I'm (finally) a Dad!

Well it finally happened. Today, after many days of waiting, I finally became a Dad!

Olafette Jr., otherwise known as Sophie Jade Marafioti was born on the 20th September 2007 at 6:18 pm. She weighed 7lb 15oz and was 52cm long.

She was 7 days overdue and my wife had to be induced to bring on the labour. Overall the labour went for almost 8 hours before baby Sophie was born via a natural delivery.

There were no major problems, apart from my wife not going into spontaneous labour. The midwives at the hospital were getting a bit concerned that she might have to be suctioned out after they couldn't seem to get the head to crown after an hour of pushing. A slight incision and some more pushing by my wife solved the issue though.

Overall baby Sophie is healthy and happy, as is my wife. I was slightly hoping for a boy over a girl but after she was born I was so happy that I didn't really care.

I was surprised by how alert she was and how little she cried straight after the birth. I guess we'll see if that continues in the next few weeks (I doubt it! ). I got to help give the little one her first bath and also got to put on my first nappy. I'm sure that's just the beginning of a whole lot of firsts for me.

I have attached a couple of photos so you can all see what she looks like. I am definitely biased but I don't think the photos do justice to how much of a little cutie she is.

The first photo is me holding baby Sophie (with my wife) after her first bath.

The second photo is my wife with Sophie just after she was born. She's still a little blue from the birth in this picture.

The third and fourth photos are Sophie just before and after her bath.

Olaf the Stout

Congrats Olaf.

Ya!! Time to get the girl some dice!!

Mazeltov!

Congratulations to the mom, the dad, and the muchkin!

May her days be blessed from here on it.

Congrats Olaf! Cute baby.

Seems like there's been a baby boom lately for some reason. I know a ton of people who are having or recently had babies.

Did you get to cut the cord? I know doctors are veering away from letting people do it but I guess I got lucky. I was surprised at how tough it was but I guess it makes sense to be tough considering it's the baby's lifeline for so long.

Welcome to fatherhood!
May your adventures through life be no less exciting than your adventures in gaming...
Trust me, gaming is much more tame (mine are both teenagers.)
She's a cutie!

BTW, isn't it amazing that no matter how cute they are after you get them cleaned up, before hand they look like little lizard children?

Bloosquig said:

Congrats Olaf! Cute baby.

Seems like there's been a baby boom lately for some reason. I know a ton of people who are having or recently had babies.

Did you get to cut the cord? I know doctors are veering away from letting people do it but I guess I got lucky. I was surprised at how tough it was but I guess it makes sense to be tough considering it's the baby's lifeline for so long.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I got to cut the cord. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I'm left-handed and have trouble using right-handed scissors to cut paper sometimes! I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to get through the cord.

On the umbilical cord, we discovered after the fact that we were lucky that there were no problems with the cord. It turns out that the umbilical cord is like a rope, with multiple strands woven together to make 1 stronger strand.

Somehow, about 20cm's from where it attached to the placenta, our baby's cord split into 3 separate (and much thinner) cords. We were extremely lucky that none of these 3 cords got caught up with the baby's body, either during birth, or while the baby was growing. The baby could have strangled itself or detached the cord from the placenta, putting the baby in a lot of danger.

Olaf the Stout

Olaf the Stout said:

On the umbilical cord, we discovered after the fact that we were lucky that there were no problems with the cord. It turns out that the umbilical cord is like a rope, with multiple strands woven together to make 1 stronger strand.

Somehow, about 20cm's from where it attached to the placenta, our baby's cord split into 3 separate (and much thinner) cords.

Click to expand...

interesting, that's a new one for me.... Glad it didn't turn out to be a problem.

Congrats! Fatherhood is great and now you have a little one you can turn into a nerd like the rest of us!

It's so weird to see she's born in the future from where I'm sitting (9/20 at 11:32am).

Good luck and good health!

Kahuna Burger said:

interesting, that's a new one for me.... Glad it didn't turn out to be a problem.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it was that uncommon that the midwife asked me to take a photo of it and send it to her so that she could have a record of it. None of the midwifes on duty had ever seen it happen before.

I'm very glad it didn't become a problem. I'm even glad that we didn't find out about it until after the birth. Otherwise that would have given my wife and I one more thing to worry about.

Olaf the Stout