He's HERE He's HERE!!!!!!

Jonathan Bryan Lynch was born on March 4th, 2011 at 6:41PM.  

He was 7lb 7oz and 20 inches long!  I'm so excited!

Jonathan moments after being born with Dad

My wife and I are so happy that our beautiful son is finally here with us :)  He has been perfectly healthy except for a little jaundice that should go away.  Also, the stork left him with a very small "Stork Bite" on his forehead.

He is a little more fair-skinned than I am and I think he looks more like my wife then me. (lucky kid lol)

I was pretty nervous to see Jonathan's clubbed feet for the first time.  I know I shouldn't have been, but that's just the honest truth.  In reality, they really are not anything shocking to look at.  I also noticed that his calf muscles seem to be pretty small.  Apparently this is a normal symptom of having club feet.  The good news is that they won't stay small forever, he will build them back up through normal exercise over time.  The doctor even mentioned that in some cases it's better to have two clubbed feet instead of one, so that the calf muscles will be the same size.

One funny thing that I've noticed is that since they're turned inward, he seems to use them to grab on to things.  It's pretty cute :-)

Meet Jonathan:

And here's a close up of his little feet on Day 1: 

Bilateral Club Foot

Learning to answer questions 
One of the things that I was told to get used to was the answering of questions from people all of the time.  So far, we've been at home and not really had little Jonathan out anywhere, so I imagine that's to come.  That being said, even in the hospital, as each nurse would come on shift I could see their reaction.  They walk in to check on the baby in room 2xx.  They see his feet, feel his feet, some try to move them straight and then invariably they say "Are you already aware of his feet?"  "Do you have a doctor to talk to?" or "I think there's something wrong with his feet."

I calmly explain that we've known about it for months and that he has a treatment plan already set in motion.  That's usually the end of it.  After 4-5 times I started to get annoyed, but then I realized that being annoyed would serve no purpose.  I think it's better to talk about it and be open in discussion and I feel much better for doing just that.

Aftercare:

I just want to say how very fortunate we are to have a daycare provider that is so wonderful.  Julie runs a great program and she has become like a member of our family.  I don't worry one bit about her caring for my son on the days when my wife and I both eventually have to go back to work.  Jonathan will be making his first trip to Julie's house today to meet her and to discuss what's to come.


First appointment with Stanford:

Jonathan's first appointment with Dr. Gamble at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is this coming Wednesday, March 9th.

According to our last consult with Dr. Gamble they will place his first casts on his feet at this appointment.  Cross your fingers!