Home at last!

We finally made it home at 12:30 PM Monday, June 26th with a detour to the local grocery store (where I had my first bawling child in a public place; I had to smile...welcome to parenthood!). The last few days have been wonderful, as well as interesting. The best part has been holding Samara and witness her stare back, learning our faces, for minutes at a time. Returning to normalcy, or redefining normalcy, will be a welcoming journey, which will take time and work! Samara's first night at home was "stressful", to say the least. It seemed I was back at the hospital on the couch in Shana's room. Tonight should be better!?!? From an animal reaction standpoint, Orion disregarded Samara with little interest while Cassi stood on her hind legs watching with curiosity as Shana played with Samara on our bed. I've provided a few more photos of our last days at the hospital. I hope you enjoy them!

--Chris

Baby Neel!!

I hope this message finds everyone in great spirits! Before I post pictures of the baby and give background information on how we determined our baby's name, I'll tell you how everything has unfolded the last couple of days.

Shana and I were scheduled for an induction at noon, Wednesday, June 21st. We happened to arrive at the hospital at the same time as a couple we had met during one of our "birthing" classes in May; they were also scheduled for an induction at noon. We settled into our hospital room and found that our "neighbors" were the couple that we had met on the way in (the husband wanted to bet on which child would be delivered first!).

The doctor began the induction around 1:15 on Wednesday and Shana began to have contractions. Several hours later, she was examined and had dialated to 3 centimeters (sorry if details offend anyone). Several hours later (again), an examination revealed that nothing had changed; the doctor "broke the water" in hopes of speeding things up. Around 6 PM, Shana's contractions were becoming regular and intense (i.e. painful). Things were looking up; a later examination (around 7 PM) revealed Shana had dialated to 5 cm. Was the storm brewing?

Shana's contactions had become very painful and by 11 PM, Shana's status had not changed; still 5 cm. She decided to have an epidural! After the epidural, things slowed down and by the next morning, Shana was still dialated to 5 cm. The doctor decided to use another drug to push things along (a drug manufactured to simulated a chemical released during natural childbirths). By mid-morning on Thursday, June 22nd, Shana had dialated to 7 cm. Great! Oh, by the way, our neighbors (the couple we met on the way into the hospital) had their baby at 12:15 AM; I'm glad we didn't bet!

But, this was not to be! Shana stayed at 7 cm for two subsequent checkups; one at 1 PM and the other at 3:30 PM. By this time, she had been in labor for over 24 hours and hadn't had anything to eat for 26 hours. The doctor decided the time had come to perform a cesarean. At this point, I though I'd have a couple of hours to contemplate my wife being cut open and my daughter being pulled from her womb. Once again I was wrong. The nurse ran in and told the doctor that we were "on in 15 minutes"!!!!!

Wow! The doctors had the baby out within 15 minutes, and I filmed it! So, without further ado, here's our baby!

Shana and I would like to introduce you to (click on the pictures for a larger view):

Samara Ellen Niveh Neel

Pronunciation:

Samara: Sah-Mahr-Ah
Niveh: Nye-Vee

Born: June 22, 2006
Time: 5:08 PM
Weight: 9 lbs 4 oz
Length: 21 inches






































Origin of the name:

Samara (Sah-Mahr-Ah)

Deciding on a first name for our baby girl was not a hard decision. After sifting through the baby name book and short listing names, I looked through a list of place names on Mars. We quickly fell in love with the name Samara. Samara is the name of a small valley on Mars (Samara Vallis), which was derived from the ancient name for the modern Somme River in France. In addition, the name Samara has Middle Eastern origins (a town in Iraq named Samarra) and also has an Arabic background meaning "to talk in the evening" ot "to talk at night".

Ellen

Ellen was my grandmother's first name; however, she preferred to be called by her middle name, Elizabeth. The middle name of Samara's cousin Victoria (Tori for short) is Elizabeth. Therefore, the first two baby girls on my (Chris') side of the family have middle names that symbolize their great-grandmother, Ellen Elizabeth. I cherish the memories that I have of Shana and my grandmother "talking up a storm" and of us listening to my grandmother's stories. Shana cherished those times as well and insisted we use the name Ellen. The name Ellen is derived from the Greek root "ele", meaning "light", "torch", or "bright".

Niveh (Nye-Vee)

A tradition that begins with Samara, and hopefully continues with subsequent children, is completing the name of the child with a Native American name. Since Shana has Kiowa and Commanche heritage (1/4 Kiowa and 1/4 Comanche; plus a little Cherokee), we wanted to give the baby a Kiowa or Comanche name. Shana and I found a great baby name book that contained many Native American names, but not many Kiowa or Commanch girl names were included. We had several Native girl names pick out as well as variants of boy names that we really liked. But we were still a little disappointed that we didn't have a name of Kiowa or Comanche origins. Shana contacted her aunt Blanche (from her Native American side of the family) and she suggested several names, of which we chose Niveh. Niveh is a Comanche name meaning "little girl" and is also the name of a distant cousin.

Shana and I thank all of you for your support, love, and generosity! We hope you come see the three of us! We'll be posting more pictures soon! Oh, if you look at the pictures of her hair, notice the lighter toned highlights!!!

--Chris

Summer Solstice!

