Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of our friends and family a Merry Christmas.

All the amazing firsts

We have been quite busy over here, and Eliana has been especially busy experiencing a host of new things in a very short period of time. To begin with, even though we loved having her in our bed and cuddling her all night, we had to come to grips with the fact that she can't sleep in our bed forever (because our bed is a death trap). We moved Eliana into her crib in her very own nursery (well anyone who has been to out house knows there is not a ton of privacy in her room). She handled the move like a champ. She has been sleeping very well making us proud and sad at the same time. She is too independent too early for our taste.

Eliana wasn't done yet. She took her first bottle from her incredibly happy father this weekend and didn't seem to mind it at all. She is a world class eater and even though she loves her mommy, she seems to love the milk no matter the source.

In addition to the bottle she has dabbled with the pacifier. She is not quite sold on the pacifier just yet however.

And she wasn't done with firsts yet. Like the true Colorado native that she is we took her on her first tour of REI. She was unimpressed. What she was impressed with was our seating next to the brick oven in the pizza joint we ate at for lunch that day. All Denver parents should know that any baby will fall into a deep coma like sleep at the table closest to the kitchen at Proto's Pizza right next to the Wilderness Exchange.

Eliana celebrated her first Chanukah this week. She liked the lights but not her bib. This is the first of many embarrassing photos my dear - Christmas is just around the corner.

We also had another great photo shoot with our extremely talented, and available for hire, photographer and friend Stephanie Minior (the same Steph that took our maternity photos). The newborn shoot was a success, as you can see for yourself below. Here are some choice shots from the session.

In this last photo Eliana is laying on the blanket her grandma (Connie) made for her - the very same pattern she used for the blanket she made for Britt. For those of you that can't get enough of our precious little girl, here is a movie of all the photos our friend Steph took of Eliana a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

Thanks to all

Thanks to everyone who was able to join us and those that wished they could join us for Eliana's naming ceremony this weekend. You all made the naming a very special event for us. A special thanks to Kay and the rest of the Plotkin family for generously offering up their home for the event. Eliana has been soaking up all the time with family and friends. The outpouring of love has been so great and all three of us appreciate it.

Eliana has been up to so much these last two weeks and here is just a little taste of what she's been doing. She grows and develops so much each day. We hope you enjoy these few pictures.

Eliana and Britt have been spending a lot of time together. Britt is feeling much better these days and recovering very well from her c-section. Looks to me like Eliana loves her mom very much. It also looks like she wants to take a big bite out of her face.

She is so pretty in pink. Eliana and her dad already share a love of the hoodie.

Eliana's first bath.

koo koo kachoo

No more pictures please.

Stay tuned.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

Eliana's story

We are home from the hospital now and have had some more time to heal, rest and most importantly spend all of our time with lovely Eliana. Now that we have had some time to relax we can finally share the exciting story of Eliana's entry into the world.

The first signs of labor woke Britt up at about 5:30 AM Sunday, November 11th. At that point Britt was having contractions every 20 minutes or so. We patiently timed them for much of the morning until we were comfortable admitting to ourselves that Britt was indeed in the very early stages of labor.

Nervous and excited, we tried to carry on about our day. We read the paper, watched Meet the Press and cleaned the house. I need to stress the point that by mid to late morning the house was spotless. The significance of this point will become evident later in the story.

By the afternoon the contractions were coming every 15 minutes and were beginning to pick up in intensity. We still had a long way to go before we could even think about going to the hospital, but it was starting to ramp up. By 4:30 PM the contractions were no more frequent, but definitely more painful. It was at that time that a particularly powerful contraction caused a mighty wave. Britt's water broke and everything was about to shift into high gear.

Within 20 minutes after her water broke, Britt's contractions jumped from 1 every 15 minutes, to 1 every 3 minutes. Where is the transition we heard about? Britt tried to take a bath to manage the pain and to determine if this new pattern would persist. Indeed it did. It was about 5:15 or 5:30 that we packed up to go to the hospital.

Now, every doctor, birthing class instructor, and woman who has had a baby herself will tell you: "it's not like it is in the movies." I would like to amend that statement to include the following disclaimer: "except when it is exactly like it is in the movies."

