was Jasper.  Another was Vincent.  We are still kicking it around and making sure we love it and making sure the boy will be able to get a job and all of those good things on his resume as he gets older.  The name itself, Jasper, doesn't have good nicknames but it is a short name so nicknames may not be necessary.

So the name isn't 100% settled for a boy, but there are 2 options thus far.  That's better than nothing.

In choosing a name we also have to consider alllll of our former students who we may or may not have a fond memory of. We cannot name our kid any of those names. That is yet ome more reason why naming a boy is hard because there are just some names that are great but we just cannot do it. If you are a teacher you know exactly what I mean. Some students' names just stick in your head and conjure up images we would prefer not to remember.  

Baby Shower!

The baby shower was on January 24, 2015.  It was a wonderful time.

Tiffany hosted, decorated, cooked, planned, etc. the entire thing.  She was superwoman.  Everything was lovely and perfect and we had 12 guests total.  We all barely fit into our apartment but we had a great time.