and we felt something heavy…DIARRHEA?
Last week was an eventful week.
We began to notice that Imanuel’s stools were quite watery.  My
mother was the first to bring it up.  (She’s been staying with us
to help nurse me back to health…it’s been the single greatest
blessing since the baby was born.)  We were all sitting in our
bedroom and the baby begins to strain and turn red in the face. 
Immediately following, we hear a gush of poop accompanied by
corresponding passage of gas from the intestine.  (Bro, that one
was for you.)   My
mom says, “Are you sure the baby doesn’t have diarrhea?”  I went
on a quest to find out if what my mom said was true.   The
descriptions were very similar to what the baby was experiencing. 
His stools were yellow, watery, and seeping into his diaper.  To
make matters worse, the information packet that the hospital gave us
said that if the newborn has watery stool to immediately call the
hospital.  I started praying. 
My mom suggested that we think through everything that might be causing
the baby’s diarrhea and see if the changes that we make, make things
better…so we went through the long list: 1) my diet  2) not
faithfully sterilizing the bottles  3) using filtered, not
distilled water  4) room temperature… and we began making
changes and anxiously waiting for Imanuel’s next stool.  They
continued to be watery.
My mom went through a series of potential solutions to his
diarrhea…some less conventional than others.  I’d rather not
mention some of the things we tried lest the doctor’s in our midst have
a cow.  I was on the verge of having an anxiety attack…partly
because of the diarrhea, and partly because of some of the things we
put the baby through to try to cure him “naturally”.
Anyhow, after much grief and many many prayers that went up on behalf
of the baby, it comes to find out that breast-fed babies tend to have
watery stool (more so than formula-fed) and he didn’t have diarrhea after all.  Oopsies, my bad.  Sorry, baby.

Baby asleep on his changing mat where we change his watery-poopie diapers.

The day after Imanuel Alexander was born, he had to do the Newborn
Screening Tests.  Basically, they had to poke his heel and they
drew enough blood to test for about 7 rare birth defects.  They
also drew blood to check his bilirubin levels to see if he was
jaundice.  About 60% of all newborns are jaundice but only for the
first few days.  Imanunel had border-line bilirubin levels so they
gave us what they call a bili-blanket which is artificial UV light to
help lower the levels.  The next few days, the baby continued to
look a bit yellow and so even after we were discharged from the
hospital, the very next day, we had to take the baby into our
pediatrician to get his heel poked again to draw blood to check his
levels.  The levels were still on the high side, so a couple days
later, we had to go in AGAIN and he had to get his heel poked. 
The baby was so traumatized from the pokes because not only do they
poke with a needle that looks like a flat screwdriver, they SQUEEZE and
SQUEEZE their poor little foot until they fill a tube with blood. 
Anyhow, at our last visit to the pediatrician (our third one already!),
which was this past week, the doc told us that his levels were
normalized and the baby didn’t look yellowish at all anymore.  My
parents weren’t at all nervous or worried.  They say that most
Asian babies are born like that and me and all of my siblings were born
jaundice, but with physiological jaundice, which is the kind that goes
away a few days after birth.  So anyway, here are some pictures of
the baby with the bili-blanket in the hospital and afterwards.

Me and baby (on the bili-blanket…but you can’t see it very well).

Here’s a better look.  His skin had to be directly on bili-blanket
during a lot of our stay at the hospital.  He didn’t like it very
much, and because Israel HAD to sleep with the baby every night we were
in the hospital and the gray cord didn’t stretch that far, Israel made
the executive family decision that the baby didn’t need the stupid
bili-blanket anyway.  (When he was with me, I made sure he was
laying on the bili.)

We nicknamed him our little “glow-worm”.

When we got home, each time the sun was out, we stripped IA and put him in the sun to help lower his bilirubin levels.
 
His poor feet/heels that were punctured more than 4 times in less than one week of life (2 on each foot)!

But at the end, everything turned out!  Israel was very excited about that.

But Bentley remains a bit sad that he has become #2.  “Will someone come over and play with me?”

