Roe 2.0 Product Launch

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Roesevelt David Fulkerson was born February 15 at 23:20 PT (-8 GMT). He weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. I say Roe 2.0 because my name is Aaron Roe Fulkerson. However, to be accurate he’s actually a 5.0 release. My Great Grandfather was named Newton Roosevelt Chrisope. He went by “Roe”. He begat two sons, one of which he named Bobby Roe who begat a son and two daughters , on of which was named Roeann (crap, I forget my mother’s middle name). Roeann begat two sons and a daughter. One son, Eric Daniel, begat two daughters, one was named Madeline Roe. The other son, the cooler and more handsome of the two, was named Aaron Roe, that’s me, who begat a son and a daughter. The son was named Roesevelt David.

Tara, Roe, AaronCan you believe how great Tara looks? This photo was taken about twenty minutes after Roe was born!

Tara and I decided to spell it “Roesevelt” to prevent him from being nicked “Roo”. I suspect Geoff “Kangaroo” Norton would have liked this though. I suppose since I have a niece with “Roe” in her name this could make Roesevelt’s version number 5.2…Anyway, David is also my father’s name. Hence, Roesevelt David Fulkerson and that is the story of the name for those of you who asked via Twitter and Facebook.

So, the birth. Tara, Ashby and I went for a nice long walk in Balboa Park in the morning. Tara was experiencing severe leg cramping and back pains. The back pains were clearly contractions, but the leg cramps we weren’t sure about. At first we thought maybe she was just really dehydrated, but Tara being a runner is obsessive about hydration and this seemed unlikely.

We cut our walk short and headed home. Tara Googled leg cramps and pregnancy and discovered this can signal the baby is dropping. When this happens sometimes the baby can place pressure on a nerve bundle and cause symptoms that feel just like leg cramping.

I suggested Tara take a nap since her contractions were spaced out and if she were to be in labor it would be good to be rested. She agreed and when she woke we called our Doctor and was instructed to head into the birthing center.

Ashby, Tara and I arrived at Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla at about 3 pm. Her contractions were a couple minutes apart. By 10 PM she had only progressed to 5 cm and the Doctor decided to use an IUPC to determine the strength of her contractions and to gage the effects of Pitocin, which she wanted to introduce to move things along. Thirty to forty minutes later Tara was completely dilated and the nurse and doctor were rushing to get into position.

Contraction. Push three times. “There he is, he’s almost out”
Contraction. Push three times. “Ok, he’s out. Let do one more push.”
Push. Done.

_

Wow, it was that easy. God bless epidurals. This was completely different from Ashby’s birth.

Speaking of Ashby, she’s been amazing. She is totally into being a big sister.Thanks to a friend of Tara’s she even has a special “big sis” shirt. Her and I have been spending a lot of time together and I’ve been pumping up how special she is for being a big sister. We also had many books about being a Big Sister Coupon For Free Ice Cream. ROCK!big sister that we’ve been reading to her over the last several months. We attended a big sister class as a family. She had big sister presents from Roe when he was born. I’ve added a song about being a “big sister” to my repertoire of songs I sing nightly (mostly Cat Stevens and the Grateful Dead tunes).

During labor I was twittering status updates. I have this setup to also post to my Facebook account, which is nice because I don’t know anyone outside my professional social network that uses Twitter. My intent was to create a record of the events as they happened. Also, it’s a nice way to pass the time and soothe the nerves. Here’s my twitter stream from the time we got to the hospital to the time our family arrived home.

A 28 photo slide show of the birth (it’s PG, nothing gross):

In conclusion, I’m blessed with a gorgeous, healthy and wonderful family that I love dearly. Man am I lucky!

Published by Aaron Fulkerson

Published

8 thoughts on “Roe 2.0 Product Launch”

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  4. Thanks. Indeed she did run 2-3 miles that week and walked a many more. One day she went out and it turned into a nasty rain storm. I was really worried. She returned promptly after only a mile for fear of someone calling child protective services on her ;).

  6. Dude, I love the begats. Neat history.

    It's really cool to hear about family life and how your daughter is excited about being a big sister. It sounds like you have a close knit family and that rocks.

    Anywho, congratulations again!

  7. Thanks. Indeed she did run 2-3 miles that week and walked a many more. One day she went out and it turned into a nasty rain storm. I was really worried. She returned promptly after only a mile for fear of someone calling child protective services on her ;).—Please exu3e my typos, I'm writing you from my mobile.Aaron Roe Fulkerson619.795.8459 x.1102 (ofc)619.316.7487 (mbl)Aaron.Fulkerson (skype)@roebot (twitter)

  8. Congrats I saw most of your tweets, great blog post! Tara ran two times last week in that condition?!

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