Shana and I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday, June 15th (Our due date was June 12th). While we were waiting to visit with our doctor, the nurse informed us that Dr. Yardley had been called to deliver a baby! Of course, it was not ours...stubborn child! In the doctor's absence, we saw the Nurse Practictioner, who later told us that nothing had changed (with Shana)!!! As a result, we have an induction scheduled for Wednesday, June 21st and will be arriving at the hospital around 12:00 mountain time. If the baby is born on the 21st, she will arrive on the Summer Solstice! But, for my sake, I hope the baby is born before the 21st because Shana is losing patience; and we all knowthe plethora of patience Shana has to begin with!

In the meantime, our families have been visiting and waiting for the baby's arrival. We took a trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park (hoping Shana would begin labor), which everyone enjoyed. We also visited several other local attractions to pass the time. Shana's family (minus her nephew, Sheldon, who will be with us until July) had only planned to stay 1 week and traveled back home on Saturday; my family plans to trek home a day or two after the birth. The last week has been fun and it was great to get both of our families together to celebrate this time in our lives. However, having 3 little kids running around, out of their element, was very interesting to experience.

If everyting goes according to plan, our child will be born during the Summer Solstice; the day with the most daylight hours. Here's to a clear day!

--Chris

Message from Shana

So we decided not to get the henna art done on my belly due to the expense. Therefore, Chris got the chance to play with his artistic skills. I was impressed! I like how the eye and mouth of the moon fit with the face of the sun. I practiced my patience and relaxation skills while he worked away at tickling my belly with the paint brush. Even funnier that the baby would not sit still for him. He had to paint with her moving back and forth across my belly. He kept telling her to stop, but she didn't listen.

We had another Dr's appointment on Thursday (6/8/06) and nothing had changed. Needless to say, we were a little disappointed. We were hoping for further progress with the possibility of labor occurring sooner than later. But they (the Dr's) say anything can happen anytime and there's no need to worry about what's going on for now. We scheduled an induction date for June 21, which would be 9 days after my due date. The Dr doesn't think I'll carry to this date, but it's good to go ahead and schedule just in case.

I've been having more frequent and stronger Braxton-hicks contractions and my hips have been aching and popping out of socket when I walk or go upstairs. These are good enough signs to let me know my body is gearing up. I make sure to go on a walk every day to keep in shape and help anything progress if it's happening (walking brings on stronger contractions).

Both of our families are coming up tomorrow. We are ecstatic that they can make it up! We plan to celebrate life and have a good time while they're here. We're hoping they can make a trip to Rocky Mtn Ntl Park and visit the mountains. You can't go to Colorado and not go see the mountains!

Gotta go for now. We'll keep you posted.

--Shana

Movin' Along!!!

Well, everything is movin' along! We had an appointment with the doctor last Friday and she indicated that Shana was dialated to 1 cm. Since the doctor's appointment, we've noticed telltale signs that everything is progressing well (I won't go into details). Shana predicts that Baby will be here on Wednesday; however, I believe that is a bit optimistic! I predicted a week late, but have been told that if I repeat this prediction, I will be slapped!

We're also preparing for our families to arrive next Saturday, June 10th. In preparation, Shana steam vacuumed the house on Sunday!!! I know what you're thinking; bad husband! I told her that I would get to it this week...but, you know Shana, impatient! Sheldon, Shana's nephew, will be staying with us for a few more weeks after our families have gone home; helping out and having fun. We're planning a week-long trip back to Oklahoma sometime during the beginning of July, bringing Sheldon home and visiting with family and friends.

I'll try to keep everyone updated in the next few days...

--Chris

Listen to the Sound of Time Rushing By!

I have finally finished teaching the Geology 2700 Intro Field Course and am taking a little time to catch my breathe. From a personal experience, being out on the "outcrop" was invigorating as well as challenging from a standpoint of teaching predominantly non-majors how to interpret the "rocks". Several of the students were very impressive; including a political science major. I've provided some spectacular imagery from the numerous field exercises. The image on the top is from a location 1 mile south of campus in Boulder Open Space, basically public hiking trails (for the geologists, the students eventually measured the rock thicknesses here using various techniques). The image on the bottom is Settler's Park (Boulder Open Space) with the Lyons Sandstone forming the "fin" on the left. If you look closely in the background, portions of Boulder and the campus can be seen. An interesting story that I found humorous: Apparently, Settler's Park was the location of the first settlement of "white-folk" in the area, which had been designated as tribal land. As we all know, this didn't matter much!

Shana and I are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby girl!! Patiently, we're in the day-to-day routine where anything could happen. Motivation to accomplish anything significant is at an all-time low as we anticipate the day "things" kick into high gear! However, we did achieve a significant accomplishment within the last couple of days! We have decided on a name for our girl, with a 99% certainty!! We're stoked...but you'll have to wait awhile!! We're waiting to tell the world her name; an accomplishment and culmination of our lives!!!

On a sadder note, one of my cousins passed away yesterday from unknown causes; he was 35 years old. He was someone I "played" with as a child, and later, worked with on the farm during the hot Oklahoma summers. In recent days, I have been reading the last few chapters of a biography written about Carl Sagan (one of my childhood "heros"). Of course, the last chapter describes the last few months of his life before he died from pneumonia caused by cancer. For me, life has been put in perspective (once again) knowing that I will have helped a little girl inhale her first deep breathes of fresh air. An amazing feeling! Here's to the next generation!

I hope this message finds you all in great health and good spirits!

--Chris