It's a girl: October 29, 2006

Baby girl Sydney Le was born at 8:34 a.m. the morning of Sunday, October 29, 2006 in the year of the dog, the same sign as her grandpa Ong Noi.


Sydney weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz, a new record for my side of the family. That means that the winner of the baby G&D baby pool is Sam guessing a girl on Oct 27th. The money was definitely not on a girl being early. We’ll figure out a special bonus prize for Kurt who kept telling Geneva that the day was definitely going to be October 29th and was only 2 oz. off on the weight (but guessed boy). In fact, Jade – Katherine – Austin/ Cindy – Uncle Ky – and Grandma Popo were all on the girl team and all within 3 oz or less. Btw, Popo… thanks for the blanket, the kid loves it.

Mommy is doing great. After falling asleep Saturday night on the couch to what she said was a boring Oilers game (though Pierre was probably more estatic than any of us true Oiler fans since he has Roloson in the pool), mommy got up around midnight to have a shower (a rare occurrence). Mom and dad went to sleep shortly after. Dad got up at 2:00 a.m. to be awoken by the bed shaking. Being the completely out of tune person that he is, I naturally thought “dear God, it’s a friggin’ earthquake!” After clearing the drowsey cobwebs, I realized that Geneva was sitting on the bed shaking her legs and saying “if this is false labour pains, I don’t think I can do a week of it.” We timed the contractions and they ended up being 3 to 4 minutes apart… and then we were off to the hospital.

To what will be no surprise to the people that know her, mom went through the 8 hours of labour and the 45 minutes of real active labour (yes, there is a BIG difference) WITHOUT any painkillers. That’s not to say there was no pain, because I figure that labour is the equivalent of about 20 shoulder dislocations and separations all at the same time. Mom of course experimented with the laughing gas (more afterwards get for kicks) and I will be sending a special “Geneva drugged up on laughing gas” video clip to the UBC folks in a few weeks. Jk. Seriously though, mom is doing great and she’s natural at motherhood even though she’s too hard on herself to realize it just yet.


Mom and dad want to send our thanks to all of you for the well wishes. You’ve been a great part of our lives, and we look forward to the day that Sydney meets you all.

These are Sydney’s first pics (and Geve’s last picture prego on Oct 28th). It’s amazing how much Sydney changes every hour. And to the question that a few friends have asked (David M. and Dave V.), the reality of everything hit me when Geneva had just delivered. The nurse was checking Geve and I was holding Sydney in my arms and it was just the two of us and she just opened her one of her eyes and smiled. I realized exactly what you guys were talking to me about. Man, there is nothing in the world like this.