I know it’s Sunday only because the clock on my computer is telling me it’s Sunday. Things have gone pretty much as we expected them to. We took “Child Preparedness” classes and spent the last month or so watching A Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby on TLC. And we weren’t completely clueless to begin with.

Baby does the following and only the following: sleeps, pees, poops, feeds, cries. That’s it. You’re on his schedule and not the other way around. I think most people know this beforehand but it is hard to understand the impact it will have on you. Sleep is a luxury. Eating is a necessity, but the quality of the food is a luxury. You eat what you can, when you can.

We’re stuck in the hospital for at least another day. Maybe two. The room is tiny and with my cot folded out there is barely room to move around in it. Sitting on a cot doesn’t provide much back support. We’re both feeling the pain in our lower backs. It’s overcast so there isn’t much light coming through the window. With little interaction with the outside world, the odd hours we’re keeping, and the lack of sunlight, it’s really hard to keep track of the time…or even the day.

When Ashton smiles the whole world lights up, but at two days old, he mostly just stares at me or sleeps. When he sleeps one of us sleeps too. He’s having a lot of problems with gas, so he cries and screams through most of the night. It’s hard to take a turn sleeping when he is screaming. Not because of the noise but he’s suffering and you don’t want him to suffer.

We’ve posted some more pictures to Flickr and we’ll continue to post pictures there as we take them. (The updated iPhoto plugin lets us go from camera to Flickr in two quick steps–which is nice.)

I’ll try to post again later.

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Hey Everybody,

It’s been a long day. Karina’s contractions started last night. Around 3:30 AM this morning they reached a point where we could get admitted to the hospital. Things were going well for a little while but then the labor stalled. And stalled. And stalled. The doctor tried to jumpstart things with Potocin but it just wasn’t happening. A little after two the decision was made to do a C-Section.

Little Ashton was born at 3:11 PM CST.

He weighs 7lbs 11oz, is 19.5″ long, and has a 14″ diameter head. With that head the C-section was a foregone conclusion but none of us knew that at the time.

We’ve had a chance to take some photos and you can see those here.

We’re going to try to get a little bit of sleep now.

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We were admitted to Seton Hospital about 30 minutes ago. Karina has been having contractions non-stop for days now but they finally met the 5-1-1 rule: five minutes apart, one minute in duration, and consistent for at least an hour. Today, Baby Clussman will be parolled.

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I’m going to start pointing everybody to this space for updates, especially the non-update updates, which is what this is: baby still isn’t here. Karina has continued to have contractions all day but they’re still not consistent. The birthing ball seems to be working wonders–she gets a contraction five seconds after she sits on it. We’re also going for walks and trying other ideas to help jumpstart active labor.

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There is some irony that Karina is finally ready for Baby to come out and now he’s the one who isn’t cooperating. I’m convinced that, up until now, she’s kept her legs tightly crossed and was busy summoning all of her willpower to keep him locked away until she was ready for him. Baby was a prisoner in her womb. I’m sure of it!

Monday she started getting contractions at around 9 AM. They were stronger than the ones she had all last week, more consistent, and the pain from them went from her back through to the rest of her body. The contractions lasted all day and into the night. It was okay though because she was finally ready.

We went to the doctor’s office at 1 PM but there were no doctors. They were all off delivering babies. There were no nurse practitioners. They were all off delivering babies. In fact, there was nobody to do an exam. The nurses hooked Karina up to a fetal monitor and recorded the contractions and baby’s heartrate then sent us home. We were to report back a few hours later. Then again today.

After all those trips back and forth, the verdict is in: the prisoner will not be parolled. Karina hasn’t progressed at all since our appointment last Thursday.

Neither of us have slept much the last two days. We’re both tired and a little frustrated, but we know we’re going to be a lot more tired once baby arrives. Hopefully we’ll get some sleep tonight. The excitement and worry both wore off a bit with the news that today was not going to be the day.

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This weekend I’m misssing my favorite event: SXSWi. I start looking forward to the next one the day the current one ends and I usually have more fun during those four or five days than I do when Karina and I go on vacation.

But I’m missing it for a very good reason: Karina is due any day now and it turns out there are a (very) few things that are more important than south-by.

To all of our friends who are in town: we both want to say ‘hi’. Even though we probably won’t see any of you, we will think of all of you with envy for the next four days. Enjoy south-by and send us the cliff notes! (If you have my cell or email, drop me a line — I am hoping to make it downtown for an hour or two tomorrow if we’re not in the hospital.)

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