Where’s Dave?

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Yes, the blog has been quiet. And it’s likely my already low output will further decrease in the short-term as, after five long years…Eliana, our sweet, magical little miracle baby has arrived!

Despite working so hard towards this goal and the vast majority of our circle having children, we’ve clearly only understood parenthood on an abstract level — no matter how good our time management and organization, we’ll be playing catch up for quite awhile. But I couldn’t be happier about it. :)

52 thoughts on “Where’s Dave?”

  1. After several miscarriages prior to and during a variety of infertility treatments, we were told last November that my wife’s eggs weren’t viable and to come up with Plan B. As we were contemplating the possibility of an egg donor, an adoption, or just moving on, we unexpectedly conceived… and obviously carried the high risk pregnancy to term, mostly through my wife’s sheer force of will (which also powered her through a partially failed epidural during a very painful and unplanned c-section).

    Been contemplating writing a Kindle book the last year covering our experiences, from my (male) perspective: “Infertility. It ain’t for pussies or paupers.” It’s been quite the emotional rollercoaster. But, man, what a happy ending. Or, rather, a happy beginning.

    And how naive I was. :) Thought I’d have time and energy to do some freelance writing and knock out an overdue certification during my “paternity leave.” Good luck with that? It took me nearly a week to even turn on the computer.

  7. Wow. She’s beautiful, Dave. And so is the story. Not every pregnancy experience is storybook, and some of us know it more than others. Fantastic tale of perseverance.

  10. “After several miscarriages prior to and during a variety of infertility treatments, we were told last November that my wife’s eggs weren’t viable and to come up with Plan B. As we were contemplating the possibility of an egg donor, an adoption, or just moving on, we unexpectedly conceived… and obviously carried the high risk pregnancy to term”

    Yowza! Congrats begins to seem utterly inadequate.

    “Been contemplating writing a Kindle book the last year covering our experiences”

    While I still think you should have live-tweeted the whole experience, a book or single would be terrific. Also, sounds like there should be a made-for-TV movie, or at least a Showtime series, as a profitable tie-in.

    —–

    But actually, now that you’ve brought up the book potential, I start to wonder about conspiracy theories. Jet fuel can’t melt infertility.

  11. The book wouldn’t be all doom and gloom – I gots all kinds of great anecdotes. Like the time the mother-in-law kept texting me, wondering how Melissa was doing during her procedure while I was, uh, preoccupied “preparing a sample.” Related, there’s a little walkie talkie you use to call the nurse when you’re, er, done. “The eagle has landed” was the correct call sign to use, right?

  13. I work in health care and have seen it numerous times. When you finally quit trying so hard it happens. Wife’s friend adopted and then in four years had two sets of twins.

    Congratulations. She’s beautiful

  16. Congrats Dave! I’ve been following you for advise on Sonos and Tivo, but with our first kid (also a daughter) coming in 1 week I’m going to need to you to start a parenting blog too.

  26. Congrats, Dave. Take some time off from blogging and enjoy your new role as a father. We’ll still be here when you’re ready to come back.

  27. Congratulations, Dave! Just know that we appreciate anything you put out here, so no pressure! Thanks for the update and best wishes.

  28. Beautiful daughter! Happy for you and your wife. Enjoy the first 12 years while she’s “daddy’s girl”, after that she may not want to be around you very much for the next 7 years.
    Weekly posts w/pictures will be enjoyed by many of your followers!

  29. Jason, Michael, I’ll share any tech related tips we pick up…

    Thus far, we’re relying on the obvious to resupply or pick up things we didn’t know we needed – Amazon Prime Same Day or Next Day and PeaPod. (Unfortunately, those services can’t easily replace our furniture with stuff more suitable for breast feeding and abdominal surgery recovery — our minimalist sensibilities have failed us.)

