Mark Nicholas

07:59 am: Zoe status update - we're still at the hospital
Someone asked in Sara's journal if seizures in babies were at all common. I'm reposting my reply as it basically doubles as an update on the situation. My answer:

It's not really common in babies, no. There are more common known syndromes that cause seizures (infantile spams, for example) but they're quickly ruling those out based on earlier tests. Still, seizures do sometimes happen in infants, and the people in this pediatric unit have all seen it before, but it's relatively rare. And unless they can find out more about the cause of it from the various tests they're running today, there's little to be done about beyond treating it as epilepsy.

The good news is that, yes, many kids do come through it safely. Many (as many as 80%) even outgrow it completely and are on no medication as adults. And another good point on that front is that my sister (the only genetic link to seizures in my family that exists) did eventually outgrow them, and her seizures were much worse when she was little (started when she was 2) and not caught as quickly.

But there is plenty of downside too. The medication we'll have to use to prevent further seizures for a while (it'll be a year minimum before they even start re-testing her to see if she can be seizure-free without meds) will come with some not good side-effects no matter what. And the fact that it's happening at this particular time in her development is not very good either, as there's a huge learning curve that happens right now. If she's on the most popular seizure prevention drug, not only will she be very sleepy all the time (or in rare cases they react the opposite and are pretty much ADD, which may be the case with her... I saw a little of this during her late night feedings last night), but the drug is known to actually slow their ability to learn. So we'll be fighting the drug all the time with constant tutorial and repetition to keep her reaching normal learning milestones for as long as she's on it.

We're certainly going to do plenty of research and see if any of the newer seizure drugs have less harmful side effects while still being safe for infants, but newer drugs are always less tested, and they're always tested for infants last, so there may not even be enough info to make an informed decision on those. We're hopeful though.

And then there's the fact that almost all medications taken regularly take a toll on the liver. Anyone with a condition that requires daily medication fights that one, and it's probably going to be okay, but that risk does get amped up because she's only 9.5 weeks old. She can't even process any solid food yet and we'll have to ask her body to process a complicated drug everyday.

And day care. I'm pretty sure they're going to boot us from day care, and I have no idea where that's going to leave us. But we'll cross that bridge when we have to. For now I'll just need to be off work for a couple more weeks.

That's probably a lot more than you asked for, but it's on my mind, so there you go. Thanks for the positive thoughts and support. Sara will surely update more if we find anything out from today's difficult tests.

-m

Tags: seizures, zoe

02:26 am: Zoe
We're in the hospital with Zoe for a while. She's had a few seizures. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. More when we know it.

-m

Tags: hospital, seizures, zoe

11:10 pm: Dueling videos of Zoe...
As some of you who follow my wife's blog know, she recently posted a dramatic (slightly disturbing?) scene from our lives involving our 7 week old daughter and our dog Schmee. If you must see it, it is posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCvcLWUSFc . I suppose it is kinda funny. ;-)

However, I thought maybe a video that shows the flipside of new parenthood would be a good idea, so here's a nice video from about a week ago. (It really is just a nice little clip - no editing or funny ending. Sometimes a dad just wants to post a nice clip of his daugher, ya know?!)


(If you can't see it, here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGrgvz3VGok)

More music news is coming soon. Still on track to start writing and recording the new (Cosmicity?) album September 1st!

-m

PS - Beware of the imposter Zoes that come up as links after the video plays! Stupid other people naming their stupid babies the same name... grumble grumble... ;-)

Tags: video, zoe

12:41 pm: Oh yeah...
Forgot to mention this last time: I think our daughter might be a ninja.






That is all.

-m

Tags: chop, ninja, zoe

07:09 am: Zoe Lain
INTRODUCING:

Zoe Lain Nicholas
Born Sunday, June 29th at 7:27 pm.
Weighing in at 7 lbs., 6 oz, with a height of 20.5 inches.

