I’ll cut to the chase – in addition to the one above, you can see all of the pictures I’ve taken of Dustin so far here on Flickr.

There aren’t many, but we’ve been busy, as you’ll see…

Been a long, arduous few days at the Zazueta household. Danielle began laboring on Friday the 17th at about 2:30pm following our appointment with the doctor for a checkup. She was due on the 16th, so everything was pretty much on schedule.

The contractions were erratic, but roughly 3-4 minutes apart for about an hour come 11:00pm. We called Kaiser and they had us come in. They did a quickie triage checkup, and immediately noticed something was wrong – while measuring the contractions against the baby’s heartbeat, they noticed his heartbeat took a precipitous dive with each contraction. It immediately recovered, though, but they were still concerned and admitted us immediately.

Now, here was the plan: Danielle, God love her, wanted to do this completely naturally – no drugs, no interventions of any kind, just us breathing and pushing with the midwife. Until about a week or two ago, she was very gung ho about this (and those of you who know Danielle know that when I say “gung ho” I’m understating the situation). Then we read a book that, in essence, said that any delivery where the result is a happy healthy baby and a happy healthy mother is considered a success. This shifted her mind set in an amazing way, as you’ll see.

Danielle’s friend Claudia came to act as pseudo-doula and was a TREMENDOUS help to both of us. I watched with terror as every contraction resulted in another “decel” of the kid’s heartbeat, followed by a somewhat rapid return to normal. At some points, though, the decel went WAY too low and lasted FAR too long. We knew this was the case not only because of the lines on the monitor, but because every member of the nursing staff suddenly appeared in our room each time this happened, all them trying to portray an air of calm while furrowing their brows and trying to figure out what to do.

Danielle powered through each contraction with an amazing grace and focus. Claudia and I lead her in deep breathing and encouraged her on. She can take a hit like no one else I know – it was impressive AND scary to watch.

The first chip in our birth plan came when a nurse suggested that these decels could take a sudden turn for the worse and an emergency C-Section may be in order. Rather than get into a situation where they had to take time to put in an epidural before rushing to surgery, losing precious minutes, they suggested she get one pre-emptively. They said it may also release the pressure on the baby. They were pretty sure the decels were a result of cord compression and hoped that an epidural plus injecting more water into the amniotic sac may help things a bit. Reluctantly, a fiercely grunting, barely communicative Danielle nodded her head in agreement and the epidural was administered. Soon therafter, Danielle’s grunting gave way to laughter and conversation. As each contraction got stronger, as evidenced by the monitor, Claudia and I looked at Danielle asking her how she was feeling, recalling when the contractions were only have that strength and she was deep-breathing through them. “It feels like the tickle of a feather,” she said completely lucidly. Moral: epidurals rock. Ask for one where better drugs are sold.

Things continued on like this for a few hours. When we came in, she was about 4cm dilated. Ten hours later, she was still only 6cm dilated. The term “C-Section” began floating around a bit more often as the night progressed into mid-morning. Finally, sometime around 11am, the doctor on staff broke it to Danielle. “We’re not making ant progress, and I’m concerned that as your contractions increase, so will those decels we’re seeing in his heartbeat. We should do the C-Section.”

So the all-natural birth plan became a completely intervened birthplan, but Danielle – to her great credit – rolled right with the punches, repeating the mantra, “Healthy mom, healthy baby.” They wheeled her in to the OR to prep and gave me a set of surgical scrubs. When she was all prepped, they led me in. They placed a sheet between her top and bottom halves so we didn’t have to see what was happening below. Because of the epidural – amongst other drugs the “Candy Lady”, which was the name I gave to the anesthesiologist, crammed into her veins – Danielle felt nothing as they opened her up and began pulling out the baby. She was completely lucid and awake for the whole thing and the two of us bantered back and forthm cracking jokes and eliciting peals of laughter from the surgeons on the other side of the screen.