So all you Asians out there…when you have children, don’t be too
worried if they think your baby might have jaundice.  Most likely,
it will be gone within a few days.  ^_^  Until next time, God
bless!

Hi everyone, it’s me.  I wanted to thank you all for your prayers and support!  I feel the love!  I’m recovering quite well.  The pain killers are so deceptive.  I am supposed to be at home resting and not doing any activity for 3 weeks.  Well, let’s just say that after going through labor, my standard of pain has dramatically changed.  I feel fine!  Israel and my in-laws are constantly yelling at me because I give in to the temptation of cleaning the house and doing chores when I should be in bed with my feet up.  My whole body was so incredibly swollen because I retained so much fluid from the IV.  After the C-section, we came home 3 days later and when I weighed myself then, I was the same weight as before I gave birth!!  That gives you an idea of how swollen and bloated I was.  Slowly the fluid and gas are exiting my system and I’m beginning to lose some weight.  So anyway, my point is that I’m really trying to rest so that I give my body the chance to recover completely. 

The entire delivery process was a big scare for me.  I did a lot of praying and pleading and asking God to give me strength to accept His will for me and for the baby.  I really thought the baby wouldn’t survive and it was a very scary experience…but God remains good!  I never thought I would love being a mom this much.

The first week was a blast for me.  The drugs were doing their magic, Imanuel changed so much in just 7 short days, and no kidding, it was literally a joy for me to wake up every 3-4 hours or so to feed and change the baby.  We’re in the process of getting the baby on a schedule and he’s getting some good sleep stretches during the night so that has been a blessing.  I love waking up and having family worship with the three of us.  It is so wonderful to be able to depend completely on God to help us raise this child.  It gives me such assurance that with God with us, we cannot fail. 

Well, I could go on forever about how amazing it is that we love our baby so much even though we just met him a few days ago.  He has really turned our world upside down.  We ask for your continued prayers and love as we attempt to raise one of God’s children despite our sinfulness and weaknesses.  It is our prayer that Imanuel will learn to grow into God’s image rather than our own.   

Now here are some pics that hopefully you will enjoy.

The first picture of the baby with his eyes open

The Ramos Guys with their pet Bentley

The Ramos Girls needing Ramos Guys to look good in pictures

IA saying “Nooooo” after finding out he needs to take a bath…check out his stomach [His umbilical cord hasn’t fallen off yet (as you can see)]

By night, IA is a superhero (Thanks John and Kendra for the “Ramosito” towel…I mean outfit)

Jacob and Judy K. sitting in Jacob’s box.  Jacob promises that he’ll get a car soon so that she’ll be more comfortable

I don’t know what to write for this caption…make something up for us.

IA is also a ninja…a Christian one.

That’s all for now!  Israel was responsible for the captions, if you haven’t guessed yet.  Take care and God bless!

Judy throwing down “soydream” during her last trimester — the nasty taste in her mouth had just gone away 🙂

 

Home potluck at Stephanie’s house … John Yoon is confused about picture taking (far left) and Justin is thinking about how good his smoothies taste (far right)

 

This is to make up for all the times I didn’t post up pictures of Judy’s pregnancy.  I don’t know how much she likes this shot, so don’t tell her we put it up 🙂

 

Snow in November…right by Thanksgiving day.  We tried to get a picture with all the animals but it was too hard.  Aroe is in the back trying to run away forever…but we caught him.

 

Speaking about Family Pictures with animals…here’s a better one…Chance is in the basement — he seems to like it down there more now.

 

Jacob (our nephew) loves CEC.  We’re hanging with him two days before the delivery.  My bro and his wife Evelyn hung out with us for a month or so to help out.

 

The night of the start of the delivery…Friday

 

We arrive at the hospital…this is our first of like 12 nurses.  We don’t know her name though…I think it was Jennifer.  I took no more pictures until the baby was born.

 

(Every professional photographer takes a picture kinda out of focus…it’s one of the latest fads)

 

Here’s our baby!

