Reality Copywriting: Baby Photos

Ecolumn - Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Baby Photos

Fellow Copywriters,

As promised here are some pictures from baby Jonah Aaron Manley's birthday (and the days that followed)…

I'm going to take a break from our regular marketing column to fill you in on all the details…

Not only was this Jonah's birthday but also his mother's. My wife, Nicole, was born between 8 and 9am on January 22nd, 1967. Coincidentally, Jonah was born at 8:50am, January 22, 2007.

For those who just became subscribers, Nicole has been living in the hospital for the past four months, dealing with a complicated pregnancy. Our first baby, born two years ago, died at birth -- so everything was being done -- holistically, conventionally, metaphysically -- to make this birth a success.

As you can see in the picture, I was dressed up in robes and able to attend the entire surgery.

Yes, I saw my wife's intestines (intimate moment).

Because of the delicate nature of the surgery, it was held in the main OR, with a staff of about 18 people.

I sort of had this image of a c-section involving one cut, lifting the baby out and then sewing Nicole back up. Nothing like that at all! Plenty of cutting, lots of organs to move through, a host of equipment (including a vacuum to suck out the amniotic fluid and soldering irons to close blood vessels).

Baby Jonah came out feet first, and it took a good minute to pull his full 7 pounds, 8 ounces out. As soon as the umbilical cord was cut, he began crying and kicking. Nicole immediately started crying too. After having a stillbirth, hearing your baby cry brings so much joy.

They had a neonatal intensive care unit ready with their NASA grade incubators -- all of which proved superfluous. After checking his vitals, and clothing his white body, the NICU team handed him back to me. Nicole got to talk to him for ten minutes while they put all her organs back in place and sealed up her tummy.

Nicole had a slow recovery, so I needed to stay in the hospital with her and Jonah for the entire week. Which I was more than happy to do, even though it meant the pile of work back in the office would only get higher.

Jonah's a quiet baby. We got this video that explained the different sounds a baby makes. Apparently, all babies use five different noises to indicate their needs. We've been doing a good job at responding to them, and it's dramatically reduced his crying spells (in contrast to the other babies in the postpartum ward) and increased his comfort.

Nicole's thrilled, and says her entire wait was all worth it.

She was looking a little pale after the surgery and feeling exhausted, so the doctors decided to pump her up with two bags of "tomato juice" (blood transfusion in laymen terms). After that she looked and felt a lot better.

Both mamma and baby are expected home on Wednesday. I look forward to their return.

John A. Manley

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