Archive for November, 2009

Purifying the air for baby’s arrival

Posted on November 30, 2009 - by Bradley Hebdon

With baby looking to show her face on Dec 25th, it pretty much places her birthday within the flu season. Our house is also inhabited by Max and Coco (our cat and dog), so we figured we’d better get  the home’s air quality in order, prior to her arrival.

After extensive research it became apparent that consumers could splurge up to a thousand dollars on Air Purifiers. And with different (and controversial) technologies out there, it can be a very confusing shopping experience. For the best bang for your buck, this is what we picked:

Honeywell 17000 Permanent Pure HEPA QuietCare Air Purifier
This portable air cleaner is recommended for filtering the air in a closed room as large as 168 square feet (12 by 14 feet). As it continuously circulates a room’s air–about six times per hour–it employs two filters to remove smoke, pollen, dust, animal dander, dust mites, molds, bacteria, viruses, and odors. Especially useful for asthmatics and allergy sufferers, the cleaner contains a true HEPA filter that is at least 99.97 percent effective at trapping extremely tiny particles (as small as 0.3 microns) while a prefilter reduces odors.

Take one contraction at a time

Posted on November 22, 2009 - by Bradley Hebdon

At 35 weeks pregnant, we’re now approaching the final straight. As part of the final preparations we attended a 9-5 compressed course at Long Beach Memorial, that shed light on labor, breathing, birthing, drugs, etc.  While there was an enormous amount of information and graphic video footage, the thing that stuck with us most was the instructor’s simple statement: “Take one contraction at a time”. 

Well that and one of the couples joking about the birthing video we had just watched. Let’s just say the star of the video was not the most attractive of women. So when they inquired as to whether any of videos included couples more like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, it underlined the subject’s unattractiveness and the fact we are in Los Angeles. We had to admit, they were only saying what we were thinking.

We’ll probably forget some of the breathing techniques, but what we will remember is that it’s all about creating a distraction from the pain.  And most importantly we’re confident that we have the tools to manage pain: humor, breathing, visualization, focus points and drugs IF needed… one contraction at a time.

A Baby Shower, Moroccan style

Posted on November 15, 2009 - by Bradley Hebdon

Thanks to Jericoh, Marianne and Dawn for throwing the most amazing baby shower. It was hosted in Jericho’s Moroccan beautiful home, on the Naples canals.