 

He’s trying to go to sleep, but people keep on taking pictures

 

He has a lot of hair.

 

Two of Judy’s best friends welcome her into the “Mommy Club”.  They are all teachers that taught at Ann Arbor Adventist Elm and will now be upgrading to Tupperware Parties twice a year (after Judy quits her job).  Julie Klein and Justina are next to Judy and Imanuel and Kerri Mendez and Juan ISRAEL Mendez are on the far right.

 

This is Judy and the baby right when they met.  Judy’s still getting over the medication they gave her for the operation.

 

I’m teaching the baby how to sleep.

Our first family picture taken by Daniel Mendez (family photographer).

 

Ending with pcitures of the baby…I think you all have seen enough (don’t want to be like those new camera happy parents that everyone talks about behind their backs)

I know that everyone has been waiting for the details.

Imanuel Alexander Ramos was born on March 4, 2006 at 10:18 p.m.

He weighed 7lbs 3ozs and was 21.75 inches long.

Labor was a bit complicated, but we appreciate the prayers of those who thought of us during the whole experience.

Judy went into early labor at about 1 p.m. on Friday–she was already 3cms dilated.  The doctor stripped her membranes to quicken the process.  She thought that she’d be able to see Judy on Saturday since the Dr. was on call that day. 

At 6 that evening, she started getting noticeable contractions in more frequent intervals and by 10:30 that night the contractions got pretty hard.  Not too long after that, we decided to head to the hospital.  We arrived at around midnight.

When we arrived, Judy had dilated to 6cms and had been in active labor a while.  We checked into our room and tried to get ready for what was ahead.  The contractions got harder and harder.  At around 5 a.m., I asked Judy to get an epidural.  I could tell that the contractions were getting unbearable.  I was able to convince her (she was wanting to go pain medication-free).  We realized later on that Judy had stayed dilated at 6cms for more than 5 hrs and still had a way to go. 

After the medication, Judy felt a little better.  At around 2 or 3 p.m. the baby’s heart stopped beating for 5 minutes, almost causing Judy to have an emergency C-Section.  The physicians and nurses had asked to assume various positions, causing the epidural to fail to work on Judy’s right side.  All the movement apparently caused the baby to fall into a position that weakened and stopped his heartbeat.  While in the OR, the baby’s heart started to work again.  We stayed in the OR for a while until Judy’s and the baby’s condition became stable. 

Just when we thought our complications were over, we realized that Judy had been dilated at 8cms for a long time and was not making progress as much as she should have been (I think women are supposed to dilated about a cm an hr.).  It wasn’t until 6 pm on Saturday evening that Judy had dilated to 10cms and was able to start pushing.  At that point, we called her parents to let them know that in no later than 3 hrs (we thought it’d take that long), Baby Ramos would be born.

After pushing for about 3 hours and not having a baby, the doctors decided that we would need a C-Section.  For some reason, the baby, being under so much stress, did not have the energy to help while Judy was pushing.  His heart rate at that time was going faster and faster.

We prepared ourselves for the operation.  As I was getting dressed with the scrubs, Judy was getting prepared by the doctors.  After about 15 minutes or so, the nurse came out and mentioned that I wouldn’t be able to go into the OR.  The epidural wasn’t working well on Judy (her right side) even though it was given to her in its fullest strength.  The doctors put her under general anesthesia for the operation.  The good news?  At 10:18, the kid was born.  To add to that, the Lakers beat the Pistons that evening and I was able to watch it while Judy came up out of her sleep.

Things are going well now.  We got in yesterday and are trying to catch up on rest.  We thank everyone for their prayers and ask that you continue to keep us in your thoughts.  We also want to thank everyone for bringing the baby and Judy gifts and flowers. 

As Judy continues to recover, we ask our eager visitors to hold off visitations for a while.  Judy needs time to recover properly and we all need time to get used to our newest addition to the family.  Thank you for understanding.

P.S. If anyone wants an birth announcement, please give us an address to send it to