Settling in at Home with Nana's Help

Phil settled peacefully into his Pack-N-Play on our first day home:

Phil's Nana (my mom) arrived on Tuesday to meet and care for him:

Home from the hospital

Steven and I have returned home from the hospital today with little Phil. He's giving you a sleepy little wave in the attached photo. We are thankful that he appears very healthy despite a somewhat difficult delivery and I'm recovering steadily as well.

Introducing Philip Burbank Bergsieker

We are overjoyed to announce the birth of our son:

Philip Burbank Bergsieker
Born June 12, 2010, at 6:21 PM
8 lbs 8 oz (3.85 kg)
21.5 inches (54.6 cm)

Little Phil is named after his great grandfather Bergsieker, and his name means love, which is a pretty apt expression of how we feel towards him. We've attached a photo from shortly after his birth, and we hope to post more here soon.

We remain very grateful for your prayers, thoughts, and well-wishes over the course of our pregnancy and as we transition into parenthood. Once we've recovered from our 42 hour birthing adventure, we look forward to welcoming you into our home and introducing our little guy. For now, we'll leave you with one of Hilary's favorite Scripture verses, from Philippians (another of Phil's namesakes):

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let you requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Baby Pool: A Guessing Game for Baby B's Birth

We've put together a little guessing game to see who can best predict the details of Baby B's birth. The best guess will garner a little prize!
http://www.expectnet.com/games/AwaitingBabyB

For the statistically inclined, here's a graph (courtesy of our friend Christina) of which week babies tend to arrive, relative to their due dates, but first babies tend to run a little late...

Princeton Shower for Baby B and Me

In mid-May, Andréa, Avani, Carrie, Christina, and Deborah threw a lovely shower for Baby B and me in our new home. What a joy to celebrate with so many special friends! Shower photos are here: http://hilary.smugmug.com/Babies/Baby-Bs-Princeton-Shower

Fiske Lab Shower

My advisor Susan Fiske hosted a lovely shower for Ann Marie and me in early April with the other students in our lab, complete with baby shower bingo and tasty treats. Photos are here: http://hilary.smugmug.com/Babies/Fiske-Lab-Joint-Shower

Baby Boy Names...

What should we name our son? When we got engaged and chose Bergsieker over Burbank as a last name (we both wanted to share a single, unifying surname), we decided that I would name any children, although Steven retains veto power. (Thus, no children with LOTR names like Frodo or Gandalf, but dog-naming will be his domain.)

We like easy-to-spell names with no more than two syllables, so D'Brickashaw is out (sorry, Bill!). Alliterated and/or six-letter names are nice but not necessary. I already have a name in mind, but feel free to comment with suggestions...

Registry

Thank you for celebrating our baby with us! While we most value your thoughts, advice, and prayers in this time of great change for us, we also know that adding a new family member means adding lots of new ~ and cute! ~ items to our household. We've created two registries:

• Babies-R-Us
• Amazon.com

We want to hand off a clean and green Earth to our little one, so we would also appreciate receiving gently used baby clothing and gear. As a general guideline, we're quite sure that Baby B (or at least his parents) will love anything blue, especially if it involves puppies!

My maternity style...

...is mostly second-hand (and thus sustainable). Many thanks to Andréa for getting me through the winter with gifts of clothes and Jenni for all the lovely loaned spring/summer items. Thanks, ladies!

Bay Area Baby Party

Our friends Angelita Garcia-Stonehocker and Bill Martinusen hosted a marvelous party in honor of our baby when we visited the Bay Area in late March. We were overjoyed to get to celebrate our son's imminent arrival with so many dear friends and family members! Party photos are here: http://hilary.smugmug.com/Babies/Bay-Area-Party-for-Baby-B