First Doctor's checkup....

Today was Sequoia's first Doctor's visit. The big target, especially for breast fed babies, is to get back to their birth weight by the second week. I had not realized until we started taking classes and preparing for this whole experience, that babies lose up to a pound in the first day or two following birth. That has to do with no longer being hooked up to the 24/7 buffet tube in addition to things like evaporation of fluids (they spend nine months in the tub and literally come out water logged) and the extra energy required to survive outside of the womb. I can not think of a more ironic or cruel twist of biology than the fact that immediately AFTER giving birth to a healthy 8 1/2 pound baby, it then shrinks by a pound. What most mother's wouldn't give to have that little scenario reversed. It certainly does not sound fair to me.... Anyway, Sequoia was born at 8 pounds 5 ounces. Her discharge weight when she left the hospital was 7 pounds 13 ounces. Today at the doctor's office our little chow hound weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces. She is eating great and the doctors think she will easily pass her birth weight by the next visit. The doctor was also very impressed with Sequoia's color. She already has a better tan than her dad ever gets - yet another reason that I am so glad that she is a miniature Colleen.

After her doctor's appointment she got to try out her new underwater exercise mat. It is a magical little mat with accurately depicted fish, whales and other underwater creatures. Her mom thought this was a great feature when we picked it out as it will implant good, scientific images of sea life and give our Sequoia a head start in her pursuit of a spectacular career as a shark researcher. I probably should not point this out, but if you get a chance, check out the octopus and crab that Colleen painted on Sequoia's dresser ... I am guessing that consistency of message may not be high on our list. Regardless, Sequoia absolutely loves her play mat ... well as much as is possible when you can't really move much ... but where she lacks motion, we supply enough narrative and back story to fill in the gaps. I think it will be funny as her real personality slowly replaces the one that Colleen and I have made up for her.

First weekend at home....

We are happy to say that we have survived our first weekend home with our beautiful little Sequoia. She continues to amaze us with her personality and charm. I really don't stand a chance with this one.....
She is far more interactive than I ever would have guessed she could be at this point and it is a joy beyond description to watch her natural joy come through. She certainly is too young to understand being happy or sad, but you can't spend time with her and not understand that she is a happy little girl.






Colleen and I have been mesmerized by her (when we weren't in our walking zombie mode). Her active and alert phases (which come in very predictable 2 hour periods between eating, sleeping and the oh so exciting pooping) are filled with experimental interactions with her mommy and I. We are slowly figuring each other out. I have been enjoying watching my two girls as they learn how to work together. The breast feeding is getting easier and quicker and Sequoia's little mannerisms are slowly manifesting themselves as a very real and understandable language. She is definitely not a fusser, but she is very good at letting you know what she needs at any given moment.



This is one of her favorite pastimes - snoozing on dad's chest. It ranks pretty high up on my list as well.






Here she is attempting to duck a fly-over by a herd of jungle animals. I'm not certain why images of flying zebras and elephants is suppose to be soothing (it would terrify me) but she adores her little bouncer.





And I think this pretty well sums up the entire experience. Who could ever hold their daughter's hand in theirs and not feel the trust, love and commitment that comes with it. She is our precious little girl.

Our stay at the hospital -

Our stay at Mary Immaculate Hospital was a bit longer than we had originally planned since Sequoia arrived via a Cesarean procedure after poor Colleen got to enjoy 26 hours of labor. (Those were good times for everyone...) We won't bore you with all of the details here, but it was an adventure in endurance that removed any doubts that I might have had regarding how strong Colleen is both mentally and physically. Give her a call if you want to know more than that....
Anyway, at the end of the day we had our precious little Sequoia and you would be hard pressed to find two happier people than we are. The extended stay at the hospital allowed us to get some unexpected bonding time as a family since I got to spend the week in the hospital room with my wife and daughter. Even though that meant 4 nights of sleeping in various chairs, I would not trade the experience for the world. Here are some of the thousands of pictures I took between swaddling, changing diapers, running for drinks, holding my little girl and visiting with friends and family. As always, clicking on the pictures will usually bring up the larger, higher resolution version.





Here is Colleen and Sequoia after Colleen was allowed to get a shower and change in to real people clothes. That was a special treat for her. It's easy to see how happy the girls are together.







Here is a shot of the family. We all look a bit the worse for wear after a week in the hospital, but there's a whole lot of love hiding behind those tired eyes.









This is my sweetie. The newest love of my life. I have a feeling that those beautiful eyes will control the rest of my life...