Sara's nose + my ears + knee dimples + curly hair = she's perfect. Quickly snapped iPhone picture at only a few hours old:



I've got a LOOOOOONG ENTRY coming (which is the cause of the delay on this announcement, in addition to the basic metrics of just having had a baby and finding the time to come type updates on a computer got tricky pretty quick...) but it's gonna take me a while longer to type out everything I have to say about the experience, so this will have to do for now! :-)

-m

Tags: announcement, birth, zoe

04:55 pm: Almost baby time.
Been at the hospital since about 4:00pm yesterday, but Sara wasn't induced until this AM. She's been incredibly strong, I think. Labor through about 5 cm was done without assistance, but about 1/2 hour ago, she crossed a pain threshold she couldn't take anymore. It was really really hard to see. When the doctors told her that an epidural would take 70% of the pain away AND help the baby deliver a lot faster (because when you tense up as Sara was from the pain, it restricts labor), she took it. I can't imagine anyone in that degree of pain at that stage NOT taking it, now that I've witnessed it.

Watching them do the epidural was awful. Supremely awful. I was helpless to do anything, and she was frightened out of her mind because of all of the various things she's heard about them. I kinda wish she'd never watched a single episode of those fucking Baby Story shows on TLC. Do yourself a huge favor: stay the hell away from those shows if you ever get pregnant. Worst thing you could do to yourself - gives you 1000 more reasons to worry about everything.

As for the pain, it looked like it really hurt when they gave her that first numbing shot. Sara said it burned like hell. But after that it was mostly fear in her face. There were lots of people around her giving her warnings about this or that as they were doing stuff, and it made me frightened, so I can't even imagine how it feels when they're doing it to you.

Now I sit typing this as she sleeps. She was insanely exhausted from her pre-epidural contractions/pain (she was working VERY hard to get through those for many hours) so after there was pain relief, she was out like a light. Not from the meds - they don't make you sleepy - just complete exhaustion. The doctor wants her to sleep so she has the strength to push soon. Probably very soon. Within the next hour or so.

Looks like we really will have a baby this evening, and I know when Sara's got her in her arms, it'll all be worth it. Still, what an unbelievable thing women sign up for when they decide to do this. Watch all the birthing videos you want, it's impossible to grasp until it's right in front of you. (Hell, tons of people even told me that it was impossible to grasp, but even hearing that doesn't cover it at all.)

Send positive thoughts everybody. Hopefully my next post is a birth announcement!

-m

Tags: delivery, epidural, hospital, sara, zoe

10:56 pm: We're having a baby this weekend!
We're checking into the hospital tomorrow at 4:00 to start the baby delivering process. We'll both attempt to blog the big news on here when we're able, but if that proves tricky for any reason, I'll use twitter (via my cell phone) instead, so keep an eye on there (my twitter messages are also transmitted to my facebook header) if you're keen on more moment-by-moment news.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/marknicholas
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=592355886&hiq=mark%2Cnicholas

-m

Tags: delivery, zoe

11:35 am: Watching the charts...
As suspected, Cosmicity is the faster climber of my two musical efforts on thesixtyone.com.

I gotta tell you, though, this site is an eye-opener for me. Completely democratic... people vote for their favorite songs, and the most successful songs make it to the home page and are considered "hits". And it's fascinating to see what songs work and what songs don't.

For example, the most popular Cosmicity songs of all time (in terms of sales) are "Rengerate" and "Sedgwick". They did okay on the site, but then got SMOKED by the songs "Let Me In" and "Crucify", the two I posted most recently. "Let Me In" hit the homepage yesterday, and Crucify will be joining it there in the next day or so. That's kind of cool... a song from 11 years ago that's a hit with people today. For all they know, I recorded it last week. In their ears, it still holds up (not dated). That's awesome!

On the Mark Nicholas front, the song "I Wish" went straight to the home page in just 2 days, but the song "Two Sandwiches" did SO badly (only 12 bumps in 3 weeks... to put that in perspective, most of my other songs get an average of 80 bumps in that time, and Crucify just got over 200 bumps in 14 hours). I would have bet the farm that "Two Sandwiches" would be popular, but I would have lost that farm! "Maniac" also just hit the homepage today. I would have bet half the farm on that one... so at least I'd still have half a farm. Hopefully the things on that farm aren't split too evenly, as half a cow is still a dead cow.

Overall "Mark Nicholas" still has a higher score, but I've had "Mark" in the game a lot longer. In the next few weeks, I'm positive that Cosmicity will double that score and then some.

