tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4914587856599107292024-03-13T10:13:20.701-07:00The Story of LauraLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13306023085836634104noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491458785659910729.post-67302009541111474682015-09-12T08:42:00.004-07:002015-09-12T08:42:40.255-07:00Chapter 1a: April 26, 1983 - August 28, 1983<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center;">
<b><i>Laura</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Chapter 1 (a)</i></b></div>
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As so it came to pass at 5:08 PM EST that Laura Alison Peroutka entered the world…</div>
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You did not exactly come out willingly as Dr. Khouzami had to pull you out a bit with forceps…all 6 pounds and 10 ounces of you! But from those very first moments, you seemed happy and content!</div>
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I wished you “Happy Birthday” and went to the waiting room as your Mom went to the recovery room. Quite a few relatives came by to see you that first evening: Mom-mom and Pop-pop, Grandmom (Grandpop was on a very rare business trip in Dallas), Uncle Jeff and Aunt Judy. Uncle Bob called from Duke to congratulate us. I went home around 9:30 and I remember that I don’t think that I ever slept so well. Your Birthday had been quite a day!!</div>
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I had to go to work the next day at Baltimore City Hospital (now Bayview) as Paternity Leave had not yet been invented! The nurses had a cake for me on rounds and we all went out to lunch at a “White Coffee Pot” restaurant to celebrate your birth. I returned to GMBC later in the day to see you. You again had lots of visitors: Grandmom and Grandpop, Aunt Janet, Uncle Jaime and Pop-Pop. </div>
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Thursday April 28 was another busy day of work followed by a visit to you at GBMC. Dr. Sol Snyder from Hopkins called to congratulate us all. You were already maturing well!</div>
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Friday April 29<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> was a big day for all of us as you were coming home for the first time at the age of 3 days. I even got the day off from work. Everything went well at the hospital:</div>
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But when we got home (to 555 Brook Road in Towson), we had no house key or some reason!!!</div>
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Mom-mom came by with a key to save the day! We then all settled in (and fell asleep from 11-noon!). And our new life with you began…I cut the grass, had our neighbors Don and Jane stop by to see you and then Grandmom and Grandpop for a short time. </div>
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You cried a lot that first night from about 2 to 5 AM…we thought that you may have had an upset stomach but maybe it was a baby migraine! On Saturday afternoon the 30<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> I had to go to the hospital for a few hours to catch-up on the patients. But first, I had some work to do at home!</div>
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Saturday night was quiet and peaceful for all of us. A lot of people came to see you on Sunday, May 1: 3 of my Neurology resident friends and their wives, a friend of your mother’s and her husband, our elderly neighbors (the Rekus’), and Grandmom and Grandpop.</div>
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It was time to let the world know about you so I sent out the formal announcement.</div>
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Life began to settle into a normal routine. Grandmom and Grandpop visited for dinner on May 3. I wrote you a letter about the first week of your life that evening (do you happen to have it???).</div>
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On May 4<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, after work, I went shopping on your behalf for Mother’s Day! Later that day, Aunt Dot, Uncle Cap and Debbie visited.</div>
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On May 5<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, your great grandmother, my grandmother (Busia) visited with Grandmom and Grandpop.</div>
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Sunday May 8th was your first Mother’s Day and your mother seemed to enjoy your gifts! I still wonder how you managed to get that big box into your bassinet!!!</div>
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Later that day, all of your grandparents came by as well as your two maternal great-grandmothers.</div>
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On May 11<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, you went to Church for the first time to celebrate Ascension Thursday. On May 12<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, your mother went to a baby shower so I “babysat” you alone for the first time. I must have bored you because you just slept most of the time!</div>
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Your social life began on Sunday May 15<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> when you ventured out for the first time to a picnic with the Neuroscience Department at Rocks State Park. You got all dressed up and seemed to be happy to attend.</div>
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One of my favorite early memories of you is shown below. At the age of 20 days (May 16), you were on your stomach on the bed. You lifted up your head like it weighed a ton! You rotated it and then it fell onto the bed…boom! You had turned your head for the first time!</div>
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On May 23<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>rd</sup></span>, you were excited about your upcoming 1 month birthday.<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><img alt="pastedGraphic_42.png" src="webkit-fake-url://582CFA51-C0FF-4B59-8C5E-443C7162E0D8/pastedGraphic_42.png" /></span></div>
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When May 26 finally arrived, you were excited indeed!</div>
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And on your May 29<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> also:</div>
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On June 4<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, Grandmom came over to babysit you for the first time so that we could go to your Mom’s cousin George Jarosinski’s wedding. You two seemed to get along well…</div>
