Justin came home from the ICN this past Monday! he was in the hospital for ninety-three days after being born. his original due date was this past Friday – August 14th.

we have kept a low profile, getting settled in to having him home. Carrie and i are both very excited, relieved, and anxious. but mostly excited. it’s not as scary as i had expected, as we’ve* been taking care of his day-to-day needs in the hospital for months now. (*okay, Carrie’s been doing most of it since i have been working)

he’s doing quite well at home. he gets two visits each week from a Visiting Nurse to check him out, weigh him, and make sure he’s okay. they’ll be coming by for the next 3-4 weeks.

the only piece of equipment he’s still hooked up to is a portable pulse oximeter that lets us keep an eye on his Oxygen saturation while he eats. he’s generally been great about that, however, making sure to breathe and stop to take a break if he needs it.

Justin’s been to see his new pediatrician already, and will go back to see them again next week. Justin also has an ophthalmologist appointment back up at Dartmouth this week, to track how his eyes are developing.

i want to take some time, again, to express our deepest gratitude for everyone who has been following along, and offering your thoughts, prayers, and assistance. you have all been incredible in supporting us and we look forward to sharing with you the joy we experience while raising our son!

at the beginning of 2009, we thought differently about August.

it seemed so far away. and i envisioned being the worried father-to-be, bag packed and placed strategically by the door. responding to my wife’s every twinge with great anticipation.

well, it didn’t turn out exactly that way. while most of the past twelve weeks has been about worrying, it’s now being replaced by anticipation – we are in a countdown until Justin can come home.

Carrie has been staying up at Dartmouth for the past two weeks, working all day, every day, on getting him to be able to nurse. he’s also gotten consistently better with Oxygen – they only give him any if he needs it while eating.

and as of this writing, his weight is up to 2,915 grams, or six pounds, seven ounces (almost 1/2 stone, to our friends in England). all this of course is rambling, the pictures speak for his progress far better than i could.

for some football? no. not quite.

we’re within a month of Justin’s original due date. while everyone else would have been preparing the nursery, assembling the crib, buying cute outfits, stocking up on diapers… we’ve been driving. and trying to cram in preparations around the trips, and the occasional web development (roof over his head? yeah that’s a requirement for bringing him home).

our ‘days off’ have been a point of interest. someone joked with me “we never got ‘days off’ when we had our kids.” my bitter, internal reply was – you had 14 weeks off from being parents that we never got. of course, am i the type who would have taken that time and been super-organized, gotten all ducks into a row, and been as prepared as i possibly could be for week 40? probably not. okay, definitely not. so i can’t justify that bitterness.

today i found myself summing it up: there are people who have had an easier time than us. and as we’ve seen with other parents in the ICN, there are people who are having much greater challenges. they’ve gotten the news that we’ve prayed to never get. and i can’t even begin to imagine how i would deal with that.

not even regarding what Justin himself has been through in his short life so far. he already has his old man far outnumbered in IVs, intubations, and blood transfusions. all i have to do is make websites and (get ready to) change (lots of) diapers.

so i will take my lemons and go squeeze them into a glass. and with the help, prayers, and support of our incredibly gracious network of family and friends, the lemonade doesn’t taste that sour. and when i look at my son, and i see the innocence and wonderment in his eyes as he experiences this world for the very first time, it actually tastes pretty sweet.

so on top of everything else going on in my life, i got the itch to redesign my blog. it’s been a while. the new design is something i’ve had rattling around in my brain for a while, and i finally took a bit of time to bring it all together.

this is the eighth design iteration for my website, starting from it’s humble beginnings in 1996.

i had originally intended to design my own paisley for the background. paisleys are something i’ve been obsessed with for a number of years as well (the things you’re learning about me!). but i’ve found that while i think i’m a pretty competent developer, and and adequate designer, i would rank ‘illustrator’ even lower on my list of attributes than ‘writer.’ so, i found and licensed the paisley pattern on istockphoto.com.

it’s a subtle effect, but in browsers other than Internet Explorer 6, on top of the paisleys are a shadow and a highlight that stay fixed when you scroll the page (although the paisley and the content move).

not that i’m dropping support for IE6, but i wanted to take advantage of functionality available in modern browsers. you should still get proper layout and usability in IE6, and something special if you’re using something newer.

thanks for reading, and you can give me feedback (constructive, please!) in the comments or use the contact form to send me a private note.

we realized the only public photo we’ve shared is justin on a ventilator, the day he was born. he’s come a long, long way since then. here he is now: 3lbs, 8.8oz. happily sleeping with mom holding him.