Special delivery: continued

Vivian and I have had our little baby girl Hannah home for a couple days now, and we're quickly becoming adjusted to the mind-boggling idea that we're now parents. Here's how it all came down last week.

Vivian had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and put on bed rest the week before our baby came. She went in for a check-up the following Monday, which included an ultrasound that revealed our baby to be in the "breech" position. Vivian's doctor decided to perform a c-section the next morning at Bergan Mercy hospital rather than risk Vivian going into labor with a baby facing the wrong way.

It was an amazing bit of news to digest, and I have no idea how I got any sleep the night before (Vivian actually got no sleep whatsoever). We celebrated the news of our forthcoming little one with a "last meal" as a childless couple at Ruby Tuesday around the corner.

The next morning, Vivian and I showed up at the hospital at 6:30 for a couple hours of paperwork and preparations before the big moment came. I got all scrubbed up and ready with my fully-charged camera to capture every moment in the operating room.

Vivian went in for surgery at 8:30, and by 9:07, our little daughter Hannah Marie emerged from her womb covered in blood and vernix, making her a "cheesy" baby. (Is anybody surprised?) The nurse cleaned her up and then we settled into the recover room for a few hours as I busily told everyone I could the happy news via cell phone.

The long recovery came after the baby was delivered on Tuesday. I got to dive headfirst into fatherhood changing my own baby's diaper and giving her a sponge bath when needed. We had a steady parade of visitors dropping by over the course of our hospital stay, namely Dennis and Kara, Randy and Jolene, Eric, Venche, Lexi, Pastor Drew, and a few others. There's nothing like a baby to draw in a crowd, and we had plenty of picture of our little bundle of joy flying around social media with every visit.

Vivian's stay extended through Thanksgiving, so we had a makeshift Thanksgiving Dinner with her folks in the hospital's dining hall. They had all the typical Thanksgiving foods for us, and it was a nice reprieve from our little room in post-partum.

Vivian and the baby were released from the hospital on Friday, and I got to figure out how to use a car seat in our effort to get little Hannah home safely during her very first car ride. Since then, we've been learning her schedule for feeding and sleeping, which seems to be a bout of "cluster feeding" during the day followed by long period of near comatose sleeping during the night. Lucky us.

My brother Jonathan dropped by over the weekend to see his new niece (as did Maggie and Eric) and he stuck around Sunday night for our "real" Thanksgiving dinner with Grammy and Grampy Taber. Naturally, there was plenty of baby-holding and baby-feeding in the midst of stuffing ourselves with another enormous Thanksgiving meal (which included perennial favorites like green bean casserole, Taber salad, that green fluffy stuff, and poppy seed rolls to go along with the turkey and stuffing).

It's been quite an adventure becoming parents so far, but we're getting quickly settled into home life once again. Of course, we've had a steady stream of visitors coming by to see our new little girl. I have a feeling we're going to see the most-photographed generations in history, if our friends below are any indication.

Welcome home, Hannah Marie!

Special Delivery

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Hannah Marie Johnson, born 11-22-11 at 9:07 a.m. weighing 5 lbs. 9 oz. and measuring 19 inches long. On Monday, Vivian got a checkup with an ultrasound that showed little Hannah was "breech," so our doctor schedule a c-section the next morning. They didn't want Vivian to go into labor and risk delivering our little girl feet-first into the world.

The baby is doing just fine, and mom is sore but recovering quickly. If you'd like to see more pictures of our special delivery, you can view them on our Flickr account.

Final showers, a hobo party, and a new camera

Vivian and I are going to be childless for only a few more weeks as the baby countdown is well underway. Vivian's had a number of showers up to this point, one most recently at our church at Twin Valley. It's all very overwhelming, since we both have such generous friends and co-workers. We have enough diapers and baby wipes to last us well into our child's teenage years.

We've still managed to have some fall fun with our friends as well. Our friend Tamra threw an impromptu "hobo party," which involved eating chili out of tin cans and trying to figure out how to have a fire inside a large boat shed while the wind was howling outside (too much to keep a fire going). Joining Second-Hand Matt and Sassy Pants Vivian were Grubby Heather, Goofy Jenny, Wild eyed Lou, Two-Tooth Tamra, Cardboard Mark, Jon, Heather Amanda and a couple others whose hobo names I can't remember. Mark broke out the guitar at some point to strum through some sheet music from the 70s and we spent a couple hours of hammerschlagen before retreating inside to watch MST3K (the Deadly Bees).

You might notice the pictures above are a slightly slightly different dimension than my other photos on this post. That's because Vivian and I finally broke down and bought our dream camera — Canon Rebel T2i DLSR. Our excuse was to be able to take some beautiful baby pictures once our bundle of joy arrives, but it also works beautifully taking snapshots at Jitterbugs Night Out or just eating pizza with the Stubbs for Deena's birthday. The nice, big lens makes it easy to get sharp photos of action on the dance floor with those horrible dust globes swarming around.

This new camera actually brings back memories of using my dad's old Nikon film camera for my photography class. It was always so much easier to get beautiful pictures using a "real" lens and film that I could with a tiny point-and-shoot camera. Vivian and I broke in the camera over the weekend traveling around Omaha and taking a few nice, high-quality pictures of landmarks that had entries on Wikipedia and no decent pictures to go with them (such as the Sokol Auditorium, the Bohemian Cafe, the Saddle Creek overpass, and the Joel N. Cornish House in the old gold coast district). It's already proven be useful getting pictures of our pastor's family (for a Christmas photo) and some last-minute baby belly pictures with Vivian before our inevitable due date.

The next entry you read here will likely be about our new bundle of joy, so stay tuned. Our original ETA is November 30, but just about anything could happen between now and then.