What's in a name

Some people have asked us how we decided on Grant's name.  There's not too much of story behind it, but we thought that we'd let you know.  Some of you might already know this, but Shannon and I picked out a name for a boy well before we got married.  However, that name was Shawn Kendrick, so we obviously didn't use it.  Shawn was a name that I really liked and Kendrick was the name of a great KU basketball player while we were there, Kenny Gregory.  After 5 years though, Shannon wasn't feeling the name Shawn anymore and I thought that it sounded too much like Shan.  I wasn't feeling the name Kendrick as much, and also there was an anchor on a local news station named Bob Kendrick and I didn't want anyone thinking that we named our baby after him (I thought that he was a good anchor and all, but he's since been canned).  So it was back to the drawing board.

Basically we decided that we would not pick a family name, but would not rule out a name just because it was used by someone in the family.  For a month or two we literally just bounced names off of each other.  We would find inspirations in everyday life, the TV, newspaper, and even patients at our hospitals.  We also had several books that we would flip through every once in a while so I have no idea exactly where the name came from.  After a while we came up with an unofficial list of 5-10 names.  Shannon really liked Grant and it did not take long for me to dig it as well.  The middle name was trickier because we couldn't just take the runner up.  The name had to sound good with both Grant and Scrivner, which actually is harder than we thought.  It also could not start with an A because of his initials (even though my Dads initials are GAS).  The other thing that we were looking for was an Irish name which kept leading us back to Patrick.  We tried it out for the last few months and knew that we had found his name.

Grant is now close to 4 weeks old and so he is not doing a lot except for sleeping, eating, and pooping.  However he is making more facial expressions than I thought he'd be making this early.  Here's the first video of him making faces.

Come one, come all

Who knew it could be so much fun staring at a newborn?  It must be true when you say "time flies when you're having fun" because the last two weeks have flown by and we've barely left the house.  For an entire week, we went out only a handful of times, mostly to take the kids (Grant and Brady) on a walk or to pick up groceries.  Then last Saturday, Shannon's family arrived and spent a week with us.  Together we cooked, changed diapers, watched the Food Network, and took turns holding Grant.  A couple of friends came over to meet the fam on Sunday and also to enjoy burgers and brats.  Grant's friend Andrew gave him a preview of what he has to look forward to when he is 5 months old.

The big event of week 2 was when we were able to leave the house and actually go out for a nice lunch.  Shannon has been wanting to have sushi for the past few months so we went to Sushi Katsu, where they have a great all you can eat lunch for a pretty good price.  Lucky for us, Grant loves his car seat, so he stayed asleep the entire time.  We were also able to get in our first post-baby date (and the first time that we left Grant with someone else) that week when we went to see the new Harry Potter movie.  Shannon somehow made it through the entire movie without falling to sleep, which was a great feat.  Other than that, it was just nice to have a few extra hands around the house.

Now it's back to work for me...

Home, Sweet Home

We got to all go home on Friday afternoon after almost a week in the hospital.  Before we left however, I had to run to get the car seat checked because our hospital does not allow any of their employees to come down to your car anymore to make sure that it is properly installed.  Maybe it's only in the movies or something, but we thought that when you get discharged they would also help you get your newborn into the car seat and wheel the new mom down to the car.  Instead the nurse came in and reviewed some paperwork, then said we were free to leave.  I asked about the car seat and she said that it looked like it was in the correct position and basically said 'good luck'.  We did fine putting him in, but it would have gone a lot faster had we had a little help.  Another little side note about our stay... we got the impression that the nurses would change most of the diapers and take him for a while at night so that we could get a little sleep, but neither really happened (not sure what we were thinking).  We changed almost all the diapers and they offered to take him for 2-3 hours on the last night.  I don't want to complain too much though because except for one awful nurse, everyone else was great to us but we were definitely ready to go home!

The biggest unknown once we got home was how Brady would react to the new addition.  He had been dropped off at our house that morning by our friends who were taking care of him so we knew that he would be as excited as a preteen at a Jonas concert when we got home.  I went into the house alone with the first hat put on Grant's head right after birth and let Brady sniff it.  He spent a solid minute going over every inch of the tiny hat, then he ran over to the back door and wanted to go out.  Once outside, Shannon brought Grant into the house and got him out of his car seat.  We then let Brady back inside and had him get a little whiff of Grant from a safe distance.  He'd passed all of our tests so far, so we decided to take it one last step further.  I got on the ground with Grant and Shannon had one hand on Brady and we let him sniff up close.  He started out by licking Grant's feet a little and then quickly moved up to his head, only briefly stopping to smell his diaper.  Whew!  Brady did great and since then has been absolutely fabulous with his little brother Grant.

This past weekend we spent time trying to catch up on sleep and figuring out our routine.  If it wasn't for the fireworks going off on Saturday night, which Grant slept right through, then we wouldn't have even known that it was the 4th of July.  For that matter, most of the time we don't even know what day it is.  Today, we had our first check up with the pediatrician.  So far we're very happy with the practice we picked.  He's doing great and must be feeding well because he's about back up to his birth weight.  Here are a couple more pics.

Hospital: The big arrival

Wow, how quickly plans change! One minute we are preparing for an all-night, drawn out labor, and the next minute we are trying to mentally get ready for a C-section. Shortly after last night's post, the doctor came in to do another check on Shannon. About 9 hours after her water broke and almost 24 hours of pitocin, Shannon had not progressed far enough along for the doctor's liking. For a few hours prior, she had been on the maximum amount of pitocin that the doctor felt was safe and even though she was getting stronger contractions, she was not ready to go into active labor. The doctor felt that Shannon had given it a great effort but that it was time for a C-section. Even though it was an option that we were hoping we wouldn't have to consider, we knew that it was the best thing to do.

From that point until about 2 in the morning was a blur, and I wasn't the one on meds! First, Shannon was prepped for the delivery operating room and taken there about 30 minutes after we discussed it with the doctor. I had to gown up and wait outside while she went in and got an epidural. About 10 minutes later the docs went in and scrubed in, and they made sure that she couldn't feel anything. I was finally allowed to go in and sit next to Shannon's head behind a curtain so that she couldn't see anything. In what seemed like less than 5 minutes later (to me, but definately not Shannon) at 10:51pm, Grant Patrick Scrivner was born and taken out of her belly. He was then moved over to a baby cart to get some initial measurements. I didn't see them take him out but I did make the mistake of standing up and seeing them take the placenta out. It was quite disturbing, especially when they took the rest of her organs out temporarily and placed them on her stomach.

After cleaning him up and swaddling, the nurses let me hold Grant next to Shannon for a few minutes. Then Grant and I went back to our room while Shannon was stitched up. Before she got back, they gave him a bath and did all of the measurements. He ended up weighing 8 lbs 5 oz, was 20 inches long, and had a head circumference of 37 cm (he's got a big head, around the 90th percentile). After making sure that everyone was alright, we moved over to the post partum room. By the time we got settled in and everybody checked again, it was after 2am. The whole process went by so quickly.

Today Grant has been very laid back. So far we've just tried to catch up on our rest. I've only had about 8 hours of uninterupted sleep for the last 2 nights but Shannon is the one being poked and proded. Here's a couple more pics: