Baby! Oh Baby!

June 29, 2006

I was wrapping up stuff at work when my sister called me and all she said was:

"My water just broke, Andrea is driving me to the hospital, get to Good Sam!"

What!?!?!?!

The short story: my new niece and nephew were born last night!

The stats:
Thursday, June 28, C-section
Charlotte Esther Williams - 6 pounds, 2 ounces, 19 inches long, 8:03 pm
Simon Jack Williams - 5 pounds, 10 ounces, 18.5 inches long, 8:05 pm

The long story:

Angie's water broke when she was having an afternoon chitchat with her friend, Andrea, who incidentally is also 8 months pregnant. Angie was 34 weeks along, (36 weeks is average for twins), and she had a feeling that the births were imminent.

After she called me, I hopped in my car and drive down to San Jose in an hour (in traffic nonetheless!) and get to the Good Samaritan Hospital, where Olivia was born. Good thing too, so I actually knew where it was. Good Sam in San Jose is also known as one of the best places in the bay area to have a baby. Apparently the word is out, as Good Sam was a mess when Angie and Andrea got there. It seems that everyone decided to give birth on the same day! There was a need for room in the OR, for beds in maternity, it was a little chaotic.

Angie wasn't experiencing contractions, so there wasn't an immediate panic for her. They confirmed by ultrasound that the little girl was not in the correct position for a natural birth (breech or footling position), so she was definitely going to deliver by Caesarean section.


Daddy Jack!

Two heartbeats!

The anesthesiologist with Angie

Prego Andrea, witness to the water breaking

Jack getting prepped to go into the surgery room



Angie and Jack went into surgery around 7:30 pm and they expected the C-section to take about 15 minutes. Andrea and I waited until Jack was out of the OR. Angie went into the recovery room and the nurses weren't letting us in to see her for a couple hours, so we went one-by-one with Jack to see the babies in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Turns out that it was Charlotte's water that was broken and Simon's needed to be punctured during the surgery, so Simon wasn't quite as ready as his bigger and tougher sister to come out yet.

Baby Charolotte, pink as can be:



Baby Simon, needing a bit more TLC:


Simon was definitely the crying one of the two, but he had more difficulties with shallow breathing and they were paying extra special attention to him. Charlotte was quite fine on her own...uh oh...I smell another stubborn princess in the making...

But OMG! They're so cute and tiny! They also don't look as Asian as Olivia did when she was born, but hey, they're out early, so maybe they're still developing that "look". Also, they have a little less hair than princess Olivia, but they've still got a pretty full head of hair.

Coincidentally, my mom is arriving tonight for a visit that was slated to be the visit "before the babies come". Well, good timing Mom, babies are here!

Angie is in the hospital until Sunday, when she may be able to take home Charlotte. Simon may need a little more love from the NICU before he's ready to come home. I'll spend most of the long weekend in San Jose with the family and two new sweet adorable babies!

Weekend Recap: Wish, Frisbee, Beirut, Frisbee

June 26, 2006

FRIDAY

On Friday night, we made last-minute plans to cook dinner at 828 in the Castro. The plans were formulated somewhere during my errands between REI and Safeway, and the conversation between me and Wendy was something like:

Bea: We could do dinner out or cook at your house.
Wendy: Yeah, I could be up for dinner, something like Pakwan or Sunflower, or we could do dinner at my house.
Bea: Yeah, I have no preference. If we cooked, what do we make?
Wendy: I dunno, something easy, we could do something from Geneve's food blog.

...15 minutes of "I dunno", "That sounds good", "That could work"... and then we settled on making the "Rockin' Moroccan" Chicken and Cous Cous recipe.

So, Will and I headed down to 828 to join Abe, Wendy and Kenny. Once we actually got all the ingredients, it turned out to be really simple and easy to make (go Geneve!). The cous cous was soooo yummy and despite the hurdles of a crazy too-hot barbeque, our stomachs were happily filled with a great tasting and spicy (in a good way) chicken skewer.


