Stresses of Fatherhood part 1

Taisei turned 2 weeks old yesterday. I can assure that fatherhood has its share of stresses, some of which may be more severe as a result of being a medical student. Medical students are known for taking any situation and thinking of all the rare diseases that are possible. It is not the best frame of mind to be in as a new father.

On Thu, March 11th, Keiko thought her water may have broke but did not want to go the clinic. So I spend the next 24 hours thinking of the risks of infection (chorioamnionitis) that can occur.

On Fri, March 12th, I have a presentation at work at the Georgia dept. of health. I have my phone on silent but I hold it in my hand the whole time just in case she calls so I won't miss it. Exactly 15 minutes after my meeting has officially ended, I get a text from Keiko that her water has definitely broke. I had to take a train to get to my car to drive home, so I was in a major rush. The traffic is so bad downtown that the train is definitely quicker than a taxi. Keiko is very calm and collected.

I pick her up and take her to the clinic. They said we had to go the clinic before the hospital since if it was false labor, our insurance will not cover the visit. The clinician confirm that Keiko's water broke. I am in a definite rush to get to the hospital and these are the words from Keiko:
"Do you think we can still go eat ramen and to the baby shower?"
One of our friends in church had planned us a baby shower and we also had plans to meet some friends at a ramen restaurant. While I am nervous as can be, Keiko, who still has no labor pains, is ready to go out to eat.
...
...

With a little coaxing, we head to the hospital. A couple more hours pass and there are still no real contractions. My mind is going "infection infection infection." The contractions finally start and Keiko says "this isn't so bad. I probably don't need an epidural." A couple hours of pass and the offer comes for an epidural again.
"How much longer do you think it will be?" Keiko asks.
"8 hours or so" they respond.
"8 hours?!?!? I'll take the epidural.

Keiko was able to take a few hours nap with the epidural but I couldn't rest at all. The midwife came and said it was time to push. Pushing lasted for about 1 hour with no results.
"We'll have to take the epidural away to help with the pushing."
And 15 minutes later, Keiko goes from no pain to the real deal. It was very painful to watch. The news keeps piling on.
"Oh you've spiked a fever so we'll have to give some antibiotics."
"The pushing has to progress or we'll have to go to a c-section."
"The baby had a stool movement (meconium) in the womb so we will want to hurry."
And Keiko is in the biggest pain in her life and I can only hold her hand.

I HATED the labor experience. I found myself thinking: "C'mon, baby. Just work with Keiko and get born already. Use some force." A little illogical but I couldn't help it.

When he was finally born, he wouldn't cry. He was having a little trouble breathing and the pediatricians were calling him "too limp." I could think of about 5-10 reasons for this, and all of them were bad. Of course he ended up being okay but every time I noticed him having a little trouble breathing by grunting a little, the nostrils flaring, etc. it made my heart jump.

Most things went okay after this but hospitals are so terrible about encouraging breastfeeding. They say they want all women to breastfeed but they are absolutely ridiculous about allowing. 3 days after being born, Keiko hadn't got a full supply of milk and Taisei had lost some weight so they were already talking about supplementing. I figured the lactation counselor would be helpful but she saw us once and heard the word pump and was already selling us on the brand the hospital used for pumps. We were told that we may need to pump for 1 day and she said we could rent a pump from the hospital for like $70/month. I felt so much negativity that Keiko should be producing more milk and that we should consider pumping and supplementing.

The result of all this: every time Taisei was nursing, it was a big adrenaline rush. How is he latching? Is it going okay this time? Is there milk this time? Something as natural as breastfeeding becomes this big drama show every 2 hours or so.

The biggest positive of this whole experience is that it will certainly help me as a doctor, particularly if I become a pediatrician. I know many of the symptoms Taisei had like breathing trouble, stool in the womb are quite common and rarely lead to anything bad. However, because it was my child it that much more stressful. You just want everything to go perfect so badly. I know they should have listened to us more about the desire to breastfeed and not pushed supplementing so much or build the atmosphere that you won't be able to breastfeed.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing only continued...

Taisei Linus Jones

Taisei Linus Jones was born at 8:07 am on March 13th, 2010. He was 7lb 8oz, 20 inches.
Keiko and the baby are doing fine but it was a tough week.

For a more detailed bilingual blog of the happenings of the last week: http://ameblo.jp/jkfamily/

For pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jones.jefferson/TaiseiLinusJones02#

For videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/jonesjefferson

Thanks for all the support!

Baby shower

Some of Keiko's friends from church through us a baby shower. We had a great time. Here are some picture from the event.

