Janie

posted by Alan
click on pictures to see them full size

Ok, so this was a pretty big week. I made a big trade for my fantasy basketball team (I actually traded away Blake Griffin), Lebron played in Cleveland for the first time since he left for Miami and my cousin George also came to visit us in Shanghai for the first time. Oh yeah, and also the birth of our first child.

Jane Nancy Gong

20 inches, 7.1 lbs - December 2, 2010
Thursday morning (China time) at about 8:30AM, Daisy casually woke me up and told me her water broke. She went to shower, I kept sleeping and about an hour later, we were on our way to the hospital. We were actually going to take the subway, but there was a taxi right outside, so we just jumped in it instead. Our room was all set up for us, so we made ourselves comfortable and basically waited for 8 hours. The calm before the storm.

We have international insurance, which allows us to go to an international hospital. Really nice facilities, only about 10 minutes away from our apartment. Its called Parkway Health and they have branches all around Shanghai. Our doctor is American, as are many of the doctors there. We had our own room, where Daisy would deliver and the baby would stay with us for three nights until we check out.




11 hours from when we checked in, we had our little baby daughter (6:40AM New York time). Daisy opted for natural childbirth, which meant no pain numbing drugs and there was some serious pain. I asked her if it was as bad as when I stubbed my toe really hard the other day. She didn't seem to find that funny. I think I'm never allowed to complain about any kind of pain in front of her for the rest of our lives.



A few notes from my first three days of fatherhood:
- I'm freakin exhausted. But you knew that already.
- My wife is tougher than I am. Some of you knew that already too.
- Invest in one of those yoga/exercise balls immediately. Strengthen your core and quiet your baby.
- Yes, she did all the work, but hospitals seem to ignore the fact that men need to eat too. Where are OUR complimentary meals?
- That being said, awesome, loving visitors (25 in 2 days!) is good. Awesome, loving visitors with food is even better.
- Pick a hospital with wifi. Seems insignificant, but you'll appreciate it.
- My thought process once Janie falls asleep: "Do I check espn.com, read emails, check Facebook, go to the bathroom or get some much needed sleep myself? How can I do that all at once? HOW!?"

Anyway, Janie is starting to get used to being outside of Daisy. I'll keep updating on here for sure, but I'll try not to make it a Baby Blog. But naturally, this website is about our life here and that life just got a little bit bigger.




Response to comments:
Corinna - Yeah, I go to the Will's at Shanghai Stadium. I have no complaints about it at all actually. It's less crowded than Zhongshan Park though.
Cheryl - Yeah, GAP seems to be doing well here. Most of Daisy's maternity clothes came from home in the US. But taobao does have everything...
Kevin - Three weeks became two weeks. There are plenty of mirrors at the gym. But I don't need to check out my glutes, I can just feel them.
Angela - THANKS!