Happy Birthday

At 10:00 p.m., after 13 1/2 hours of labor (only 20 minutes active labor), Danielle delivered our son, Thomas Elijah Pruitt. At birth he was 7 pounds 1 ounce / 20 inches long.

He's absolutely amazing. He's been so quiet. The one thing is... He has really big feet!!!

*NOTE: This post was published just after Elijah's birth, but was uploaded with an incorrect publish date.

Twitter Update

OK twitter seems to no longer updating on the site. See twitter.com/cpruitt

Twitter on Delivery Day

So tomorrow we're scheduled to be induced and deliver our son. Generally our tweets live in the Twitter section of the sidebar but tomorrow they'll be taking center stage (at least that's the plan... It's not so much working this second). The tweets will be posted as regular blog entries and perhaps I'll kick out the occasional short blog and photo from the WordPress app on my iPhone. The goal here really isn't to keep the masses informed, as much as it is to give ourselves a bit of a record of the day. So if things work well and the Twitter Powers cooperate, hopefully tomorrow will be a day that's fun to look back on.

Scrapbooking With Photoshop

Tonight I decided to give photoshop a try and created my first page for the baby's scrapbook:

Home stretch…

We had our weekly doctor visit this week and received some exciting news. The doctor could feel the baby's head and states he is VERY low and his head is in the perfect position for delivery. As of Thursday, I was 50% effaced but hadn't started dilating yet. He said my body was ready to go and I should start dilating anytime.

We spoke to him more about the induction. He's going to keep an eye on me and if he feels that my body is ready to deliver and needs a little push, he'll induce me somewhere between three days before and three days after my due date. Apparently there is a recommended dosage of pitocin that most doctors use but it's more than the body actually needs. He'll start me on a much lower dosage and will only increase it if my body needs it. If I'm given the pitocin and my body starts doing all the work on it's own, then he'll take me off the pitocin all together for a more natural birth. We're both very comfortable with everything now and trust our doctor with everything because he really is great.

I switched over to the heparin this morning. It looks a little intimidating... instead of pre-filled syringes we have to draw it out of the vile ourselves and the needle is slightly bigger but I'm happy to say that the medicine doesn't feel like liquid fire like the lovenox did. I'll be taking two injections a day from now until I go into labor.

Cliff and I are driving to Orlando today to pick up the dresser for the nursery. I know, driving such a long way sounds crazy but we haven't had much luck in finding a dresser in our price range so this seemed to be the best option. Besides, we enjoy car trips and look forward to spending some time together since this may be our last weekend before we're officially parents. By the end of the weekend the nursery should be pretty much finished. I'll post pictures as soon as they're available!

Thornhammer Merch

Danielle has always been irritated by my attempts to name our son Thornhammer, so I've decided that "Thornhammer" will now be his band. Like any good ex-rock-star knows, the secret to a stellar band is not musical talent, inspiration, determination, or even the "big break". No, the secret to an epic rock band is something far deeper and integral to the very soul of the band itself... merchandise.

To that end I've decided to give my son's career a massive jump start by creating this totally rad "Thornhammer" tee shirt, sized specifically for the 6 month old rocker.

True fans can download the desktop wallpaper too.

(Incidentally Danielle was far less excited about this than I was)

Belly Photos

Today my brother Matt came over and took some "Belly Photos" for us. I've got to go through and do some touch ups and such but here's one we did some playing with (some quick contrast changes and masking).

Heartbeat

Here's a little sample of our son's heartbeat @36 weeks.

He’s a comin’

Cliff and I went to our weekly doctors appointment today. I was hooked up to a heart monitor and the doctor says that the baby is perfectly healthy. After much poking and prodding, he also informed us that the baby has dropped into the pelvis and is in perfect position for birth.

Since I've been taking the Lovenox injections, the doctor is talking about inducing me 3 or 4 days before my due date. Apparently, the Lovenox must be stopped 2 weeks prior to the delivery to control bleeding (since it's a blood thinner). They will be switching me to another injection called Heprin which is supposed to be stopped 24 hours before delivery. We were pretty set on not being induced, but apparently the doctor would prefer to have things more controlled. He is supportive to our wishes though and understands if we do not want the induction as long as the pregnancy doesn't go past 40 weeks. We didn't have a whole lot of time to talk to the doctor today as Cliff had to get to work, but we will be talking with him more on the subject next week and will make our decision from there.

It's crazy to think that our little man is going to be with us in the next three weeks. I love to put it into perspective by thinking about where we were at just three weeks ago... New Years Day. He's going to be here so soon! I can't wait! I feel like a little kid anticipating Christmas, lol.

Baby Shower

We're posting the pictures from the baby shower on our photo site.

Click here to take a look.

Aunt Shari and Grandma Char flew down from Ohio to join us. We had a great time! For all of you that made it to the shower, thank you so much for giving your time and support! It was good to see so many people that have been dear to my heart over the years.