Baby decorations abound

We had 3 Japanese families (not including Keiko) and 1 Korean that attended. The food was spectacular.

Here is the diaper cake that was prepared by Keiko's friend.

Keiko made this dessert.

This is a Japanese cake. I like them a lot more than American. They are much lighter, less butter.

I'm all ready to go. This little fella is also half Japanese.

Hand made baby blanket.

Thanks everyone!!! We had a great time!

see details at Keiko's blog: http://ameblo.jp/jkfamily/

The car seat

Thanks to the kindness of our friends, we are slowly losing any extra space in our studio apartment. So, I decided to put the car seat in the car. After all, the baby could come in day.

When I went to the parking lot after work today, I was looking for my car and couldn't find it. Seeing the car seat through the window of our little red Corolla, it just looked like it couldn't be my car. I'm not old enough to drive that car. It made me laugh a lot as my key unlocked it and I entered the car.

(Keiko's blog has pictures)

Full Term

Our baby is now full-term as of today. Last week, he was estimated to be about 6 1/2 pounds. So it looks like he can come at any time. Bring it on; I am as ready as I'll every be.

The baby and pyelectasis

For those who are curious about how the baby is going, I am going to be lazy. Please read Keiko's blog. She has been great about consistently writing her blog. It has lots of pictures, including recent ones shower her belly:
http://ameblo.jp/jkfamily/

On a related note, a few weeks ago, the midwife casually told us we would need to get another ultrasound because they notices a blip on the ultrasound months before. As a patient, I scrutinize the doctors and nurses quite a bit. They only told us enough to make us worried.

So I spend hours looking up pyelectasis. It's a when part of the kidney gets dilated. There are many causes but most of the time it goes away on it's own. At our next ultrasound, it did go away.

It left me thinking, how would I handle this situation or how should they have handled it. 1) They should have told us about it in the first place. When our 20 week ultrasound was done, they said it was all normal even though it wasn't. That is not okay. 2) They should know enough about it to say that most of the time it goes away on it's own, but it may need to be looked at again after the baby is born (which is still true). I had to look through multiple medical journals to find this stuff.

I know it's kind of common to speak fancy medical terms to patients, but I learned a good lesson of the need to explain any words you use or not use them and about the need to explain the prognosis of any problems given.

On the patient side at the ER

I was a patient in the ER last week. It was a fun, yet unfortunate weekend.

Friday night we had a delayed New Years Party with Keiko's Japanese friends and families. It made for a party with 6 adults and 3.5 kids including Ao (keiko's nickname for our child). It was a mix of American and Japanese games but it is great to see Keiko make good friends in all the cities we have lived in.

Saturday my brother, Chris, and his family came down. We always have a good time together. Chris's wife, Corie, does an excellent job of talking with Keiko; she makes sure Keiko understands everything she says. Chris and I generally play with their baby, Emily, and play video games a lot. Good times all around. for pics see: http://chrisandcorie.blogspot.com/2010/01/last-weekend-we-went-to-visit-uncle.html

Emily was unfortunately a little sick... But we still managed to have a Japanese BBQ which everyone seemed to enjoy.

Unfortunately, starting Sunday mid-morning I started to feel a little sick and nauseated. It got worse and worse until without going unto details, I lost a lot of fluid. I'm not sure if it was something I ate or caught it from my cute niece, but it was bad. I started to get pins and needles throughout most of my body like my whole body was asleep and it was painful. This has never happened before so I called my boss, who is an infectious disease doctor. She instructed me to go the ER.

I have terrible insurance. Med student insurance seems to be pretty bad on the whole. It generally doesn't cover anything until you have paid a ton of money first (a large deductible.) So I avoid going to the doctor like the plague.

However, I was getting worse and worse and had some unusual symptoms and couldn't keep any fluid down for about 5-6 hours. I finally had a glass of some sugar-water but only felt worse. So I had some people from my church come over and give me a priesthood blessing. I was so weak at this point I couldn't walk so they had to carry me to the car to take me to the ER. During the car ride, I started to feel better and better. By the time we reached the ER, I was able to open my eyes and carry a conversation. By the time the nurse saw me, I started to have "buyer's remorse" as I called it about going to the ER. They gave me an IV and I began to feel pretty chipper in about an hour. I ended up being a pretty annoying patient because I knew what I had and REALLY didn't want any tests that I would have to pay for so I rejected about anything they offered except the IV.

I had some fun talking with the physician's assistant who examined me and reviewed some of my medicine skills. Luckily, we were out of the hospital a few hours after we arrived.

I wonder if I'll run into patients who really regret ever coming to the hospital the moment they arrive...