How glad was I that the screen was there? At one point, I stood up to look at something else in the room and my gaze grazed across my wife’s open body on the table. I was cool as a cucumber and actually kind of fascinated with the glimpse, but thought it best to not linger as my emotions were way overtaking my scientific curiosity, and I was doing so well vertical.

After a few tugs, we heard the surgeons cry “There’s the baby!” They rushed him over to the warming table and began cleaning him off and siphoning out the fluids in his lungs. Not long after, we heard his first cries, and he, in turn heard ours. They beckoned me over to take a look and cut the small bit of ceremonial cord left just for me. It was AWESOME. He looked like a cross between Dustin Hoffman and Mr. Magoo.

The surgeons told us that the decelerations in his heartbeat were due to the fact that cord was around his head. Had he been born the normal way, there’s a chance we would have had major complications. The C-section was the right call and he turned out just fine.

They took Danielle to the recovery ward and stitched her up and I went with Dustin to the Nursery for his first round of tests. I was able almost immediately to soothe him under the warming lamps as I counted – 10 fingers, 10 toes and one of those. All there!

The last couple of days have been hectic. Danielle got very little sleep the night before she went into labor and has probably had a grand total of five hours of sleep over the past four days. Her parents came in yesterday and relieved me long enough to go home and catch about five hours of sleep so I could come back for the night shift, but other than that I’ve only had sleep in very short fits and spurts.

This kid is beautiful and so, so sweet. I’m already beginning to recognize his cries and what they mean. He’s on a three-hour sleep, eat burp schedule with a necessary diaper change every two feedings or so. He cries juuust when these things start, but is otherwise quickly soothed. He’s spent much of the last three days sleeping on my chest, which has to be one of the top feelings in the world for me.

Mom, dad and baby are all home now – we were released at about 3pm today – and Tom and JoAnne are here making us dinner and helping us handle the kid so we can take a wee bit of R&R. Both Danielle and I are completely wasted, but we’re also giddily, stupidly happy. Nothing went as planned, but I don’t think either of us could be happier with how things went.

Rob Z.

Pity poor Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. On October 14th, he was just a guy struggling to get by who, seizing an opportunity to approach Barack Obama at a rally in an attempt to throw him off guard, asked essentially whether he would be affected by Obama’s tax plan if he were to buy the plumbing company he worked for. Obama admittedly flubbed the answer. If the company brings in $280,000 in profit then, yes, he will be taxed, and well he should – if you’re a small business clearing that much in profit, you no doubt received tax benefits and help and guidance from government-funded organizations like the SBA, and you should pay your due so that other business owners can attempt to attain the same dream (and, remember that I am a small business owner myself). If, however, the company brings in $280,000 in revenue, which is what I suspect, than it’s highly likely he’d actually see a tax break, since his adjusted gross income after expenses, payroll, etc. would most likely fall below the $250,000 cutoff Obama has lately been touting.

This flub gave the McCain camp an awesome opportunity to further muddy the issue and use this exchange as a way to promote his deeply flawed tax plan, which would do nothing to help Joe in his theoretically situation whatsoever. In theory, this was a good move – it put a human face on the tax question and allowed McCain a chance to pretend for a moment that he gives a crap about the middle class. Unfortunately, his decision to do so unfairly flashed an overly strong floodlight on Mr. Wurzelbacher – an average Joe not at all used to the fame and not at all prepared for it. Perhaps if McCain had conferred with him about it beforehand Mr. Wurzelbacher may have been better prepared. Instead, he was as shocked as anyone to hear his name mentioned no fewer that 21 times by the Republican candidate, five by the Democrat.

And now the media have a new darling. Only, it turns out he’s not so darling. Apparently, Joe the Plumber is, technically, not a licensed Plumber (but only in his county – he has his license with the state, apparently). In addition, he’s nowhere near being able to buy the company he works for. In fact, in the original discussion he had with Obama, he stated that he was considering it, which is like me saying I’m considering taking a trip to Spain sometime this year – possible, but currently unlikely. This, of course, has been blown into him being about to buy the company, being prepared to buy the company and, in some reports I read, having actually just bought the company. At $40,000 a year in salary, though, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to muster up the funds soon enough.