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I built a swing set for you on June 7 and you seemed to get excited…</div>
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Uncle Bob (your Godfather to be) came over to meet you for the first time on June 11. Your big day was on Sunday, June 12<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, when you got baptized by Father Art at St. Mary’s Church on York Road.</div>
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You were ready…</div>
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Your Godparents were ready…</div>
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Father Art was ready…</div>
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Even your great–Grandparents were ready…</div>
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And so you became a Catholic…</div>
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Everyone came over to our house that afternoon for a party. For some unknown reason, the only photo from the party is of the entire Jarosinski clan:</div>
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Except for one with my grandmother.</div>
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The following Sunday, June 19 was Father’s Day and you were nice enough to get me some gifts and the following card (you can see me holding it in the photo). How did you manage to buy Bailey’s Irish Cream at such a young age???</div>
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One thing for you to appreciate is that throughout your first year, you had great music on the radio and MTV (which was new and exciting then)!</div>
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Another historical footnote is that I bought my first computer on June 29, 1983.</div>
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You spent the summer growing and developing your personality. For example, there was “Bathtub Laura” (June 22), just before your first time out to a restaurant with us on June 23 (“The Crease” in Towson)</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><img alt="pastedGraphic_66.png" src="webkit-fake-url://582CFA51-C0FF-4B59-8C5E-443C7162E0D8/pastedGraphic_66.png" /><img alt="pastedGraphic_67.png" src="webkit-fake-url://582CFA51-C0FF-4B59-8C5E-443C7162E0D8/pastedGraphic_67.png" /></div>
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“Outside Laura” (June 26 and August 16)</div>
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“Social Laura” (July ?)</div>
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“Playful Laura” (July 12-22)</div>
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“Hungry Laura” (June 28 and Aug 6)</div>
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Which usually turned you into “Sleepy Laura” (July 22)</div>
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But only occasionally as “Upset Laura”.</div>
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I should mention here that you did indeed have a forceps injury to your right facial nerve, which caused me considerable angst. You can see the asymmetry of your mouth in this photo…I was afraid that you might have speech problems and sound like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. But the regenerative powers of youth caused a complete resolution over your first few years!</div>
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In any case, you always bounced back quickly to “Happy Laura” (July 24).</div>
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On August 1, you got all dressed up and went out to Sears at Security Mall to have your formal portrait done for the first time…back then you seemed to enjoy having your picture taken!</div>
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Even though you were only 3.5 months old, you took some literal “baby steps” for the first time on August 6:</div>
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You seemed to be having a good time most of the time (August 12):</div>
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And you visited your great-grandparents on August 15.</div>
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On August 21, we went tubing on the Gunpowder River with my friends Justin and Julie. Grandmom and Grandpop babysat you. It looks like Grandmom was comfortable to sit on!</div>
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On July 14, 1983, we had made a contingent offer to buy 861 Allardice Way at Stanford. We needed a house for the following June but we had only seen photos of it. So, we planned a trip to California (without you) for late August. As a result, your breastfeeding days were coming to an end so your 4 month birthday on August 26<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> was chosen as the final day…</div>
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We took you to Grandmom and Grandpops on Saturday, August 27 and put you to bed at 10 (your first “sleepover”!)</div>
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And on Sunday morning, August 28<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, it was off to California to find us a house!</div>
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Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13306023085836634104noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-491458785659910729.post-52373244592044337312015-09-12T08:32:00.000-07:002015-09-12T08:32:28.751-07:00The Prologue<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial; font-size: 28px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;">The story of Laura begins with the plan.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;">Life as a medical intern and resident in the early 1980’s was not easy.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12px;">I had to be “on call” every third night usually which meant I had to stay overnight in the hospital.</span></div>
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So, your mother and I decided that we would wait until my “on call” nights had ended so that I would be home every night after you were born. My “on call” nights were scheduled to end in early 1983 so that was the year we planned to have a baby!</div>
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On top of that consideration, your mother decided that she really didn’t want to be 9 months pregnant in the winter in Baltimore (for reasons that you can see below from February 1983) and she didn’t want to be 9 months pregnant in the hot and humid Baltimore summer.</div>