So here are a few shots of my little Tom-boy dressed in pink. I'll admit that she looks pretty cute in pink - heck it even has soft little bunnies on it and I still think it is cute. I guess it's OK as long as she still loves the outdoors and is willing to be a camping, sailing and dive buddy for her mommy and I.







See the cute bunnies? This was her "going home" outfit and I think it was quite appropriate for a little spring baby.







I'm not certain who came up with the idea of making the mittens for this outfit be little bunny rabbit puppets, but for anyone who cares ... it's a silly and useless idea that is only good for the 10 seconds it takes to get a picture of them. However, that said, they were darn cute for those 10 seconds.



We had a handful of visitors and phone calls while we were there, and we really appreciate the patience everyone showed while we juggled visitors and phone calls between doctors, nurses, nursing, sleeping etc....It was nice to see and hear from you all.
Here is a picture of Becky Wilk holding Sequoia. Becky and Jeremiah were not only at the hospital almost everyday to visit, but they also took care of our dogs during the first few days we were at the hospital. They are the definition of good people!!


As everyone probably knows, Colleen and I are both the youngest of 6 kids and have correspondingly large extended families, most of whom live several states away. The only family members who were in a position to come for a visit while we were in the hospital were Colleen's parents John and Betty Murphy. Betty actually made it up from North Carolina in time for Sequoia's birth (thanks to the afore mentioned 26 hour labor) and will be staying with us for several weeks to help Colleen adjust to being a new mother.

Here is our friend Rebecca, better known as Ava's mom, holding Sequoia. Rebecca delivered Ava at the same hospital 2 months ago and had a remarkably similar delivery scenario. Ava arrived after 19 hours of labor turned into a cesarean birth. Yet another bond that Sequoia shares with her new best friend.







Our extended and widespread community of family and friends stretches pretty much all over the world and many people found ways to overcome the challenges of both time zones and our bizarre hospital schedule. I don't know how many phone calls went -" hey (insert name here), it's great to hear from you. Colleen and Sequoia are doing great but are in the middle of (insert distraction here) could you call back in(an overly optimistic estimate of the duration of the distraction). "
This is a picture of Colleen and Sequoia talking with her great and dear friend Karissa. The "Fall Free Zone" is a magnet that they put on our door frame after Colleen managed to wipe out and fall to the floor the first time the nurses tried to get her to stand up after surgery. I'm not sure why, but we got a real kick out of the sign - probably because Colleen has a knack for being a bit of a klutz. (which is surprising since she also is extremely coordinated and graceful...just another one of those contradictions designed to keep me guessing)




Most of my stay at the hospital was spent just staring at my amazingly beautiful little girl.

What else can I say....





Sequoia has a magnetic personality (according to me, her dad, and not up for discussion). Her eyes are very alert and she is hardwired to smile. I know that she has limited control over what she is doing now and her expressions and movements come from somewhere well beyond cognitive thought, but it is undeniable that she is a happy and peaceful soul. I'm not saying she can't let out a wail when it's appropriate, but in general, the world through her eyes is a good and happy place.


Well, here is our little girl headed home from the hospital. She probably logged more highway miles before birth than anyone else I know. She got to ride with mommy during mommy's commute to the Aquarium in Virginia Beach - well over an hour and a half each way. It was no surprise to us that Sequoia was as happy as can be during her first ride out of the womb. We are enjoying our first few hours at home with our new little girl and are glad to see that she has already laid down for two uncontested, two hour naps in her crib. That is a great sign and hopefully means she will not fight the idea of having her own room. I will post more updates with pictures as time permits.

Thanks again to everyone for the tremendous amounts of love and support we have received through this process. Our Sequoia is lucky to have all of you in her life.

She's finally here!!!!

Sequoia Alsea Newberg finally decided to arrive last night at 5:51 pm. She weighed in at 8 pounds and 5 ounces and was 20 inches long. She has a very full head of beautiful brown hair just like her mom (thank goodness ... sorry to the fans of red heads everywhere..) She is healthy, happy and in love with Colleen. I have to admit that we think Sequoia is pretty special too!!!

There are a ton of details that I will fill everyone in on in a subsequent posting, but for now the important things are that Sequoia arrived in great health and is about as perfect a little person as you could hope for. She is eating well and both she and Colleen are absolutely loving the bonding process. Sequoia's little personality is already shining through in so many surprising ways. We can not wait to introduce everyone to her very soon.

If you wish you give Colleen a call, she will be in the hospital until Friday around noon. The number there is (757) 886-6242.

Finally ....

We finally have some news!!!! Colleen has just called to tell me that we will be checking in at the hospital at 5pm tonight so that she can begin the process of being induced. That means that our little girl will most likely be making her appearance some time Tuesday.

