Henri Edmond Lavallée

At 23:45 on the 16th of November, 1999, Henri Edmond made his first appearance in the world. Known during his hospital stay as "Baby Boy Levine" he weighed 2450 grams (5 pounds, 6 ounces). Earlier estimates had pegged his arrival on December 15th, but Jody had a severe case of toxemia, and the treatment is to deliver the baby. On November 15th, the doctors attempted to induce labour, but there was little progress and Jody's condition was deteriorating rapidly. They performed a cesarean section, and the patient-count at Mississauga General suddenly increased by one! (Our apologies to Henri for allowing him to be born in the burbs.)

Being four weeks early -- not a trait inherited from his parents -- Henri remained in the special care nursery for a week to ensure that he was stable and gaining weight. During this time the child care experts took care of all the little guy's needs, and taught the nervous new parents about diaper changing, bathing and that sort of thing.

"Torque to 25 newton-metres. Was that for Huggies or Pampers?"

An army of lactation consultants was available to help with breastfeeding, and proved to be an invaluable source of irritation. They seemed to appear out of nowhere, trying to squeeze breasts and pinch nipples, and importuning tired mothers to turn up the vacuum on the electric breast pump. Thankfully, they flee in horror at the sight of a bottle, which also turned out to be Henri's ticket out of the hospital.

Since we hadn't completed all the baby shopping before Henri was born, we made due with what we could buy nearby, borrow, or improvise. Louis-Charles bought diapers and a car seat on the way to the hospital, and we discovered that Henri could borrow clothes off his stuffed toys, in a pinch. In particular, the Hudson's Bay teddy bear has a cute little coat.

Here are some of Henri's après-feeding facial calisthenics (click on a picture to see a larger version):