After Britt's contractions started to come every 3 minutes I turned into Hugh Grant in Nine Months (yes its a terrible movie but the imagery is important here). We had our bags packed and ready to go, but I was an amped up idiot. I couldn't find anything, i started packing new bags, and I furiously started throwing everything I could into the car. I also slammed my finger in the car door. We (the royal we, it was all me) managed to completely destroy the house we had cleaned all day in a matter of minutes. It turns out it is not easy seeing your wife in pain. It wasn't until about half way to the hospital that I - not the one in labor mind you - finally started to calm down.

When we arrived at the hospital we found out that Britt was 4 centimeters dilated and progressing nicely. She labored in the room for a while before the nurses started to conduct tests and everything was going well (says the one who didn't have a single contraction, but the booboo on my finger hurt pretty bad). After every nurse in the maternity ward tried and failed to find a vein in Britt's arm, Britt decided to get in the jacuzzi to relax for a while. It wasn't until Britt was in the tub that a nurse anesthetist finally located a vein in Britt's wrist.

At about 6 centimeters Britt had passed her goal of laboring naturally through 5 centimeters and kindly asked for an epidural. I cannot stress enough how polite Britt was during labor. She apologized on more than a few occasions for burping and swearing. The epidural brought instant relief, however things were about to get interesting.

Not long after the epidural took effect the nurses started to look concerned. It turns out that each new contraction caused Eliana's heart rate to drop significantly. The nurses attempted to correct this problem by changing Britt's position regularly hoping whatever was causing Eliana's stress would subside. Nothing worked.

The doctor was called to our room and he said we were out of options and soon to be short on time. We needed to get Eliana out of there before here heart rate fell too low for too long. He recommended a c-section.

A c-section was obviously not in our birth plan, but it was medically necessary at this point and all we cared about was the health of our daughter. We consented to the c-section and we were rushed off to the operating room. The operating room is by definition controlled chaos. There were at least 10 doctors and nurses in the room and each was busily prepping Britt and their instruments for the procedure. Britt was numbed from the chest down and a curtain was drawn to prevent her from seeing the cutting that was taking place. The doctors were amazing, especially Murphy the nurse anesthetist who I credit completely with keeping Britt and I calm and focussed throughout the process.

At 11:59 PM, just one minute shy of her due date and less than 30 minutes after being told we needed a c-section, Eliana was born. Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and her lungs were full of meconium. After the doctors suctioned all the goop out of her lungs and an hour and a half in the transition nursery she was happy as a clam in her mothers arms.

We all spent three days, counting Sunday, at the hospital recovering. We are home now and we are a complete family. We spend our days staring at Eliana and wondering who this beautiful girl is going to be.

Just a few pictures

Okay we heard you all - you want pictures - so here are just a few. We are not up to much these days. Britt is healing up nicely and baby Eliana is just great. We probably wont be leaving the hospital for another day or two but we have really been loving the time together. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures.

Eliana Judith Wilkenfeld

I am very happy to announce the birth of our daughter, Eliana Judith Wilkenfeld. Eliana was born just one minute shy of her due date at 11:59 PM on November 11, 2012, and was 5 pounds 15 ounces (a real guppy by Skeens standards). She is just the most beautiful little girl in the world. There is a much longer story to tell about the details of her birth, but I will save that for another time. To sum it all up, she is amazing, she is healthy, Britt was incredible and we are now a happy little family.

I just want to say a quick thank you to all of our friends and family for the help, well wishes and the love we have felt throughout this process. We truly cannot wait to introduce you all to our little Eliana.

In the meantime...

We are really ready to welcome this kid into the world, but there are just no signs of labor yet. With the due date still a week away we thought we would share some great maternity photos our photographer friend Stephanie Minior took of us a couple of weeks ago (check out her website here http://stephanieminior.com/#).

Enjoy the pictures and we will be in touch with news (hopefully very) soon.