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I was therefore “requested” to plan for a baby to be born in either April of May of 1983!!!!! </div>
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My medical training came in handy as I plotted to “carry out” the plan in early August of 1982. My friends at Hopkins advised me to take night call “every other night” so as to theoretically increase the chances of success with my plan.</div>
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I was “on call” at Hopkins on the night of August 5, 1982 which was memorable only in that I received a call from someone in India who wanted to know if he should agree to a pre-arranged marriage to a woman with polio. Weird.</div>
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I got home around 7 PM on Friday, August 6, took a rest, watched “Tarzan the Ape Man” on HBO and then put my plan into action!!!!!</div>
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Saturday was another night on call and then I was back home on Sunday morning. We had “Chicago pizza”, watched a movie called “Under the Rainbow” and then…</div>
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Monday was another “on call” night and then, on Tuesday August 10, it was on to Round #3 after playing softball with the Hopkins Neurology team!!!! </div>
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So the “Story of Laura” definitely begins sometime between August 6-10, 1982!!!</div>
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It was then time to just “wait and see” for a few weeks. The picture below was taken around August 15, 1982 in our back yard and it the first known photo of you at about 1 week!</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;">On September 8, I took a urine sample from your Mom to the Hopkins ER (there were no home test kits back then) and the test was positive!!!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;">It was not a surprise, of course, yet we were both a bit subdued due to the major significance of the news.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;">Your Mom was a bit more sleepy than normal but otherwise quite fine.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Arial;">That weekend, we went to Justin and Julie’s wedding in Easton, MD., where the second known photo of you was taken at about 4 weeks!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><img alt="pastedGraphic_1.png" src="webkit-fake-url://9A9B3FF9-DBDE-4721-B9BC-CFA7AD5B5F32/pastedGraphic_1.png" /></span></div>
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Monday, September 13 was the first OB appointment with Dr. Victor Khouzami, who obviously confirmed my diagnosis! I met your mother on Orkney Road after work and we told Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop the big news. We then went to Ballygar Road to tell Grandmom and Grandpop. Needless to say, everyone was happy and excited. The prenantal vitamins started later that week:</div>
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The picture below is of poor quality but it was taken on Sunday, September 19, 1982 at about 6 weeks). Nice wood pile in the back yard, huh?</div>
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On a personal note, at this point in time, I was also trying to figure out what to do after my residency. I had received a tentative offer in August to go to the San Francisco VA Hospital (with UCSF) from a colleague (Dr. Mike Moskowitz) but he decided to stay at Harvard so I was bummed. Then, on September 20, 1982, I got a call from the Chairman of Neurology at Stanford (Dr. David Prince) which ended up having a major impact on our lives.</div>
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Everything was moving along smoothly with your pregnancy with excessive sleepiness of your mom being the only real difference that I noticed at this point in time. We had an OB appointment on Monday, October 11 (~2 months) when we first saw your heartbeat!!).</div>
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On Sunday, October 24 (2.5 months), we took a drive to Prettyboy Reservoir in Northwest Baltimore County to look at the Fall trees…which were not that great. The proof is shown below:</div>
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We had a big Halloween party at our house on Saturday, October 30 with ~60 people. I was a hockey player, as you can see below. I still look about the same, don’t I?????</div>
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On Monday, November 8 (at 3 months), we saw Dr. Khouzami again and we were able to hear your heartbeat for the first time.</div>
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The first sign of your baby bump was on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1982. We went to the Jarosinski dinner from 1-4 (and I played Atari games) and then to Ballygar with your grandparents and Busia.</div>
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The maternity clothes came out shortly thereafter (November 28, 1982):</div>
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At the 4 month point, after buying more maternity clothes on December 3:</div>
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We decorated the Christmas tree on December 12:</div>
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And exchanged gifts at Ballygar on Christmas Eve…<img height="499" src="webkit-fake-url://04bb9421-d1a0-443b-9a72-1bb668d46092/image.tiff" width="640" /> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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And then at home…I gave your mother the famous Dr. Spock Baby Book.</div>
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Yo<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span>u spent your first Christmas with both sets of families throughout the day.</div>
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And your first New Year’s Eve was a somewhat less than wild party at my friend John Schmidt’s house:</div>
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As a bit of an aside, you might like to know what music you would have been hearing in utero so here are the #1 songs from the end of 1982:</div>
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And the start of 1983:</div>
