Cassie’s surgery went well. She is now resting with the help of some Benadryl. The Benadryl is to help with the itching from the morphine. Fun stuff.
Luckily her room here at the Mississippi Surgery Center has Wifi. We’ll be headed home first thing in the morning as soon as Cassie’s doctor does his rounds.
Sorry for the huge gap between posts. I’m going to blame it on Luke again. Speaking of Luke, he’s doing great. He’ll be three months old tomorrow. He doesn’t hardly stop smiling these days. Yes, I have lots of pictures, but I haven’t gotten around to posting them anywhere yet. I’m working on it.
Cassie is feeling good too. She’ll be having surgery in Jackson next week. That should clear up the last of her childbirth-related issues. Luke will be staying with our parents in Belmont while we’re in Jackson.
We’re leaving for Belmont this afternoon as soon as I get off work to enjoy the long weekend. My parents haven’t seen Luke in over three weeks, so it should be fun. I plan on taking lots of pictures.
Tomorrow is Ole Miss’ first football game of the season against Memphis. There are a lot of question marks for the team this year (more than usual), so it should be interesting to see how things turn out. I don’t plan on making it to many games this year, but I will be watching with interest. Mississippi State lost 45-0 to LSU last night in their first game. No one expected them to win, but no expected 45-0 either. I guess that’s what seven turnovers will do to you.
More soon.
I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but we’ve been very busy between taking care of Luke and Cassie’s post-childbirth medical issues. There are a lot of afflictions that can pop up after childbirth, and Cassie has managed to have most of them. She’s been in the hospital twice (not counting childbirth) and numerous doctor’s offices. We had to drive down to Jackson to see a specialist on Friday. She’s feeling much better, but she’s going to have surgery in about three weeks. Nothing too serious, but we’re ready for things to get back to normal. Whatever that is when you have a newborn. :)
Luke is doing just fine. He’ll be 7 weeks, 2 days old in a couple of hours. We weighed him a few days ago, and he’s already gained over three and half pounds. He’s been grinning at nothing in particular since day one, but in the last few days he’s started smiling in response to us talking to him. One little smile can make up for a lot of things. :)
I’ve put some pictures of Luke up on Flickr. However, I’ve taken a lot that aren’t up there. My Flickr Pro account expired, and I’ve been exploring my options. Zenfolio and Smugmug both looked promising, but I haven’t been real pleased with anything I’ve seen so far. I’m going to try to make up my mind soon so I can put some more pictures up.
My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived yesterday. I’m on page 330 of 759. So far the “Hallows” haven’t even been mentioned. The book is definitely a page turner, but I feel like it could be moving a little faster. I’ve felt the same way about the last couple of books. If you’re like me, and it’s been two years since you’ve read the Half-Blood Prince, you might have a look at it’s Wikipedia page. You probably don’t want to read this page though. :)
Friday night, June 1st, at 11:08pm, Luke Benjamin Pharr entered the world. He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 and 1/2 inches long. Both he and his mom are doing well. They were both discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon after less than 48 hours.
I haven’t had a chance to go through all 142 pictures I took at the hospital, but I’ve posted a few that caught my eye (set, slideshow). More details and pictures to come as soon as I catch up on my sleep. :)
Cassie and I were married on May 25, 2002, or exactly five years ago today. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. Since then we’ve both earned two degrees and lived at four different locations in Oxford. (After this last move we promised each other we wouldn’t move again until we leave Oxford.)
Yes, we got married before either of us had finished our Bachelor’s degree. It was in between my Junior and Senior years and her Sophomore and Junior years. It worked out well for us, but it’s not something I recommend for most couples. For whatever reason my GPA skyrocketed after we got married. Come to think of it, I haven’t made anything other than an “A” since we got married. Talk about a good luck charm. :)
Unfortunately, we don’t have anything spectacular planned for our fifth anniversary. I suppose we’ve been too focused on Luke. I halfway expected to be in the hospital (or already home) today. I imagine we’ll find a nice place to eat and use the long weekend to rest up before the little guy gets here.
