We got Magda's Social Security card in the mail yesterday. It's strange seing her name (without the hachek, of course) on that little green card. It's not like she's going to be getting much out of it by the time she's retiring, but it does remind me that we better start saving for college (I have only memorized my SSN because UT used it as my student ID -- ah, the sweet, innocent days before the age of identity theft).

So now that my little tax deduction -- er, I mean "daughter" -- has her own Social Security Number, I think I'm starting to understand those sleepless nights. Or is it coincidence that the last three digits of her SSN are 666?

When Magdalena was born, the doctor beat me to the announcement that she was a girl, but I did manage to stop them from clamping her cord until it stopped pulsating. I then got to cut the cord. It was weird. In all the baby videos you see this thick, ropy thing and that's what I expected. Actually, by the time they hold it to you for cutting, the clamped cord section is empty of blood (I assume they do that to minimize the mess and parental freak-outs) and looks like some sort of semi-transparent, off-white latex hose. Cutting it felt that way, too and it took me a couple of tries to cut through (and brought back memories of a jelly-fish salad I once prepared for a Korean dinner).

The (empty) umbilical is totally alien. It's most striking where it attaches to the baby's belly button. It's like at the beginning in the Matrix (the first movie -- the one that didn't suck), where people are hooked up to all those hoses. The transition from the inanimate, plastic looking cord to the baby's soft, live skin looks very artificial.

Once they trim the cord, they apply some sort of purple drying agent to help it fall off more quickly and without getting infected. Over the next week or so the umbilical stump has to be cleaned regularly and kept dry while it shrivels down, and eventually falls off.

We did a good job of regularly swabbing it with alcohol and thus didn't get any bad smells -- at least not from that area. It's been hanging by a thread for the last couple of days and we successfully resisted any temptation to pick it.

Well, last night, Magdalena dropped her umbilical stump. I'm glad Jennifer warned me about it, otherwise I might have mistaken it for a roach or something while changing her in the middle of the night. This will make diapers changing easier and she'll get to have a proper bath in a couple of days when everything is nicely healed.

I don't think we'll be saving it (it's pretty grody) and Jennifer won't let me give it Homer to play with. So I guess it's going in the trash...

Magda manages to transform herself from a sweet little thing into a monster when it comes to night time.

Newborns are supposed to do basically three things: feed, poop and sleep. Magda does just fine with the first two, but is still working on the "sleep" one -- especially at night. I change her diapers, Jennifer feeds her (cringin with anticipation before Magda latches on) and during her feeding Magda falls asleep. Then I have to burp her, at which point she should fade away into a blissful slumber. Not so! During burping she wakes up and, even though I assume she's full, she wants to nurse again. And if she does fall asleep, she'll wake up while being swaddled or put in her crib, or shortly after that.

Saturday night was an especially bad. I hate seeing Jennifer all exhausted from being up and nursing pretty much continuously (or so it seemed). Last night was actually much better, so the hope is that we figure out what it takes to keep Magda asleep.

I'm jealous of Homer, because he blissfully sleeps by the bed while mom and dad are fussing with the baby throughout the night.

Scary Fact: According to the Mayo Clinic book, newborns spend about three hours a day crying. Ours tries to do this at night... We're still working on figuring out why she does it when the usual causes (hunger, wet diapers, gas) are not present. Apparently sometimes they just cry for no reason.

We haven't sent out annoucements yet (we're still working on the perfect picture) but congratulations have been pouring in. We even got a pre-birth card a while ago (thanks Cecily!).

My favorite wellwishes came via an email from my siter and her family. They always come up with the most creative family photos, and this one is no exception. They took it after Magda was born but before we had settled on a name and so they included their suggestions.

I've been hounded by friends and relatives about these, so while mom and baby took a nap today, I managed to upload some of the pictures we took over the last few days.

In Friday's pictures you can see what Jennifer looks like during labor -- all nice and relaxed.

From Saturday you get to see some of Magdalena's first photos. She was alert quite a bit of the time and already focusing on faces.

On Sunday we got to go home from the hospital. We enjoyed the support and advice we got there, but there's no place like home...

And today we took Magda on her first walk in the park to enjoy the beautiful weather and to give Homer a chance to run around.

We're back home from the hospital with a beautiful baby girl. Magdalena Anežka was born on Saturday October 9, at 7:01 AM. She weighed in at 6lbs 12oz (3 kg) and is 20.75" (53 cm) long. She's got a full head of long black hair and her mom's beautiful skin and big feet. We're hoping that she doesn't have my nose.

The birth was an amazing experience, most definitely for the mother, but for me as well. Hopefully I'll find the time to write about it and what it felt like when we finally got our girl.

We're very proud of our beautiful child and welcome our friends and family to drop by and say hello to her.

It's almost down to the wire. Jennifer has tried pretty much everything in getting into labor -- including, but not limited to: herbs, acupuncture, massage, chiropractor, spicy food of various ethnicities -- and still no go.

Today we had our "last" doctor's appointment. The next time we see her it'll be for giving birth, one way or another. Jennifer would have liked to postponed the inevitable, but there was no way the Dr. would go for that, so we decided not to press the issue.

I feel that there is a lack of trust between the doctor and us -- she has recently had bad experience with hypnobirthing parents and probably expects us to go all wacko on her. Apparently our hypnobirthing instructors are now on her shit list and she's on theirs -- and none of that has anything to do with us. We feel that she's sticking too rigidly to her protocol (like not going beyond 42 weeks) and that's going to taint our perception of her medical decisions. The sucky part is that both her and us are probably making a mountain out of a mole hill.

So Jfer's now about a week post term (she prefers this to "overdue") -- although, strictly speaking, she's at term for first-time moms who on average deliver 8 days past the (arbitrary?) 40 weeks. We're starting to get a bit antsy about having Junior make his or her move, since the Dr. doesn't want us to go more than 42 weeks. So we're exploring way to speed things up and we'll see how it goes.

Actually, we do not want Junior to show up today or tomorrow, since our Doula has another client who's water just broke. I assume Seasha will be available to us after the weekend, so a Monday or Tuesday arrival would be perfect. I'm kind of hoping for Tuesday for a couple of reasons. For one, October 5 is our wedding anniversary so this would leave one less date for me to remember and I'd have a present for Jennifer (or rather, vice versa). The other thing is that I picked October 5 in our book group birth-date pool, so I stand to make a $10 profit if Jfer holds out till then.