    I started swapping out Sonos for Bose Soundtouch before she got here. That physical remote will allow someone like grandma to put on kids music without needing her smartphone and an unfamiliar app I’d need to configure and even for our own convenience. Although playing baby music from Spotify and iHeartRadio directly from my iPhone helped settle her during our hospital stay – I stuck the phone right in the bassinet with her when she was agitated and it helped calm her.

    I had been thinking about moving one of our outdoor Arlo cameras near her bassinet to periodically check in but we did pick up the Philips Avent baby monitor based on a Twitter recommendation – tho we’ve yet to use it, as we’ve been sticking pretty close to her thus far as neurotic first time parents. :)

    Bill, I’m sure I’ll be spamming my Twitter feed with photos like this:
    https://twitter.com/davezatz/status/678740180606582784

  30. Congratulations, sir. Welcome to the club. Looking forward to your new line of baby tech reviews. Also, durability ratings. “Which Gadgets are Drool-Proof?” Inquiring minds want to know.

  31. Congrats from a long time reader and fellow Dave.

    Technology related, before my first I mocked that every baby related thing seemed to have a vibration mode. Until that one time, in a exhausted state I hit the button on the pack and play and my daughter went back to sleep.

  33. Great news, Dave! Congratulations on your beautiful baby bundle! It will be a rough few months, but it will get better!

  35. Congrats, Dave! My wife and I learned just how challenging reproducing can be. The first one…bam. Once we decided to start a family, It was like I walked by her one day and knocked her up. Pregnancies two and three were much more effort, emotional, and unfortunately didn’t end well. We count our blessings that we have a great seven year old son. So, sir, I salute you both for persevering. As you have already found, it is so worth it! I’m eager to see how fatherhood influences your writings. :-)

  37. So awesome man, congratulations. Funny how much you think you can get done when a baby is around, yet how little you actually can. Enjoy every minute of it, but know that it only gets better and better as they get older.

  38. Congratulations, Dave! Having walked the same road I can relate to your comments. And I think your tentative book title is right on!

  40. Congratulations Dave! I’ve been a lurker for years, and find it funny that this is what it took for me to comment.

    I’m really happy for you both – fertility challenges can be incredibly rough and a huge strain on a marriage.

  41. Here’s the hardest task you can imagine – a photo a day. Cell phone, pocket camera or DSLR it doesn’t matter. Sounds trivial but missing a photo on a busy day is common.
    Then after a year you make a photo book documenting the first year of life. And along the way you blog about the technology of collecting, organizing, sharing, distributing family photos around the world.
    Blog about sharing photos/videos with grandparents and then your privacy concerns about the wide reach of those photos.

  43. Congrats Dave! Just had my second two months ago so I know your situation. I also have a 3 year old daughter as well so things are extra challenging. Wife had a very hard time conceiving, but this last one was a complete surprise. Both pregnancies were very rough but we got through it together.

    Wishing you many many years of love and happiness. Congrats again!

  44. Congrats! One thing I’ll say is when you go through some hardship (I’ll just say been there, done that) you find that lots of other people who you assume had perfect lives have been going through stuff you weren’t aware of. Anyways, in the end we adopted and are very happy with that.

    As far as Baby Monitors if all you want is sound I’d recommend the AngelCare line. In particular it had no hiss unlike our previous two. Currently we moved on to a video monitor which I think is great for piece of mind–the Summer Infant Baby Touch. Highly recommended.

    Anyways, have fun!

  47. Congratulations! I’ve gone through the same process for the past five years and haven’t gotten that wonderful gift! So happy for you and thank you for providing a great website for the TiVo lovers in the world!

  49. Congratulations Dave and Melissa! And baby Eliana, welcome to the awesome world your parents will provide, with the coolest gadgets too!

  50. Congratulations, my friend!

    Though Eileen and I still only know parenthood on the abstract level, GET SOME SLEEP!

    –Dwayne

  51. Congratulations Dave! It took my wife and I quite a while as well, including going the assistance route for our second (and oddly enough conceiving after taking a break from procedures). As Dwayne says above…SLEEP! And enjoy Eliana!

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