The Arrival of Julian

Monday, March 21, 2022

After nearly nine months of pregnancy, the day had arrived for Ally and I to have our baby. She called me at 2:45 p.m. when I was still at work. She told me that because she had tested twice for high blood pressure at her doctor appointment that afternoon, they would like induce her that evening. The concern was gestational hypertension, a form of high blood pressure that occurs during pregnancy. It only occurs in about 6% of all pregnancies. And, high blood pressure runs in Ally's family... She can be the nervous type... But, of course doctors in this situation are not wanting to take many risks, so the safe decision was to go ahead and induce Ally into labor. We left for the hospital at 11:00 p.m. that night.

Here's Ally on her way out the door, looking a bit apprehensive. Here's Al as we walk into West Penn Hospital Here is Al in her hospital gown on the bed in the delivery room, clearly feeling a bit more confident!

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Things started off well, but didn't go as we hoped. I'll spare the details (and photos) from this day for sake of Ally's privacy, but basically, after 24 hours in labor, Ally decided that she would have a C-section.

Initially, it was such a bummer. Ally was set on delivering the baby traditionally. She had done so much work over the past nine months to prepare for this moment. She and I concluded that this moment was our first lesson in parenting--You do the best you can to set yourselves and your kid(s) up for success, but ultimately some things are always going to be out of your control.

In the end, the decision to have the C-section (as opposed to pursuing a traditional delivery for a few more hours) was the right one. Upon seeing the size of our baby, our doctor said that a traditional delivery would never have worked.

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

At 12:58 a.m., our little man finally arrived! I had been joking with Ally that I wanted her labor to carry over into the 23rd so that our boy's birthday would be the same as Michael Jordan's number... It was truly a joke... Ha... But it actually happened...

Our son's name: Julian James Dodds. Julian was my maternal grandfather's name. I have always loved this name and known for years that I wanted to give it to my son, if I ever were to have one. I wondered if anyone from my family would remember me talking about how much I loved the name when I gave the eulogy at my "Pa's" funeral in 2019. (I don't think so because they all tried many times to guess the name, which we kept secret throughout the pregnancy, but never guessed Julian!) James, the boy's middle name, is a family name on both sides--Ally's paternal grandfather and uncle, as well as my paternal grandfather and uncle, all have the first name James.

Plus, the initials J.J. obviously sound cool.

Here are some pictures:

Here, you can see how he quickly earned the nickname "Smokin' J." I sent these two pictures out to a bunch of friends and co-workers shortly after the birth. Cole, the student-teacher working in my classroom this year, responded saying, "What your baby actually looks like vs. what you think he looks like"--Hahahaha.

Thursday - Saturday, March 24-26, 2022

These days were honestly pretty rough. Yeah, the joy of finally getting to meet our son was indescribable, but in addition to getting almost no sleep, having to learn how to deal with Julian's frequent crying, and being stuck in the same hospital room for five days (Wed. - Sun.), Ally's health became dramatically worse. She developed an ileus, which basically meant that her body was not reacting well to the anesthesia used for the C-section and that her intestines weren't working. She threw up everything that she tried to eat and drink. Then, she suffered an internal hematoma while vomiting, which caused additional swelling in her stomach. Ugh... Poor Al... She worked so hard to stay active and healthy during her pregnancy. I hate seeing her suffer like she was.

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Finally, the day to leave had arrived! Ally was doing well enough, eating and keeping down some solid foods, that the hospital staff felt comfortable discharging us. Let's gooooo!!!!!

In typical Pittsburgh fashion, we had a snowstorm on this day (March 27), which meant that we had to dress Julian to brave the conditions.