It all goes in the Potts: A week with a newborn is a week of... more sleep?

Saturday, April 23, my wife gave birth to a son. Robert Leonard Potts came screaming into our world at 1:37 pm, and since then, I've gotten the best sleep I've had in months. Months of overwork and exhaustion came to a head with the arrival of a 7 lb, 2 oz little boy.

(For just information about the kid and how he was born, skip the italics)

For probably the past 8 or 9 weeks, I've been working in one way or another 16-20 hours a day, 6 1/2 days a week. I would wake up and get to work at the paper in the morning, come home at night, stop briefly for dinner and then get back to work, often staying up until 2, 3 or even 4 am. There have been a couple projects that have been consuming so much of my time. The first is our basement. With our deadline of early May looming, I've been in a rush to get everything finished. Most nights I would stay down there painting, sanding, staining, screwing, installing fixtures, etc. until my body gave out from exhaustion and I just couldn't lift whatever tool off the ground anymore. At that point I would drag myself upstairs and sit down here at the computer, and work for a few more hours. What has been taking all my time here is my (quasi) new business venture.

I've been taking and selling fine art photographs for years. Mostly landscapes and old, abandoned vehicles. I started out with just my website as a photo gallery, taking the occasional order from a friend and hand delivering it to them after I had the print made. Then, a couple years ago, I was able to get some of my art in a store in Burnsville Center called Minnesota Art & More. The proprietors, Jim and Lisa, have really been wonderful to me and I could not be more thankful for what they've done for my business. The problem with my arrangement there is the initial financial outlay. They do not buy my prints from me, they just sell (and frame) them for me and then take a cut for the wall space and the frame. This means that at any given time, I may have hundreds of dollars tied up in artwork that may not sell for months (or years). While I fully plan to continue selling my photos there, making it my main source of income from photography is just not practical for someone on a very limited budget.

Enter Zenfolio. I've known about it for a while, but never really paid it too much attention because I really didn't have my portfolio to the place where I thought I could justify the expense. What they do is partner with a couple different print shops (including the one where I make all my prints anyway) and handle all the ordering, taxing, printing, shipping, etc. for you. All you have to do as an artist is create the content, make it available and market it - stuff I was already doing anyway. The catch is there is a yearly fee, and a per item percentage that they keep. Let me tell you, for someone with a schedule like mine, this is a God send. In the old days, a customer or Lisa would tell me what they wanted, I would go online, get the print made, wait for it to be shipped, and when I got a chance, deliver it and collect payment. Now, I don't have to do any of that. If you want a certain picture, you can go online, order securely and have the finished piece sent right to your door. This is huge.

So back to Robbie. The Friday before he was born, Lori and I skipped going to church. She was tired, and with a 9 month pregnant wife, you do everything you can to make her comfortable. So we stayed home. I put a playlist of worship music on and we had church in my office, singing and listening and praying together. Afterwards, she went to bed and I stayed right here, working on photos. At about 2:30, she came out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom and said "You should probably get some sleep. I'm feeling a little... different... tonight." I said ok, finished what I was doing and was in bed by 3. Before I got in bed, I popped a couple benedryl because my eyes were itching like crazy. Benedryl is a killer for me. It has put me to sleep in the middle of typing text for ads at work. It's put me to sleep in the middle of watching TV or playing video games. I wouldn't be surprised if someday it puts me to sleep face down in my dinner. In short, when I take benedryl, it is pretty much impossible for me to be awake. This is why when Lori shook me awake at 4:30 saying "my water broke" my only thought was not "awesome" or even "oh, not now" but "nnyeeaarrggh?" So we got dressed, packed up the car and made our way to the hospital. One thing I am thankful for: there really isn't much traffic on 35W at 5am on a Saturday.

When we got to the hospital, they got us all checked in and put us in a room. Thankfully, the contractions hadn't really started to be too strong yet, and Lori and I were both able to sleep for a few more interrupted hours. As the day progressed, the contractions got stronger and more painful, and Lori's temper got shorter. She was able to sit in a tub for about 20 minutes, which helped a lot with the pain until she just got too hot and had to get out. More contractions, more pain. At about 1, the staff started to get a bit concerned. Lori was in extreme pain, and actually asking for pain meds. They started to prepare the drugs, but never got a chance to give them to her. By the time the drugs were in the room and the IV was prepped, she was already pushing. The actual delivery got rushed. With a doctor, midwife and 4 nurses in the room, gathered around watching and coaching, it felt really hectic. The doctor became concerned when Robbie's heart rate would drop significantly during contractions, and only come back up if she reached in and stimulated his scalp. This led to the decision to use the vacuum pump and give Lori an episiotomy. After 20-30 minutes of pushing, pulling and cutting, we had a healthy, 7 lb baby boy who peed all over everything as soon as they set him down on the warmer to towel him off.

We are very thankful for the delivery and staff that we had. Compared to some other people we know, 9 hours from broken water to delivery is really not too bad at all. All the nurses at Abbott were extremely helpful and kind. Our midwife Lois was phenomenal. Everyone was extremely supportive. I am really glad that we chose the hospital we did. We have heard some horror stories from other families about staff that was cold and mean, but we had the exact opposite experience.

So because of the way the delivery happened, and because Lori is in the 20% of women that are carriers for a certain virus, they kept us in the hospital until Monday afternoon just to make sure that Robbie was ok. He has been great at all the things he's supposed to be doing. He knew right away what boobs are for and once Lori got a little bit of coaching, he had no problem getting everything all lined up and working.

We took him to the pediatrician on Wednesday, and they were concerned about his bilirubin levels. In the hospital they had put him in the "low risk" category for jaundice, because when they measured his levels, he was at a 4. By the time we got to the pediatrician, he was all the way up over 19 and pretty yellow. They told us to supplement his feedings with formula, because it appears that he wasn't getting enough to eat. Once we did that, he became a lot more content. They sent a medical service out with a bili-blanket. This thing is awesome. It's a baby sized fiber optic blanket attached to a box that sits on the floor. The box sends blue light up to the blanket and makes him look like one of those creepy gloworm toys from the 80s. After a couple days on that, and getting pooping again, he is doing great, and even spends some of his awake time just looking around instead of crying and moving his head around trying to find the food.

So things are good. I've taken the past week off from working on the basement and my website. I've caught up on a little bit of the sleep I've missed over the past couple months. As I type, my parents are on their way from Illinois to spend a week with us. Lori's mom was here for a couple days while I went back to work, and she'll be here again sporadically once my parents head home as well. We have an amazing group of friends who have given us tons of support (and dinner). But the future is uncertain. With Lori on maternity leave, we have significantly less income coming in. My salary at the paper really can't pay all our bills. So once I'm finished with the basement, either I need a second job, or my business needs to take off. After spending a few days at home with my son and wife, I have really found that I enjoy working from home. It's really hard to be away so much of the time. So of my two options, I would greatly prefer for my photography business to take off, and be able to supplement my income with that. This is where you come in. I need your help. I need as much word of mouth advertising I can get, so go visit my store. Tell your coworkers. Tell your friends. Tell your mom. Tell your mom's friends and your friend's moms. I know people like my work. I just need them to remember it when they are in the mood to decorate. The best way you can support us as a family right now is to give my work some exposure. So if you see something you like, go ahead and buy it. Even an 8x10 helps us out a lot. I will continue working hard to bring more options to the store. Every print, puzzle or stampbook puts food on our table. If you want to tell people about it, most of the photos on my website, appliedperspective.com, have a "Buy this print" link underneath them. I'm working on getting more photos on the website, and in the store as well.

And what would a post about my son be without pictures?