Say Hello To Henry (cont'd)

"Henry": the name came to Terri at 3:30 AM on the day of his birth - between carefully induced contractions, 10 hours before his eventual arrival, and a full 18 hours from the time of our actual hospital admittance the day before. Before "Henry", Terri and I had settled on "Elliott", which had stood for the entire duration of the pregnancy, or at least the part of which we were comfortable discussing names. The reason for the change? Not clear, but at some point during the thousand agonizing years of that night, during one of the three staff changeovers we were witness to, Terri decided that "Elliott" was not a good match for what she imagined our new one to look like.

"Henry", she said, out of nowhere, over the monotonous low beeping and hissing of the heart-rate monitor. I think it was the first thing that had been said for hours.

The first image that came to mind was of Henri Richard, in dusty black and white, wearing soft brown leather gloves, helmet-less in his Habs jersey. The name was old-fashioned, but not pretentious; not terribly trendy or common (that I was aware of) and not ridiculous; it seemed like a comfortable name.

"Okay", I said, "I can call him the Pocket Rocket".

And that was that.

Lydia met Henry at about 4:30 that afternoon. Given her obsession with all things baby, everyone was pretty interested to see what her reaction would be when faced with a crying, chalky newborn. The answer: cautious, curious, generally subdued, possibly confused. I guess this wasn't entirely unexpected, given that her experiences with babies thus far have been limited to (i) hard plastic dolls that she can manhandle and mistreat, whose eyes close when you tilt their head, and whose clothes have been curiously absent for months now, (ii) photos and videos, and (iii) babies old enough to at least have the residual blood and vernix bathed off.

In the intervening days, we are happy to report that her interest level has certainly increased, both with Henry himself and all the toys and furniture and routines that follow. She talks about her "baby brother, Hen-ree", and this evening, even fed him breast milk from a bottle.

As for Henry himself - what can I say? Little Man is four days old. He sleeps. He cries. He eats like a champ. He looks remarkably similar to me as a newborn. UNFORTUNATELY, sometime during day three his faint newborn yellow-y complexion had turned to a full-on canary yellow. Thus, sigh, Mom and Henry are currently BACK at the IWK, frustrated and bathing in UV light, respectively. Nothing to worry about, but nothing to be too happy about at this juncture, either. In the meantime, Dad and Little Miss have been in full visitation mode, scheduled around a certain someone's nap schedule.

Hopefully we'll all be back at the homestead tomorrow - to weather the storm, through intermittent sleep and increased diaper duties.

Say hello to Henry: