It's been over a month since the last time I sat down at the computer to do this. And perhaps the best way to think about the last month is before, during, and after.
In the beforetimes, I was mostly doing little work projects. The main one was doing class prep for the Fall. I'm only teaching two classes in the upcoming semester, so my workload is about half of what it would typically be (FMLA and having a lot of accrued sick days is a real privilege).
My first class is my new MATH 125 (Math of Games and Programming) course. I didn't make as much progress as I had wanted in the beforetimes, but I've got about 2/3 of the class worked out and that's going to have to be good enough.
My second class is ART 240 (3D Modeling for 3D printing). This is a class I've now taught maybe 5-6 times before, and even though it's been through some iterations (including this most recent one) and so is always different, the core of the class at this point is set, and it's a pretty easy prep for me. This time around, there is going to be a larger emphasis on projects and applications. I did a little bit of printing of objects for the class, but I'm almost certainly going to have to print some more as we get closer to the start of the semester.
Speaking of 3D printing, while it didn't happen this summer, there's a chance that next summer I'll be helping to run week-long classes on 3D printing for middle school students. The campus has developed a STEAM summer camp program and I think the 3D printing fits right in. I didn't do anything this summer for obvious* reasons. (*If it's not obvious, keep reading.) But it sounds like they've got someone doing robotics and someone doing Arduino programming, and so this feels like a very natural thing. There is even the possibility of expanding on it to do some sort of collaboration.
Another project that has been moving along for a while is the Test Tube Suspender patent and product. We got the Canadian patent to go through (#3099953) in addition to the US patent that we already have. We also have the Mexican and EU patents moving forward (I think). But more importantly, we've got the product actually up for sale on Amazon. Admittedly, we haven't really worked out the SEO stuff and so we're not really expecting it to come up on searches. But the Amazon store listing exists, and that's an important next step for proving market viability of the product. From here, we still have to get the word out, and if things go well we will try to license the IP to some manufacturer (because we don't want to do this ourselves).
We had some money to spend on some electronics stuff, and so I spent a morning going through and looking for useful things to get. This is one of those things where I'm looking forward to having some time (eventually) to play around with electronics some more and see what sorts of things I'm able to create. I've really been pushing for there to be more programming and such on campus, and having a few things that we can use to demonstrate things we can do would be helpful. There's a part of me that's really gunning for a tabletop arcade machine running MAME and possibly running simpler games that we have had students develop. It's going to take a bit of time to put that all together, but there's really no time limit to that.
And now it's time to talk about the duringtimes. Joan and I went to the hospital on the evening of June 12. Then some stuff happened, and Hannah was born on the evening of June 13 via natural childbirth. This is one of those things where the potential for TMI is extremely evident, and so I'm just going to sidestep the whole thing and just say that Joan did an amazing job.
We got to spend the first 36 hours together in recovery in the hospital, but the situation changed rather quickly. Hannah had ABO Incompatibility. The quick explanation is that Joan's blood (type O) has antibodies that break down the other blood types, and those antibodies got into Hannah's body through the placenta and started to break down her blood. This results in the creation of bilirubin, which is a yellowish compound that is responsible for jaundice. The idea of a baby's blood being broken down is scary, and it used to be one of the more common causes of infant mortality. But it's less scary these days because there are both effective methods for identifying and treating it. That said, it's not not scary. The levels of bilirubin were high enough that it turned into a trip to the NICU at around 36 hours, and she stayed there for about 5 days. (She was in the "high risk" part of this chart after 24 hours, and the in-room Biliblanket was not effective at that time.)
The NICU is an interesting place. Visitors need to do a 3-minute scrub, and there's literally a timer that you set to ensure that you wash for the full 3 minutes. They even have special single-use sanitized sponges that you're supposed to use. And you wash all the way up to just below your elbows. And you do this every time you enter the NICU. We visited at least twice a day while she was in there, which meant that there were at least 10 times that I did the wash. I didn't mind doing it (though the back of my hands are pretty dried and cracked from it), but I do have questions about the efficacy of it. The idea of maintaining a very sterile environment is a good thing, but I don't know that this process is the most effective way to achieve that. But I digress.