It is a huge understatement to say that we are excited about the news.

Colleen will be staying at the hospital tonight and will likely begin labor tomorrow morning. We will try to keep everyone posted as time permits, but certainly there will be news and photos posted here as soon as possible.

Happy Easter

Knowing how fast kids grow up, and how fast the priceless "firsts" get checked off one by one, it is kind of nice to know that we still have 365 days left before Sequoia's first Easter. Seriously ... it is kind of nice, although I certainly was looking forward to wrapping up my little baby girl burrito in her little bunny themed onesie and taking a picture of her with the daffodils and Easter eggs. The fun thing about her deciding to hold off on her arrival is that we will certainly be in a better position to celebrate her first Easter with her family and friends next year.

So I hope that this Easter found everyone covered in love (among other things, Connor) and that next Easter will find us celebrating Sequoia's first Easter egg hunt with her new family and friends.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE !!!!

New poll just added....

I want to point out the latest poll that we just added to the blog. I added this because I have noticed that there has been a suspicious shift in the answers to the expected due date.

Colleen and I are tickled that people are paying attention and seem to really care about this stuff ... honestly we are ... but I just want to remind everyone that there really are no prizes for getting it right.

Anyway, hopefully things will get more exciting around here and we can move on to the next phase of polls that will cover things like the number of hours daddy gets to sleep before going to work, how often mommy has to get up to feed in the middle of the night and other such fascinating bits of trivia.

The biggest question on our mind right now is how long will it just be the two of us heading out to breakfast in the morning? We are now hoping against hope that we will have an Easter girl ... that would be pretty special.

Don't forget to vote on the latest poll, and we will keep you posted on any big developments down here.

No Baby Yet - but this is info on the hospital....

OK, so it occurs to me that some of you will want to talk to Colleen when she eventually gets to the hospital ... although she is not there yet.

Well once she decides to go into labor and goes to the hospital ... where she is not at right now ... she will be in Newport News at Mary Immaculate Hospital.

The Hospital is

Mary Immaculate Hospital
2 Bernardine Drive
Newport News, Va

Main line - (757) 886-6000
Birthing center - (757) 886-6160

When Colleen eventually goes to the hospital and gets checked in - which she has not shown any real signs of doing yet - we will be assigned a specific room number and phone number. We will try to get that number posted here as soon as we know it ... but of course that will be after Colleen has decided to go to the hospital ... which of course she has not as of yet.

Again I hope that everyone is enjoying the same spectacular Easter weekend weather that we have here. It is an absolutely perfect spring day outside!!! Certainly a day that Sequoia should come out and see for herself.

Just the two of us....

For those of you who are using this blog to keep up to date on how things are progressing .... well this morning Colleen and I are headed out to get some breakfast ... just the two of us.

Things are taking their sweet time, but it does appear that we will eventually have this baby. We are going to the Silver Diner because it is only about a mile away from the hospital. Wishful thinking? Probably.

Anyway, we hope you are all having a wonderful Easter weekend!! We'll keep you posted should anything exciting happen around here.

In case you thought we were patient....

Just in case anyone out there was under the mistaken impression that we were patient people, this is Colleen's answer to babies who don't want to show up on their due date. It's not so much that we are impatient I guess, as that we are excited to meet our daughter.




Colleen took to the skies in an attempt to help the natural flow of things .... this surprisingly did not work. But Colleen did enjoy being on her trampoline again for the first time in 9 months ... if even only for one bounce.






Colleen even enlisted the help of our wild man Yukon. Normally his feisty, no holds barred approach to living gets things moving ... even when they are not supposed to.

Not this time though.







Now I know this won't surprise ANYONE, but the next natural avenue to pursue was not one, not two, but three hula-hoops!!!! It was not easy finding hula-hoops sized for a person who is 40 weeks pregnant - but we did.


But there was no noticeable change in Sequoia's attitude.....





So Colleen patiently waited for the next available tee time at the exclusive Woodstock Country Club.









Here is a beautiful series of shots of her driving hard off of the first tee.












Now that is what I call flawless form !!!!!


But no new caddy appeared during that round.......




So as I write this Colleen is polishing off a huge bowl of home grown peppers.

There are habaneros, jalapenos, Thai red hots and some secret hybrid fire peppers.







We are not certain if maybe this will do the trick or not, but we have our fingers crossed!!!


We will keep you posted on how things develop.

Leo and Colleen


Please note - NO ANIMALS, BABIES OR PREGNANT LADIES WERE HARMED DURING THE FILMING OF THIS POSTING.

You have to wonder...

So today is the official due date for Sequoia's arrival. Evidently my little girl is unimpressed with that .....

