New Kid In Town

As of June-16 7:34pm, the missus and I are officially parents. This 3.019kg bundle of joy called Lucas Elijah entered the world screaming and crying as the ob-gyn pulled him out of the missus' womb. Since we checked-in at the Asian Hospital in poshy Filinvest-Alabang, the husband was allowed in the op-room so I was privileged to be THE first relative to lay eyes on him. As the missus was welling with tears as she heard Lucas' cries, needless to say that I followed him with my trusty Canon 7megapix digicam from the missus to the glass-bassinet as the in-house pediatrician checked, measured, and weighed him for the tale-of-the-tape. Full video coverage, syempre.

It shouldn't be surprising that after being toweled dry, Lucas was as handsome as his father (wink wink). The missus points out the nose, the eye-sags, and the thick-hair as the features he inherited from me, while I can see the missus in Lucas' brown eyes.

Around 3am the next day the missus and I together with my sis were visited by him for a try at breastfeeding. Since there is still no breastmilk generated by the missus immediately after birth, you can imagine Lucas' frustration when he tries to suck but didn't get the intended output. His view on this issue? Cry, of course. Amazingly when he cries I would carry him from the missus and rock him gently from side to side and, voila, he stops crying. Di pa ako kumakanta nun ha.

We benefited greatly from his "every 3-4 hour" visits since we get to see (and smell!) him often. He smells like vanilla with a touch of pinipig (really!). No artificial flavoring, ika nga. Just all-natural baby smell.

My sis, armed with a film-type pro-camera, 2 digicams, 1 videocam, and 3 cam-phones could not help but just click and shoot away during these visits even as Lucas squints everytime he feels a flash coming on despite his eyes being closed. He may have a future in male modeling, hehe.

From the missus' family to mine, he is everybody's apple-of-the-eye. Ang pogi pogi't cuuuuuuuuuuuute daw. You only need to look at the parents, of course, as to why that is so. Hehe.

We were hoping to bring him home last Sunday but unfortunately he had a brief breath-holding episode ---5 seconds to be exact (I guess he was practicing deep meditation when the nurse spotted him). The pediatrician ran some tests and found that he may be suspect for some sort of infection. Thus he has to stay at the hospital for 5 more days (actually, 4 days left, and counting) with antibiotics injected to him twice a day (poor guy). He will be tested again on Friday morning so I hope it's negative so that he can go home to see his room (which has been recently renovated btw, sparklingly). Me and the missus had tears running on our faces as we said goodnight to our boy, and left for home.

I had to leave for Malaysia too so this morning I went by myself to the hospital to see him. He was just about to be injected for his morning medicine but I requested the nurses to postpone for a while as I needed to see and talk to him.

You may think I'm crazy but alone on that parent-area in the nursery with him, I was really talking to him: telling him how pogi he is, asking him to be strong and hopefully get out of this hospital by Friday, telling him to stop courting all the other baby girls in the nursery since there are more girls outside, and that airconditioning should not be a problem since his room in QC is equipped with it. Ahh yes, I also sang to him the chorus of "I'll Be" amidst the tears running on my face. It was really painful leaving him there. Well, hopefully he goes out by Friday so that he can see all his relatives (or vice-versa).

I took the video below using my N70 just before I left the hospital today for the airport. Like the missus, he likes it when I stroke his head gently as it relaxes him. Touch-therapy I guess. You can't help but agree, he's damn cute.