What does it all mean? I guess I don't really know. I'm just happy that some of the songs are doing very well, old and new. If you feel so inclined, cast your votes for the next Cosmicity song I should post. Which one do you think will be a hit (given the facts listed above about Sedgwick failing and Let Me In succeeding, etc.)?

-m

PS - Weren't we supposed to be having a baby or something? What ever happened with that?

PPS - (Any day now!)

Tags: cosmicity, mark nicholas, thesixtyone, zoe

03:29 pm: Where have I been?
Oh, here I am. I found me.

I have been kind of laying low, and I think that also resulted in a little blog silence. Music-wise, I'm really just sort of sitting on my hands. I've been at war with the company that puts my music on download sites (ala iTunes and eMusic) because they completely failed. So, Perversions just got sent to iTunes on the 14th, and who knows how long it'll be 'til it gets sent to the other companies. I guess I'll just have to use someone else for the next release, which is a shame 'cause these guys were the easiest and cheapest way to get it done.

I haven't been composing anything. I've started a few things lyrically for the next release, but I haven't been in a mindset to do any of the music just yet. I will. These things work in phases. I'm waiting for the next one to catch me.

In other news, we've gone Blu. Final sale on our HD DVD stuff on ebay is tonight, and the bidding is already over $200 which is way more than we paid for the player. We'll get out with hardly a financial scratch, in the end. And we traded in a bunch of old electronics (PS2, games etc.) and standard DVDs we don't watch anymore to Gamestop, so we were able to pick up a brand new Playstation 3 for only $50. I know that totally sounds like we bought a game system, but it's really just a Blu-Ray player. There are no games for the PS3. I will say this and then shut up about it: It's a real bummer that HD DVD lost. It really was better for consumers - MUCH cheaper, much better designed system, etc. But, that's how it goes. Beta was far superior to VHS and it didn't win, but everything got straightened out when DVD finally came along. (VHS looked like crap... we really did get screwed for some years there. At least Blu-Ray looks and sounds just as good as HD DVD. It was mainly just a price issue.)

In baby news, I painted Zoe's room. It took me an entire weekend and reminded me how much I really hate to paint (or do any sort of manual labor, really) but it was worth it. Looks really nice. Crib is en route, as are some playful stickers for the walls, so once it's starting to look like something maybe I'll post a lil picture. Maybe. And the BIG thing that's been on my mind since the day we found out Sara was pregnant has been day care. We both work full time, so where does Zoe go 8-5 M-F? I think we have that solved. After much looking and researching and visiting, I think Zoe will be best cared for at a place called The Learning Experience. We met all of the people and they're so nice... they take such good care of infants and they're actually overstaffed, so there are lots of people to help out all the time and make sure they don't get burned out. And they're the only ones we met anywhere that focus on education that early. Lots of fun things for them to do, even when they're infants that can't do a whole lot, something is a lot more than nothing. And since we're positive our daughter will be a genius, that's important, right?! (No one else in the whole work thinks their kid is going to be a genius, I'm sure.) ;-) Now if I could just figure out where to get the money. (It's literally a 2nd mortgage payment. When planning, I think this is a perfect figure to use to figure out the cost.)

The thing I'm thinking about today is a video camera. I sure would like one that doesn't completely suck so we have decently recorded memories of our daugher to look back on. I'm selling lots of stuff on ebay to try and generate enough money for a new one. I know how my parents covet the crappy super 8 movies of when I was very little. And hey, if I had a new video camera, perhaps my really horrible music videos wouldn't look quite as really horrible. (That, or the clarity of a nice camera will lend a clarity to my music videos that really should be avoided when the star is, well, me.)

And, tonight is guy's night... an excellent night when a few of my friends and I go out and eat giant cheeseburgers at Millers and drink beer (well, they drink beer, and I pretend I'm cool enough to drink beer). So I have to get going. I need to go run 5 miles to pre-burn some calories so I can fit all of the cheeseburgers in. You know, create some space in my belly where there is currently less-than-none. Did I mention I'm very sympathetically tied to Sara's pregnancy? That's what I need to keep telling my waistline, anyway.

-m

Tags: blu-ray, guy's night, music for headphones, video camera, zoe

07:40 pm: IT'S A GIRL!
WE'RE HAVING A BABY GIRL! (Yes, still in June.)

Never have I been more excited about anything in my life. This is so cool.

-m

Tags: baby, girl, zoe