I can't help but wonder if this isn't the beginning of a long history of waiting for her to be ready to go somewhere. I can picture her in there trying to figure out which birthday suit to wear....

All I can say is that my darling will need to be very patient with her pop, because he doesn't really know much about little girls. Some might argue he doesn't know much about the older ones either ... but I don't think I'm alone in that. Luckily Colleen has been educating me....

Feel free to come on out and join us Sequoia. We really are excited about meeting you.

Love dad.

Just waiting.....

So here we are just sort of waiting for our little girl to arrive. Colleen's due date is technically tomorrow. I never thought we would get to this day ... I know that 7 months ago this seemed like a lifetime away. Colleen is looking wonderful and doing very well with everything. It is exciting to see the little signs that things are beginning to get active in Sequoia's neighborhood. We find ourselves spending an inordinate amount of time hanging out in the nursery as if that will speed things along somehow. I guess it is like staring at the Christmas tree hoping that Santa Clause will come soon. It has been wonderful reading everyone's e-mails and hearing how much support and love there is for this little person. I can't say how much it means to Colleen and I to know that she will be starting her journey surrounded by such an incredible extended community of friends and family.

Well anyway, it makes us smile to think of how lucky she is to have all of you in her life. Of course it goes with out saying that Colleen and I have always known how lucky we are to have you guys.

Thanks,

Leo

I've started my collection early....

Most of you out there probably wonder what I've been up to for the past 40 weeks. I know that most of the publications talk about how I was developing organs and growing fingernails and listening to mom and dad ... by the way, dad sure sounds smart. Anyway, what most people don't seem to realize is that several months ago I started to understand that I had

charm and that charm gave me power. I decided to use my charm to start my very own art collection.
One of my first pieces was a fabulous print of a shark mommy and baby. It was drawn by my nanny Kelli. I'm not sure what kind of nanny she will be living in Kansas ... but she is a very good artist. I doubt she even realizes how I wrapped her around my finger and got her to do the drawing for free ...he he he.
My most recent addition to the collection is a custom print I had commissioned by Becky Wilk. It is a delightful oil painting of a Pacific Northwest dive scene. If you know my mom, you know that it doesn't get any prettier than that!!! I got Becky so convinced that I am adorable that she actually gave it to me on HER birthday .... sucker.













As you probably already know, my mom spent many long hours with me on the floor while painting my deluxe custom dresser. It is sort of a performance art piece. Can you imagine what she will be capable of when she's not 38 weeks pregnant??!!














To sort of round out the start of my collection, and keeping with my apparent love of the water, I picked up a couple of these beautiful hand painted tiles. I actually had to pay for these and I'm not embarrassed to say that I shelled out an entire $2.00 for them ... now I don't know if that is a lot or not, but I can tell you it was not easy getting my hands on actual cash in my neighborhood....



















Anyway, these are some of the crazy animals my mom painted on my dresser - pretty groovy, huh? I am hoping that when I get born I get to play with all of the neat paint brushes and paints that mom and dad own. Dad keeps saying something about an apple and a tree and how he is hoping that I fall under mommy's tree ... I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a pretty place to take a nap.

I can't wait for everyone to stop by my new place so that I can show you all my art collection.

Sequoia.

The balance of power is shifting

Up until recently, it's pretty well been Colleen and the boys. I have to admit it's been pretty cool having the run of place without having to worry about too many girly things. As you can see, Leo, Yukon and I enjoy the outdoors life ... just give us a football and a pile of dirt and we're pretty much OK.









Toss in a day of chasing sticks at the beach








Or a fun filled walk in our woods and well you just really
Couldn't ask for much more than that.

Well rumor has it that the world as we know it is about to change ..... and honestly all we can say is, IT'S ABOUT TIME.

The three of us manly boys are more than ready to be overpowered by an 8 pound cutie pie. Of course we are secretly hoping that she will be a bit of a tom-boy, but all we really care about is getting to know her and falling in love with her.




So hurry Up Sequoia .... there's a lot we need to teach you!!

Love Rogue, Yukon and the red headed boy.

Sequoia's new friends

So here are some pictures of three of Sequoia's future best friends.

You will see Grant William in a few years driving his dad's hydroplanes to national championships. He is the son of my friend and co-worker Scott and his wife Kim.

Ava Page is the daughter of our friends Troy and Rebecca. She is an adorable charmer with a truck load of personality. She is determined not to miss anything.

Connor James is the zen-like, future athlete son of our friends Donnie and Victoria. He appears to have found balance in the universe and has an enviable inner peace. He divides his time between meditating, working out and smiling.