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1983 started out well. On Monday, January 3, we saw Dr. Khouzami for the 5 month visit and all was well. Later that evening, at 8:45 PM, I got a call from Dr. Prince at Stanford offering me a job! </div>
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You were growing quickly, as you can see below in a photo from January 17, 1983:</div>
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As well as on January 30 (at almost 6 months) on Super Bowl Sunday:</div>
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On Friday, February 11, the “Blizzard of ‘83” started. There were high winds, lightning and thunder as 23” of snow fell in 24 hours (the second highest total ever at that time in Baltimore). I was even excused from having to go to the hospital (a rare event!). The sun was out on Saturday the 12<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> so the entire neighborhood went out to shovel (even you, sort of!).</div>
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A good job was done by all…</div>
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But I was exhausted!</div>
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We saw Dr. Khouzami again on February 14 (at ~6 months) and I gave your mother your crib as a gift!</div>
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On February 17<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, we attended our first “Childbirth Class” at GBMC. You were coming soon! The next classes were on February 24 and 26 and then March 5. The photo below was taken on March 4 (at ~7 months):</div>
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At this point in time, it’s may be good to tell you that we used to like a TV show on Friday evenings called “Remington Steele”. The actress shown below (Stephanie Zimbalist) was named Laura on the show. I liked that name for many reasons and we ended up selecting that name for you “if” you were a girl (as we did not know your sex at this point in time).</div>
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We saw Dr. Khouzami on March 7 (~7 months) and all was well. </div>
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It was definitely time to get ready for you so I built a rocker for your mother on March 12<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th </sup></span>(after another childbirth class). It ended up getting used a lot!</div>
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I was off to Stanford on the 14<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> due to my job offer. I bought some baby clothes for you at the Stanford Bookstore and spent a lot of time looking at houses during the week, including 861 Allardice Way for the first time. From, SFO, I went to a Neurochemistry meeting in Honolulu on Sunday, March 20. I returned from the long trip on March 25 and we attended the final childbirthing class on March 25. </div>
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The celebrations were about to begin…</div>
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First was a baby shower from the other school teachers at St. Thomas More. The cake was pretty fancy:</div>
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And lots of gifts were brought home…</div>
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On Easter Sunday, April 3, you got your first Easter Basket!</div>
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On April 4, you attended your first Orioles game (the season opener) at Memorial Stadium, even though you really didn’t watch, which was good since they lost 7-2 to Kansas City!</div>
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On April 10, there was a surprise Baby Shower at Aunt Helen’s for you. A good time seemed to be had by all:</div>
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Meanwhile that day, I built your crib!</div>
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We saw Dr. Khouzami again on April 11 (~8 months). We bought your crib mattress on April 13 and you tried it out for the first time:</div>
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On Thursday, April 14, there was another shower for you, this time at your mother’s Aunt Pat’s. Once again, it looked like a good time was had by all (I hung out at home with Grandpop):</div>
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On Saturday, April 16, we attended a wedding (Vera Perry, a work friend of your mother). I am pretty sure that this is the first time that you ever danced:</div>
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We saw Dr. Khouzami again on April 18 as the appointments were now weekly. All signs continued to be great with a due date of May 4<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th </sup></span>! </div>
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We attended a breastfeeding class on April 20<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span>, although I am not sure why I was there!</div>
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Monday, April 25<span style="font-size: 8px;"><sup>th</sup></span> was an unusually cold day (42 degrees) and rainy. We went to see Dr. Khouzami as scheduled who said that “it was too early yet”. I got calls from the hospital around midnight and 1:30 AM so I didn’t get to sleep until~ 2:30 AM. </div>
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At 5:30 AM, your mother woke me to say that she had water leakage. We timed her contractions and we called Dr. Khouzami. It was time to head to GBMC!</div>
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By 8 AM, we were all set and everything was going well:</div>
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I will spare you all of the technical medical details except to say that all continued to progress smoothly until about 11 AM when the contractions stopped! Apparently, you had to finish some of your prenatal activities! </div>
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Not much happened for the next few hours. We watched old TV show reruns and some of the NFL Draft (it was a famous one since the Baltimore Colts drafted John Elway from Stanford #1 and he refused to join the team!).</div>
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At 2:30 PM, your Mom started pushing but still no progress! It was exhausting and not a pleasant experience but she kept going. Around, 5 PM, Dr. Khouzami said that the time had come for an intervention and a spinal block was given…</div>
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Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13306023085836634104noreply@blogger.com0