The treatment for the high levels of jaundice that Hannah had is basically to eat a lot of food (which leads to to pooping and peeing out the bilirubin) and sitting under a special light all day. So there wasn't a lot for us to do while she was in the NICU (though after the levels started to fall, we were able to hold her and feed her for a bit). The good news is that things stabilized pretty quickly after getting her in, and the levels started to drop after that. It went from a full strength double-light to a single light, to no light to ensure that there was no rebound. At this point, given that the proposed cause of the jaundice was ABO incompatibility and the antibodies from Joan should all be gone by now, there is no reason to suspect any ongoing issues with this. Hannah was discharged from the NICU on June 19.
And that brings us to the aftertimes. It's been a week since Hannah came home. And I'll start by saying that I can't really believe that a week has already passed, but that's at least partly explained by how disrupted sleep makes things fuzzy in my brain. At this time, I don't think any part of this experience is unusual. There are late night feedings and diaper changes, the confusion of not knowing why the baby is crying and struggling to soothe her, the pleasure of holding the baby as she falls asleep on my lap or in my arms, the sadness of realizing that I can't successfully move her into the bassinet without waking her up... It's just the whole process of getting to know a person.
At this point, I think we're starting to see the outlines of a routine. In the last couple days, we've been in a position that I actually started to have some free time again (FYI - I don't count naps as free time) and that signals to me that life is starting to normalize a bit. But things are going to continue shifting for a while and I'm really glad that this is happening in the summer and not in the middle of the semester. It would be immensely more difficult to juggle this while also teaching. The break allows me to stay at home all day, which feels like the best possible situation. It has made this time so much more relaxing and enjoyable than it otherwise could have been. I'm also grateful for the friends and family that have sent food and gifts and all sorts of things that have made this experience not as difficult.
I've been thinking a lot about what a social media policy for the baby might look like. I already started with a fairly conservative perspective by not really posting a lot about the pregnancy and that whole part of the journey. I know there are lots of family and friends that would want to see pictures and that sort of thing, and that there may be a lot of cute/funny pictures and anecdotes and things that could be shared over time. But I'm also wary of those things existing out in the wild without her ability to consent to any of it. I don't know what type of digital footprint I would want her to have as she grows up. I'm much less worried about text than I am about pictures. And so for the time being, I'm not going to post photos on Facebook. I'll probably say some words in these posts, but it won't be a minute-by-minute recap of all that happened. But with that said, if family or friends want to see some pictures I don't have any objection to sending them out individually. Just send me a DM or text message.
Thor has been handling the transition okay. He generally keeps his distance from the baby, mostly because she cries loudly and Thor is skittish. But when she's sleeping in my arms, he sometimes feel okay with coming by and sitting in my lap. When I'm on the couch and she's not around, he definitely wants to curl up and get some attention. This desire is probably amplified by the fact that he's being locked out of the bedroom at night (at least for the time being, though there's no particular plan to let start letting him in). He has his annual physical coming up in the next couple weeks, and I'm not looking forward to trying to get him into the crate.
And now the other stuff: Piano is being played a little bit, but nothing that would really start to approach actual practicing. It's more like just plunking around for a couple minutes. The YouTube channel has reached 1500 subscribers. The weather has been uncharacteristically cool (which isn't to say that it's actually been cool). I've got a bunch of boxes in the garage from all the stuff we've been receiving that need to be processed into smaller pieces for future random projects. I've had Guile's Theme from Street Fighter 2 running through my head as an ear worm for the last several days. Fortunately, I'm amused by the Guile's Theme goes with everything meme, and so having that playing while I change diapers isn't the worst thing in the world. And it's time for bed.
