"I'm a dad. Oh my god!"

Those two phases slowly repeated in my head as I stared down at Ryan. He was bundled up tightly and sleeping now. He had just finished getting poked, prodded, and pricked by 3 or 4 nurses and spent a most of his first 2 hours on earth crying. But now, he was so peaceful.

At first, the words came pounding with a tone of complete and utter shock and bewilderment, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka Holy @#!, I'm responsible for this guy?!?)". Then came a churning wave of bubbling anxiety, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka some more holy @#!, what kind of dad will I be?!?)". Finally, came a foaming sort of calm elation as I realized, "I'm a dad. Oh my god! (aka Holy @#! We are going to have so much fun!)". The whole evolution took about 30 minutes.

Leslie was sleeping, recovering from surgery. Ryan briefly opened his eyes to look up at me. I introduced myself, "Hi Ryan. I'm your dad." He was completely and utterly vulnerable... a blank slate. I had never felt such an innocent dependency before. As he drifted back into slumber, my mind began to race again. So much to teach! So much to learn! So many times ahead! "I'm a dad. Oh my god!"

Ryan's Here!

Since the baby was a week overdue, my doctor scheduled me to be induced on Monday, but then the hospital ended up not having rooms available - I guess it's baby season! We were able to check-in on Tuesday at 7 AM and after a LOOOONNNNNGG time of laboring, pitocin, an epidural (ah), and not enough progress (thanks, Jeri and Steve, for hanging in there with me!), it was C-section time. Thus, at 2:44 PM on Wednesday, 6/27/07, Ryan was born! He surprised all of us, including the doctor and nurse who had been in the labor room earlier, as we were expecting a 6-6.5 pounder but received an 8 lb. 9 0z boy who was 20" at birth. He's got a loud yell but overall has a very sweet disposition - maybe all of that prenatal yoga helps him get zen with the world? I'm in the hospital until Sunday (which is also our 1st wedding anniversary!) and then it will be time for us to go home! Wish us luck and hopefully you can meet him soon!

Coming Soon...Ryan Hiroshi Liu

The due date has come and gone, but still no Baby Ryan! We thought 6/21 was the day, then learned the actual due date was 6/20, but apparently Ryan is late like his parents always are, and so we're still waiting. If he doesn't appear before Sunday, then doctors will be taking other measures, so soon enough he'll be making his grand entrance into the world!

Steve's Newest Toy

Steve and I grew up with VW buses as part of our families' vacation experience and car history (and we each have the Little Miss Sunshine type stories to go with them), so when he decided to buy a 1966 21-window bus, it wasn't a big surprise to me. He flew down to San Diego with a cashier's check, took the bus for a test drive, and then began the process of bringing the bus back to our house in Cupertino...an adventure in itself. Perhaps we'll start a separate blog called Travels with Diego, the name we have now given to the bus (another family tradition). Yes, that's right: we now have TWO VW buses (Charlie, the brown one on the right, is an automatic and only has about 70K miles on it. Steve's mom and dad were the original owners, so we decided it needed to stay in the family....).