Home stretch

Well its October and that means we can officially say that the baby will be here next month. That's both scary and exciting for me and I think also a big relief for Britt who has told me unequivocally that the glow of pregnancy is gone. She is getting bigger and more uncomfortable by the day. Luckily we both agree that she is a very fetching pregnant lady. It is also hard to tell, but we think this last ultrasound photo shows a baby with Britt's nose and my lips. You can be the judge.

Both Britt and I are sorry to keep our fans waiting for the latest blogpost for such a long time, but it has been a very exciting few weeks. Without getting into too many details, we received some confusing and potentially scary news at our 28 week appointment. We found out that Britt was producing antibodies suggesting her blood (type O-) might be attacking the baby's blood, which at the time we assumed was most likely positive. After a couple weeks of worry, more tests and regular visits to a high risk OB-GYN we found out that both baby and Britt share RH- blood types and there is no need to worry. We still don't know why the blood test at 28 weeks showed the presence of antibodies, but we don't care about that much now that we know everything is looking good for Britt and the baby.

So with that out of the way we are excited as hell and Britt is nesting like it's an olympic event. We will be back with more updates soon.

Oh how far we've come...Hail to the Redskins

Remember this little thing?

It is nice from time to time to look back at just how far my lovely wife has progressed since we first received the great news. Britt waited for weeks for even the slightest sign that she was pregnant, and now there is no doubt. Long gone are the days when friends or strangers uncomfortably asked "are you pregnant?" No, we are well into basketball territory here and she looks beautiful.

It's Labor Day weekend and we are nearing the 7 month mark. It feels like the home stretch and the nesting, shopping, reading, studying, etc are revving into high gear. School is back in session and sadly that means Britt is growing accustomed to a lower level of service in the house. My wonderful summer hours are all over and it has been quite the busy start to the semester.

The end of summer also means the beginning of football season. This, it turns out, is not a non-controversial topic in this household. I know what you're thinking, Britt doesn't care about football. That is correct, but she is very worried about the psychological impact of me encouraging (forcing) our child to be a Redskins fan. So show some love for the home team people. Let Britt know that there are great lessons in rooting for a storied franchise (perennial loser). It's a character building exercise. It is also good training for a growing Democrat.

Where have we been?

Well the answer is we have been half way around the world and back. We are very sorry to have left all of you loyal followers in the lurch for so long, but it turns out we have had quite the busy conclusion to our summer.

Lets start with the baby and the baby mama. They are both doing great. Britt is once again showing no bounds to her anal-retentiveness and is growing at a textbook rate. The baby continues to seem very healthy although she is sitting sideways these days. Just like her mom she will move into the right position when she damn well feels like. Quit trying to rush her.

As a matter of fact the baby seems to be displaying some of Britt's ancient track skills. If our little girl's movements in-utero are any indication of what she is going to be like on the outside we are going to have a runner on our hands.

Britt is definitely in third trimester mode now. She has been very tired again lately and also has actual lava in her belly. She keeps calling it acid reflux but it sounds more like she is digesting molten rock. She is going to power through it though. We are both very excited to meet this little lady.

Britt and I also took her belly all the way to Israel with a lot of my family. We were very curious how Britt and her body would handle the travel, the heat and the grueling pace of a Wilkenfeld vacation. Britt was a huge trooper. She felt great while we were there and would like everyone to know that she made it six hours without peeing as we walked our way through the old city of Jerusalem. That shattered the previous record of maybe the length of an episode of Real Housewives of Wherever.

We stayed in Tel Aviv mostly this time around. We were in one of the older neighborhoods there and were within walking distance of the famous Carmel Shuk (fresh food market) and the beach. It was very hot the entire trip and we spent our days wandering the city and our evenings enjoying the beach. We made a quick trip up north to Caesaria, Haifa and Tzefat. Tzefat is a very neat place. It's one of the Kabalah centers in Israel (sorry no sighting of Madonna or those silly red bracelets). We arrived just in time to watch the city shut down for Shabat. While it was sad that we couldn't see more shops and galleries, I won't soon forget the smell of fresh Challah in the air as every bakery in town was rushing to bake bread for the families heading home for dinner.

We are safely back in the states now and I promise to be better updating this here blog.