First Bath

Today Oliver had his very first real bath. No more sponge baths! Woo Hoo! Oliver seemed to really enjoy the water and the feeling of being clean (what a good little Novoa). The bath was so relaxing that he saw it fit to just fall asleep on the bath mat in the bathroom.

Oliver's New Wheels

This weekend Grandma and Grandpa were awesome enough to come up to Boston to babysit their grandson Saturday afternoon while the Moms went out to purchase Oliver a new car! Oliver gave us a list of features that we should look for like a roomy back seat for his car seat, a spacious cargo area to fit the pugs and all his baby stuff, a smooth comfortable ride, and a sweet sound system 'cause Ollie loves his jams. After a long deliberation the Moms decided the Honda CR-V EX-L fit all of Oliver's criteria. It was a long day and it was also the first time Oliver stayed home with someone other than his Moms. Grandma and Grandpa did an amazing job and took to his care like old pros.

Oliver also spent a little more quality time with Stella this weekend. They have really bonded and I think Stella is going to tattoo Oliver's name on her tail any day now.

Let's Play Dress Up

I'm not sure if you know, but part of the fun of having a baby is to be able to play dress up. Every little girls dream! So here are some of our recent attempts to play dress up with our little boy.

Here's Oliver with his Red Sox rally cap and his pre-Halloween outfit. All provided by Aunt Katie and Aunt Angie. The knee high socks were added as a throw back to an era when it was ok to look like a goof.

Oliver really loves his froggie outfit too. It keeps him nice a warm while still looking very stylish.

Brown and blue is the new black so of course Oliver had to have an outfit with a coordinating blanket.

Even when Oliver is asleep, he needs to look his best...but we don't actually have to do anything extra to make him look cute.

Visiting with Uncle Erik and Aunt Anna

Oliver really enjoyed meeting his Uncle Erik and Aunt Anna this past weekend. Erik and Anna had lots of conversations with him about his potential future in dance given the size of his feet. Greatness is certainly in Oliver's future.

Stella and Gizmo have also gotten very close with Oliver in the past few days. I think Stella feels that it's her duty to protect him.

A Visit with the Aunties

Little Oliver and his Mommies were lucky enough to get a visit from awesome Aunties on Friday night. Stacey, Suzanne, Ari, Kris and Tamar were sweet enough to schlep all the way to our house to make us an awesome dinner which included spectacular lasagna, a fantastic salad and some yummy bread. We also had an amazing dessert of vanilla ice cream with fruit and chocolate chip cookies with chocolate syrup. We totally felt spoiled but the company and the food were really appreciated. Oliver had a great time too being held by his many Aunties and getting initiated into our little lesbian world complete with baton routines and balance beam acts.

Thank you to all you lovely ladies who came over. Oliver is one lucky little man.

Sometimes You Can Have It All

Life with Oliver is simply awesome so far! He sleeps and eats at pretty regular intervals and has even given us a stretch of good sleeping hours at night. He has really proven himself to be a pretty sound sleeper. He can sleep through loud noises and even dog barking. I think Stella has taken a particular liking to him. I'm pretty sure they are going to be best friends any day now. Gizmo also likes him but seems indifferent to his existence so far. I'm sure that will change once he's old enough to drop food on the floor.

Planning is Overrated

On Wednesday September 24, 2008 at 12:44 am Oliver Cole Novoa was born...4 weeks early! It all started with Monday night football with the Jets vs. Charges game. It was 11 pm and Bret Favre had just made a really bad play when Jennifer turned to me and said "I feel a little strange" and then woooooosh, her water broke. She went running for the bathroom and quickly realized that this was not a joke...it was the real thing.

We called the hospital and they said to come in ASAP. At this point Jennifer wasn't having any contractions so we tried not to panic and pack our things. We hadn't packed for the hospital yet (we thought we had a couple of more weeks to get ready) so there was lots of scrambling bur fortunately I had a list printed of all the necessary items we would need at the hospital.

We hopped in the car and we were off. Fortunately because it was so late we didn't have to worry about Red Sox traffic so that helped me put my mind at ease.

At around 11:30 pm we checked in the labor and delivery floor at Beth Israel hospital and were admitted. Jennifer was still not having any contractions so the staff let us sleep through the night hoping that some contractions would start by 6 am. Well 6 am rolled by with no contractions. This posed a little bit of concern because after ones water breaks the doctors sort of want the baby to come out relatively soon because there is a chance of infection so they put a small pill on Jennifer's cervix to help it soften and help some contractions and dilation start. Light contractions did start within the hour but still no dilation. So a second pill was put in place but still no dilation. Finally at around 11 am we decided to step it up a little and go for the Petosin. We knew this was going to make the contractions even stronger but we were comfortable with this choice.

Jennifer was doing really fantastically dealing with the contractions. She used her hypnobirthing techniques which really helped her stay "in the zone." But by 12 pm when she still had not dilated and the contractions were just too strong for her to keep going we decided to go for the epidural. We really wanted to try and do this naturally but it got to be very challenging when Jennifer was in that much discomfort without any progress. Perhaps had the contractions started before her water broke we would be telling a very different story. But either way, we were happy with the choices we made.

So after the epidural was given Jennifer felt a lot better and concentrated on letting he cervix open. By 4 pm she was 7 cm dilated and by 8 pm she was 8 cm dilated. At 10:30 pm the doctor determined that she was 9 cm dialated with just a little more to go. Jennifer really concentrated with each contraction on opening her cervix and by 11:15 pm she gave the signal that she was ready to start pushing. By the time the doctors got ready and set everything up it was 11:45 pm and the pushing began.

Jennifer did an amazing job at pushing and within one hour pushed our little baby boy out and into this world. 5 lbs 3oz, 19 inches long. It was the most surreal experience I have had ever had and I have never been so proud of anyone in my whole life as I was of Jennifer. Seeing the birth of our son will go down as one of the best singular moments of our lives.

As if delivery wasn't exciting enough...because Oliver was under 36 weeks old (35 weeks and 5 days to be exact) he had to be observed by the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) for at least 24 hours. After he was born the NICU staff took Oliver for observation. All in all, he was doing really well for being born pre-term. He was breathing on his own and very responsive. All they needed him to do was hit some major milestones: eat consistently, maintain his body temperature, pass the jaundice test, and pass the car seat test. It took him about a day and a half to get acclimated and to finally start eating consistently but he was having trouble maintaining his body temp. By today he is able to eat very well, and his body temp maintenance is looking good. He did have slightly elevated test results for jaundice so he will be spending a few more days in the NICU and hopefully we will be taking him home by Tuesday.

So, it's been quite an eventful week! We really have to thank all our family and friends for all the great support they gave us while we were going through this. A special thank you to Katie for being the disseminator of info and for buying us groceries to help stock our fridge. And another special thank you to Jeff and Shawn for running to Babies R Us to pick up some last minute items that we hadn't purchased yet and for picking up some preemie cloths for our little boy to wear. Also, thank you to Danielle and Patri for taking care of the puppies during this entire week of baby drama. We appreciate everyone's help and it is a tremendous relief to know that Oliver will be surrounded by such loving and giving people. We feel very lucky and can't wait to introduce Oliver to everyone!