Studio711.com – Ben Martens

“You’re still here?” That’s the question I get from people at work who know that Tyla is about ready to pop. There’s no baby yet, but we’re really getting close. The due date is June 6 but we’re about smack dab in the middle of the “normal” window for birth. The national average for first time moms is that they go five days past their due date which would put us at about a week from now. They won’t let her go more than two weeks past the due date so one way or another he should be coming out before the 20th!

While we do talk a bit about enjoying these last few minutes of peace and quiet, we’re incredibly eager to meet this little boy who has been following us around for almost 40 weeks!

In one of our recent classes, the teacher talked for a while about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS.) I had heard it in passing before, but I didn’t know much about it. The SIDS website defines it this way:

SIDS is the sudden death of an infant under one year of age which remains unexplained after a thorough case investigation, including performance of a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the clinical history.

I was surprised to find out that this is basically a catch-all answer for “we have no idea why your baby died.” Wow! In the year 2013, babies are still dying and science can’t figure out why. That’s incredible! All they can do is offer tips for things that seem to correlate with lower numbers of these deaths. A lot of these tips were discovered by studying cultures with higher than normal SIDS rates and understanding what’s different about their culture. Here are some things that lower the risk:

• SIDS occurs less when parents have babies after their teenage years and when they wait at least 1 year between the birth of a child and the next pregnancy.
• Infants should always sleep on their backs.
• They should sleep on a firm mattress in a crib with nothing but the baby (no pillows, no covers, no bumpers, no toys, etc.)
• Avoid exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Breast-fed babies have a lower risk of SIDS than formula-fed babies.
• Offer a pacifier to the baby.

It’s nice to know that there are things we can do to help lower the risk, and hopefully some day they’ll understand what causes this. It turns out that there is an adult version of this too, though it appears to be much less likely.

There is a deluge of product information available for a pregnant couple, and as a first time pregnant couple, we didn’t even know what types of things we should be buying, much less which specific brands and models we should look at. Rather than researching everything individually, we decided to pick one overall book and stick with it, for better or worse.

The book we picked was called Baby Bargains. The book is organized as a big list of all the things you should consider buying and then for each item, the book discusses what to look for, how many you need, and which brands might be the best fit for you. While I’m sure you could take any one item and have a long argument about it with someone who likes a different brand better, we knew that following the book should lead us to a pretty good option.

Even with all that background, we still had a big task ahead of us. Our gift registries were carefully crafted as a list of items we thought we needed, so after the baby showers (THANK YOU!) we headed to Babies R Us and walked out with three carts full of stuff. The UPS man arrived later in the week with endless boxes that completed our Amazon registry. I’m sure there will be plenty of surprise trips to buy something we didn’t think of, but I feel like we have a pretty good start.

We did waffle a bit on our car seat decision. We started with the new Graco 40 which is supposed to hold a child up to 2 years/40 pounds. When we got it home, we discovered that it was too wide to fit in the middle seat and it was a couple pounds heavier than most carriers which seemed unnecessary. We ended up getting a slightly smaller Graco model which saved us quite a bit of money and also fit the car better. Only time will tell if it was a good decision. I’m sure we’ll have a lot stronger opinions about these purchases in a year!

Today is a big day for Tyla. It’s her last full day of office work! Soon she’ll be starting her new job: full time Mom! Every couple makes their own decisions, but personally I’m not only thankful that my wife wants to stay home to raise our child but also that we’re in a position where that’s possible. She’s going to transition from dealing with a doctor’s office full of people who are a mix between fun and cranky to a child … who is probably the same. Thank you Tyla! You’re going to make an incredible mother.

While Tyla has been studiously reading through her baby name book over and over again taking notes, I’ve kept a simple text file on my computer and added names to it whenever I heard something I liked. Agreeing on something like this seemed like it would be pretty difficult so I refused to talk about it with her until we knew the sex and could cut the discussion in half.

The other night we shared our top ~20 boy names and surprisingly when we finished we had about half a dozen names that we both liked. We haven’t landed anything for sure yet, but so far it’s going better than I thought it would.

It’s a really tricky process. Do you choose a family name or naming tradition from one side of the family and ignore the other one? Do you try to combine them somehow or ignore them both? What if one of the names you both like happens to be the name of someone you wouldn’t consider naming your child after? How popular should the name be? We don’t want him to have 10 classmates with the same name but we also don’t want to give him a name that nobody can pronounce or spell.

One thing we did agree on right away is that we’re not going share his name until he’s born. You’ll all get to be surprised! But just to whet your appetite, here are a couple names I had on my list that Tyla did not like:

Dr Einstein von Brainstorm
Chief Kickingstallion
For you nerds out there: Hector Kirk Leo Martens (HKLM)
Middle name: WaitForIt
If we had twins: Copy and Paste

I’ve been doing this daily blogging thing for over 10 years now, and I often wonder what it would be like if my parents or grandparents had done something like this. Would I read it? Most likely I think I’d go back to read their thoughts on major world events and big changes in their lives. Actually, Grandma Martens does keep a daily journal and I’d be very interested in going back through that at some point.

So as I was writing the post on Friday announcing Tyla’s pregnancy, I had to wonder if that same child would some day grow up and read the post. And if so, how much further will he/she continue to read? How many boring posts will it take before they flip ahead and look for something more interesting? Will they appreciate that I looked up farther and further to make sure I used the right one?

I probably do a disservice to any descendants by writing something every single day instead of just writing the important posts. Zane Lamprey calls Steve McKenna “1 in 10” because one out of every 10 things he says is worth listening to. My batting average is probably less than that. But then again, how can I know what people will find interesting down the road?

Thinking about this makes my head hurt.

Also, I think I’m already behind on your college fund. Sorry kid.

We’re having a baby!!!

We are thrilled to announce that all is going well with our new baby. This is a lot earlier than we thought we’d be able to say anything, but after our first appointment, the docs said things are going as well as can be expected and we should feel free to tell everyone. Tyla is just starting week 10 so that gives us an estimated due date in early June.

Obviously everything is about to change for us, and while I knew that intellectually, it felt more real after that first appointment when they did an ultrasound. We not only got to see the baby but also hear the heartbeat! Our little baby is about an inch long right now, but he/she already has a strong heart beat, vital organs, fingernails, and arms and legs with joints. We won’t have an opportunity to find out the sex for a couple more months.

Tyla has been doing pretty well with the pregnancy. She usually feels a little bit sick, has some food aversions, and needs extra sleep, but it hasn’t affected her regular routine too much. All the workouts and eating well over the past couple years is paying off!

Telling people big news like this turns out to be a tricky situation in today’s super-connected social networking world. We would have preferred to tell you all in a personal phone call, but we wanted you to at least hear it from us first. Plus, it’s so exciting that I couldn’t wait another minute!

Big things in my life seem to happen every four years. In 1990 I moved from the lower grade room to the upper grade room in our two room schoolhouse. In 1994 I started high school, in 1998 I moved on to college, in 2002 I took my first job out in Jersey, in 2006 I took a job out in Seattle, and in 2010 I got married. The due date is currently in early June of 2013, so I guess that will break the trend… unless maybe 2014 is the year I change a diaper for the first time? I don’t know if Tyla will go for that.