Sven Kay Damstedt

Well we finally made it back home today, but now we are joined with our wonderful Sven.  We went in on Fri, Dec 21 to induce labor, as Jessica had reached 41 weeks, and we did not want to let him get to big.  After laboring for about 20 hrs Jessica stopped progressing with her labor, and we did a quick ulrasound and confirmed that he was facing the wrong way.  With all of this we decided not to wait any longer, and had a C-section.  The operation went well and Sven Kay Damstedt was born at 4:56 PM wieighing in at 8 lbs 10 oz and 21.5 in long.

Here we are all together in the OR

Sven being weighed in the OR room

While Sven was in the OR room, they noticed that he was having a difficult time breathing, so they quickly moved him to the nursery to find the problem.  Once the x-rays were taken, they found that he had a pneumothorax, which is to say a pocket of air pushing on his lungs.  It had caused about 25% of his left lung to collapse.  Once they found the problem, they placed a small chest tube where the pneumo was found, and were able to release the air.  By the morning the new x-ray showed that they were able to remove all the air outside of his lungs.  He still was breathing fast, so he had to stay in the nursery the firs night.  This was probably the hardest part for Jessica, not being able to have him with her after the surgery.  She went through the surgery just fine, and made it out of recovery in about an hour.  Later in the night we were able to visit Sven in the nursery, once Jessica could be moved into a wheelchair and see him.

Jessica holding Sven for the first time

He had to stay in the nursery until about 2 the next day, once his breathing had slowed down enough to allow him to not ned the oxygen, and also that he could feed without the IV.  Once that was done, he was much happier.  Now all is doing better, and we made it home at around 3 PM today.  Both Jessica and Sven are doing great, if just a little tired.

Peter holding Sven before we came home

Picture the hospital took for their website.  Really cute eyes

Sven sleeping at home

My Poster

My work here at WSU has been going very well recently.  I have been able to capture images of the cracks I have induced into my carbon pieces.  I was able to get enough progress that i submitted a poster to the SPE automotive composite conference that took place last week.  I learned that my poster took third out of all 32 posters competing.  I knew that my research topic is an interesting one, and that they really wanted to present it at the conference, but didn't think it would do so well.  I know now that people really do like the work that I am doing right now.

So below is the poster as submitted to to conference.  The other photos are one other grad student who has helped me constantly in my research, and my advisor as well.

Our New Apartment

I have finally got the apartment mostly set, and I thought I should post some pics for everyone to see.

First here is the view from our balcony.  We are on the top floor of our apartment complex, so the view is pretty good.  I really like sitting out here and watching everyone walking and driving around.

 Dining room

Kitchen

Living Room

It's a nice apartment, with two little bedrooms and a washer/dryer included as well.  I think that I've got it set up pretty good, but we will have to see what Jess says when she gets to see it before the family reunion.