Abe breaks out the guaro from El Salvador...eww...





After dinner, we were playing with Kenny's cool geeky computer stuff and ended up trying out the "Photo Booth" application on his Mac Powerbook. It has a bunch of fun options for the camera to add some zest to a regular photo.

Here are some of the fun shots we took playing with "Photo Booth":



Mirror...

Fisheye...


Pop Art...

Tunnel...

Colored pencil...

Thermal camera...






Wow...we could've had fun for hours upon hours with that application. Instead, we finally dragged ourselves away from the computer and headed out of the house to meet up with some people in the SOMA district. We ended up at Wish, where we seem to be ending up a lot these days, where JonZ, Mark, Pete, Emily, Woody, Olivia and her friend also ended up.








By late o'clock, it was time to go home, and competition for cabs was super tight. Will, Wendy and I ended up walking to Market Street before catching a cab. Sheesh!

SATURDAY

The agenda for the weekend involved two back-to-back 4 hour frisbee practices...ick! Our team takes most of July on frisbee hiatus, so we had a double practice weekend (with a potluck in the middle!) to close out the spring before our pre-fall series craziness ensues. We have three tournaments at the end of July and early August to bring us back into the full-time frisbee mode to look forward to...

So, an extensive morning sleep-in led to a mad scramble for breakfast and prepping for the evening's potluck festivities. Practice was from 1-5 pm, where we chased a frisbee around the Beach Chalet fields. After practice, Will and I stopped briefly at Wise Surf Shop to pick up wetsuit booties for me, and a leash and wax for Will...we're so Cali right now! I got some rad O'Neill Freak Sneak booties. Now I have no excuse not to go surfing in the extreme rigid cold water!

We headed home and frisbee folks started congregating at our casa in time for the 7:30 pm potluck. The menu for the evening included:

- Guacamole & chips
- Ahi Tuna poke with fried won ton chips
- Fruit salad
- Mixed greens salad with apples, avocado, walnuts and a mustardy vinaigrette
- Spaghetti and meat balls (I made 150 meatballs!)
- Broiled salmon
- Vegetarian chili






For dessert, Kerry Soo made a wonderful double layer rich chocolate cake for Patrick (and Bridgette!) to celebrate their upcoming wedding. She made a wonderful fondant icing and decorated with fresh flowers. It was delicious!








After dinner (and a lot of grazing of leftover food), the group headed over the Pink Palace, where Henrik and Shaun were hosting a Beirut/Dance-Dance-Revolution party. Beirut is a drinking game that involves a ping-pong table, cups o' beer, and ping-pong balls. Dance-Dance-Revolution (or DDR to the cool kids) is a video game that encompasses electronic dance music, dance moves, and dance pads. It really is quite the spectacle.











I hit a sweet wall of tiredness around 12:30 am, and in light of the cab-catching issues from the night before, I called a cab and guaranteed a ride home (with a whiskey-laden Will, of course). Oh wonderful and lovely king bed...

SUNDAY

More blessed sleep-in time, and then a brekkie of bacon and eggs (yum!). But then came time to drive me and Coco to another 4-hour frisbee practice. Will had injured his groin muscle on Saturday, so he opted for a mountain bike ride with the boys in Marin in lieu of practice. For me, it was more chasing a frisbee around the fields of South San Francisco High School, this time in crazy wind (good practice for throwing!). But alas, I was relieved when practice was over, it's hard on the body to have 8 hours of practice in one weekend...hello lactic acid!

Coco and I stopped at Target on the way home in Colma, and if I have the time, I really do enjoy perusing Target and all its offerings. Did you know that they sell wine now?!?!

In the end, it was a very tiring weekend. Thankfully, our team rarely does double practice weekends, but the tournaments usually take a lot out of us as well. I'm looking forward to the long weekend coming up. Will's brother, John and his wife, Emily, are coming into town from New Zealand for part of the weekend, the first of many stops on their North America tour. And then my mom rolls into town for the long weekend, a last weekend with Olivia and her girls before the twins come!

July is going to be insane...