We share our anniversary with some interesting historical events. For instance, the Constitutional Convention was convened today in 1787, John T. Scopes was indicted of teaching evolution in a Tennessee classroom in 1925, Babe Ruth hit his last home run in 1935 (his record stood for 39 years), JFK announced his goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” in 1961, and the original Star Wars movie was released in only 32 theaters in 1977. Today is also Towel Day, a tribute to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Cassie originally had an appointment for Tuesday, but her doctor was out, so it was postponed until today. The good news is that she has progressed a little bit. The bad news is that her doctor is going out of town for over a week, starting in the morning. He gave her the choice of being induced today or trying to wait until he gets back. She decided to wait.
She has another appointment for Wednesday (with another doctor). If she hasn’t had Luke by Monday, June 4th, her doctor will induce her. However, she’s due on Tuesday, May 29th, so we expect she’ll have Luke before then.
Cassie’s first cousin, Mandy, gave birth to her little boy, Braxton, in Tuscumbia, Alabama today. She wasn’t actually due until June 4th, but her doctor decided to induce her this morning. If Cassie had decided to be induced today, their grandmother would have become a great-grandmother twice in one day.
We went to the doctor this morning, and Cassie is dilated 1cm. She’s 37 weeks as of today, which means Luke is “term.” In other words, if he were to come today, he wouldn’t be premature. I tried to get Cassie’s doctor to prognosticate based on the fact that she’s dilated 1cm, but he would only say Luke is likely to be born “sooner, rather than later.”
I hope he can hang in there for at least another week. We are supposed to move on Friday. Yes, I know, great timing.
Cassie’s last day of work was Friday. She’s glad to be done with that, but I think she already misses it a little. However, based on the experiences she’s had as a teacher, I’m not certain she’s ever going to teach again. We briefly discussed her going to school to become a nurse. She’ll have a little time to make that decision though. She’ll be staying home with Luke for at least a year, probably more.
With Luke’s arrival imminent, I suppose we should decide on a middle name. The default seems to be “Luke Benjamin,” though “Luke Alexander” has also been mentioned. I’m currently cruising Wikipedia for names of famous leaders, scientists, mathematicians, architects, etc. that work well with Luke. Any suggestions? Yes, “Luke Skywalker Pharr” has been suggested, but Cassie vetoed it. :)
Yes, I do have a good excuse for not posting lately. I’ve been working on my thesis pretty much non-stop. That’s what happens when you procrastinate. I took off from work all day Thursday and half a day on Friday. I’ve got to have a final draft to my advisor by first thing in the morning so I’ll have time to make changes and get it to my committee by Wednesday night. I’ve already been dreaming about all the things I can do once I get done with this thesis. It’ll be nice.
FYI, we went to the doctor last Tuesday, and Luke is still doing great. Cassie’s co-workers threw her a shower at school a couple of weeks ago, and our church in Belmont is having one today. (I have to go pick her up this afternoon.) By the way, we are registered at Toys R Us/Babies R Us and Wal-Mart. I think the Wal-Mart registry is pretty limited at this point. People have been good to us.
Ole Miss baseball stunk it up last weekend by losing two games to LSU, but they are making up for it this weekend. They have already taken two games from South Carolina. South Carolina is ranked in the top 5 in all the polls. We get the chance for the sweep this afternoon. More on that tomorrow hopefully.
Today Cassie went to the doctor for her 30 week checkup. Everything looked good. Only ten more weeks to go, give or take a couple of weeks. She goes back to the doctor in two weeks.
As the title suggests, we have more or less decided we’re going to call him Luke. Cassie is pushing for “Benjamin Luke,” but I’m trying to come up with something a little more original. I’ve suggested “Alexander Luke,” “Isaac Luke,” and “Philip Luke” but Cassie doesn’t like any of those. I’m open for suggestions. :)
One of Cassie’s friends got her a BeBeSounds Prenatal Heart Listener a few weeks ago. We had considered buying one earlier, but I decided it probably wouldn’t work. I was right. There’s a reason it only gets two stars on Amazon. We tried it a couple of nights ago, and we couldn’t hear anything except the occasion thump we he kicked at it. :) As it turns out it’s just a microphone with some headphones attached. The ones the doctors have actually use ultrasound, and are much more expensive. About $800 according to Cassie’s doctor. He told us he hadn’t had any luck with the cheap ones either.
Both Cassie’s fellow teachers and our church back in Belmont are throwing her a shower. We haven’t registered anywhere yet. I guess we should get on that.