Besides, he owes about $1,200 in back taxes to the state of Ohio that needs to be paid first, as well as an additional $1,200 to St. Charles Mercy Hospital. The former debt has resulted in a lien on his home.

So Joe the Plumber, who, in a snarky moment, tried to land a gotcha on Obama, has now been thrust into the spotlight, and we’re seeing there ain’t pretty. We know about his liens, his salary, where he lives, the status of his license, what party he’s registered to vote for during the last several elections and who knows how much other minutia that just hasn’t been reported. When I worked for the Daily Cal, I did a lot of investigative reporting, spending tons of time digging through public documents. It’s astounding what you can learn about a person if you know where to look. Joe just got the full media bum rush – his whole life is being exposed on national news outlets all because he asked Obama a question, all because McCain is so out of touch with reality that he took no concern about how mentioning Joe by name during the debate would radically – and detrimentally – change his life. This is not the first time.

Remember way back in the first debate when McCain flaunted the bracelet he wore in remembrance of Matthew Stanley, a soldier killed in Iraq? Apparently, he whips this thing out all the time. No doubt there’s some pride in Stanley’s family when McCain “honors” their son by using him as a political prop, but has his honor of this young men really kept him from allowing more young men and women to die for a needless, fruitless, pointless war? During the first debate, we were alerted to the fact that Obama also wears such a bracelet. It’s the first time we’ve heard him talk about it because the mother who gave it to him to honor her son, Sgt. Ryan David Jopek, asked him not to use it as a political prop. And, granted, he did just that during the debate, but the mother who gave it to him understood the situation – that he was proving that McCain is not alone in caring about the soldiers fighting for us overseas – and was pleased with how it came off. In other words, Obama has not used Sgt. Jopek as a political pawn like McCain has used his bracelet since the beginning of his campaign.

McCain’s stunning disregard for the privacy of average citizens is alarming and devastating. The world now knows all about Joe and his tax problems. He has had his right to privacy trampled and been made into a public figure without his intent or consent. In a single daily news cycle, he went from the “winner of the debate” as McCain portrayed him this morning to a deadbeat who can’t even pay his bills. All Because McCain deliberately used him as a pawn and single-handedly abolished his anonymity in a cynical attempt to win this campaign at any cost without any regard to the consequences.

Why would you want to vote for someone like that?

Watching tonight’s debates, pay close attention to John McCain’s healthcare plan. In his own words:

• The average cost of healthcare per person is $5,800.
• He will provide $5,000 to each working person to choose their own healthcare plan.
• He will tax any healthcare benefits you receive from your employer.

Right now, companies are able to deduct from their taxes the cost of the healthcare they provide to their employees. This is unlikely to change. So, under McCain’s plan – and, again, this is in his own words – if you receive any benefits from your employer, you will be taxed on them, but John McCain will give you a $5,000 credit you can use to op out of your employer’s plan if you so choose, which means you’d avoid that tax. But, if the average cost of healthcare is $5,800 per person – which does not seem anecdotally true – that means each person who opts not to take their employer’s benefits will be required to pay an additional $800 out of pocket. In either case, we will pay more for our healthcare, period, while the companies we work for will continue to get a deduction for the little they provide. With the $5,000 credit, companies will no longer be required to insure up to 50% of their employees’ coverage and will not have the incentive to do so, which will force more of our workers into that $800 deficit.

This is dumb. McCain said this evening that most people would actually get more money because of his plan, but the math does not add up. I agree that access to healthcare is one of the hottest issues among working people. McCain’s solution is free clinics – seriously, listen to what he has said. Free clinics are a bottom rung, but absolutely necessary, form of healthcare that provides the bare minimum of services to those in the greatest need. John McCain would have all of us drop to this bottom rung if we can’t afford his costly plan. This is a very dangerous and stupid idea and should be proof enough that John McCain is not only out of touch with American issues, he is unfit to lead this nation.