Settled In

Joshua and Aki have enjoyed their first week staying at the family home. There have been a few sleepless nights for Aki but it won't be long before Joshua is sleeping through the night. For now, he's enjoying all the attention from his parents, aunt and uncle, cousins and grandma!


Joshua is starting to really enjoy bathtime, but he's not so happy when it's over! Eating his hand, sleeping, watching and making small noises are some of his hobbies.

Leaving the Hospital

Joshua and Aki finally left hospital this morning! It's been a long week to wait before I could hold Joshua again but he didn't leave my sight all day today! He is already changing a lot - fortunately he's getting a lot cuter and has a lot of great facial expressions, my favourite being the big smile he gave me after he did a big fart! Aki and Joshua will stay at her Mums house for a few weeks where she can get a lot of help and advise before coming back home. Here are some pics from Joshuas first day outside of the hospital....

Sleeping all morning; A kiss for Connie; One proud Daddy; A little smile

"Where did I put my mittens?"; Ryo checks out his new cousin

Baby Pics

Just a few more pics I took yesterday....luckily I could see Joshua again because Aki couldn't walk so they had to bring him to her. It's amazing how fast he is changing already!!

Aki is much better today as she started walking and was rapt to have a shower after 4 days!! They will be out of the hospital on Saturday....looking forward to holding Joshua again!!

Joshua and Mama; The view from Aki's bed - a bit more to the right is where I work, so I can see the hospital from my classroom.

Joshua

Joshua was born at 11:50am on January 11, 2009 in Yokohama, Japan, weighing in at 2920 grams. He seemed a bit grumpy when I first saw him, probably due to the fact that he was quite enjoying living inside Mama, but he's gonna love this world a whole lot more!!!
Let me take you back to Friday afternoon where it all began.....Aki called me at work at about 4pm to say she thought her waters had broken and Hajime was taking her to the hospital where I would meet her after work. I arrived there just after 6pm where I found Aki to be fine apart from the water leakage. She was told to stay overnight and we were expecting a Saturday birth. Throughout Saturday, Aki waited for her contractions to start but they never came. It was a long and tiring day, especially as I'd had only a few hours sleep and poor Aki had even less. I left her at 7pm and went home to have a nice big sleep......at 8am I was woken by the phone and Aki said "The babys coming soon!" I could hear the pain in her voice, and would later find out she'd been having contractons since 11pm the night before. I rushed from home, tested just how fast our little car could go, and arrived at the hospital 15 minutes later. The nurse told me to wait and later the doctor came and told me everything was OK. Akis mum also came to wait with me. Finally, at about 12:15, the nurse came to say congratulations, Aki had a baby boy! We then had to wait an endless 30 minutes before we could go in to see Aki and Baby. Needless to say, I was the happiest man alive when I got to hold my son for the first time. I held him for about 30 minutes then he had a small drink of milk and went to join all the other babies in the nursery, where he will be for the next week.

As I'm writing this it's still hard to believe that I'm a father now. I think it will take a few days to set in. Aki and Joshua are doing fine now and will be leaving the hospital in a week. There will be a LOT more pictures to come in the next weeks (months and years!!!). Thank you to everyone for your great support, it's been an amazing experience.

Our last picture together as a childless couple; Aki jumps around to try speed things up; Aki, Michiyo, Joshua and Myself; Proud new parents; Joshua with the other 25 babies having a big party!