Well in case you haven’t heard…
We had our Baby!
(click the image for a larger view)
Here’s a picture of our brand new bundle of joy.
Ethan Michael Meade.
As you can imagine I’m staying very busy at present.
I will update the site with more pictures and a more in depth blog soon… but I’m too tired to sting together more than two coherent thoughts.
So stay tuned.
Mom and Baby are doing great.
We couldn’t be happier.
Ok as promised here are the last round of 3D pre-Baby pics!
It was so much fun to go and see this in real time.
We have a DVD of the whole thing.
As you can see he’s a little bigger and more active now.
There were plenty of cute shots and I’ve loaded a selection of them in the photo gallery.
Check them out & Enjoy.
But to save you the huge hassle of clicking let me share a few of them with you here.
This one is a nice profile shot.
Isn’t he cute?
This 3D ultra sound stuff is amazing.
Ok here’s another.
In this one he seems to be smiling.
Adorable.
Seriously something must be really funny in there because he’s cracking up in this next one.
Wow I can’t wait to see the little guy in person.
And it could be any day now.
Seriously folks there a lot of great shots in the latest photo gallery.
All for now… Take Care!
Hi everyone.
I know you are all waiting for me to post the latest 3D Baby Pictures.
I’m sorry it’s taken so long I will try to get that done very soon.
Work is keeping me pretty busy but I will get it done ASAP - certainly before the week is out.
In related news…
Jana’s doctor visit today yielded some pretty exciting / nerve-wracking information…
If our Doctor were a betting woman she’d be putting money on us having the baby two weeks early.
Which means we’d be having the baby… in two weeks.
TWO WEEKS!!
Wow that’s crazy.
We’ll keep you posted on if/how the doctor changes her bet.
In un-related news…
It’s our first baby’s birthday today!
Sterling is FOUR YEARS OLD!!!
A pleasant bit of sunshine on an otherwise gloomy date - 9/11.
Sterling is four, and in dog years that’s 28.
She still acts like a crazy hyper puppy.
And she probably always will.
Well I’ve got tons of stuff I should be doing right now so I’ll sign off.
– Stay Tuned.
Hello everyone.
Have a real quick update for you.
We recently went to get the first of our two “3D Ultrasounds” done.
It was pretty Amazing.
This new Ultrasound technology takes many pictures per second and generates a 3D view from them.
You can even see real-time movement in 3D.
An example pic is below….
but there are more examples in the latest photo gallery.
I can’t wait until the next one.
That will happen at about week 35.
He should be quite a bit bigger by then!
Yesterday Jana’s dad passed away.
Mike Scaggs.
He’d been sick for some time.
Although some comfort can be found in the fact that he’s no longer in pain It’s still not fair.
He was 53 years old.
Jana’s Christmases and Thanksgivings will never be quite the same.
Our baby will know him only through the stories we tell.
And we won’t have any pictures of him holding our baby.
Mike was a big guy.
Tall, broad shoulders, and smile nearly as wide.
He was thin. A Quarterback not a Linebacker.
Literally.
He still holds several football records at his high school.
Being an athlete, a coal miner, and generally active guy it was doubly cruel when he was stricken with a rare and incredibly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis.
It took only two years for the disease to completely immobilize him.
Still those that knew him are at least thankful that it happened quick. Mike couldn’t stand the thought of being helpless. Trapped in his own unresponsive body.
For what it’s worth … we are all relieved that his pain, frustration, and fatigue are over.
I remember the day I asked him for permission to marry his daughter.
You see when Jana and I were serious enough that we knew getting married was on the horizon I told her I would need to talk to her dad before I ever asked her.
A lot of people don’t bother with that these days, but the way I figured it, the whole thing about the father walking the bride down the aisle indicates that the couple has his blessing. That being the case I should probably make sure we had it.
So not surprisingly Jana had been taking me down to Petersburg quite often, giving me every opportunity to talk to him. And I would not do it. I wanted my proposal to be a complete surprise so I certainly wasn’t going to give her any idea I had talked to him.
I called him one night , told him I’d like to talk to him, and could I come down to visit. Now Petersburg is at least two and half hours away from my house so at that point he had to have some idea what was up. He suggested that we meet half way.
So late that night, while Jana was at work, I met Mike in a Denny’s somewhere in Bloomington. And as Mike liked to say got his daughter “for a sixty nine cent cup of coffee.”
For the record though I also had chicken strips so I actually had to lay out something like four dollars in order to win Jana’s hand.
All joking aside it was, of course, the event itself that was important. In my mind it was just the right thing to do. A simple respectful gesture to the family I was hoping to become a part of.
But it was more important to Mike than I had known at the time.
And aside from cementing what was already the beginnings of a great relationship with the Scaggs family … I gained a deeper insight into who mike was.
We shared a few important beliefs in what, to us, was just plain right.
Our families weren’t all that different apparently.
One of the many reasons I feel so much a part of theirs… and I hope they feel of mine.
He was Jana’s dad.
Which is, I’m sure, at least one of the many reasons Jana is the person she is.
For that I will be forever thankful to Mike.
Mike was able to walk Jana down the aisle - and I will forever be glad for that.
I will forever be grateful for that late night hour and a half trip to Denny’s.
Because I knew that walk wasn’t simply ceremony.
It was real.
There’s no doubt he will be greatly missed.
I am glad however that he’s no longer in pain. No longer chair bound.
Whatever the check-in procedure is for the after life I can’t help but picture Mike strutting up to the counter and ringing the bell.
Hi there folks!
Sorry it’s been so long since there’s been any update on the baby.
Jana’s doing great and we’re truckin’ along towards our expected delivery date of Oct. 14th.
We recently had our 20 week ultra sound … that was a lot of fun! To the right is one of my favorite pictures from the scan.
As you can probably tell it’s a profile shot of the baby (lying down on it’s back). You can see the head very well and make out the nose, lips and chin. How CUTE!
You can even see part of a hand up by the chin.
Those of you who have been through a pregnancy probably know that the 20 week ultra sound is when you can, if you want to, find out if it’s a boy or a girl.
well we wanted to know…
IT’S A BOY!!!
The tech running the scan was 100% sure.
I would have been equally thrilled to have either a boy or a girl of course but it’s nice to know one way or the other.
We’ve really enjoyed being able to say “he” instead of “it”.
Since the big news we’ve been able to decide on a theme for the nursery, and shop for sex-specific clothes. It’s been a lot of fun.
I can’t wait to meet the little guy.
They even gave us a DVD video of the ultra sound so hopefully I’ll be able to post some video as well! It was truly amazing.
We still don’t have a name for him but we’re hard at work trying to find the perfect one. Stay tuned.
The photo gallery has been updated.
That’s all for now!
Hello everyone.
Sorry for the stale stagnant site.
It’s been ridiculously busy here in the world of Doug.
I just wish it had been busy with things that were worth reporting.
Things are likely to get even busier in the coming weeks.
But I’ll honestly try to get some posts made.
In the meantime check out all the new quotes!
In the world of Baby…
We’re eagerly awaiting the 20wk ultrasound.
No real news.
Jana is doing fine, and we’re marching along.
In the world of Poker…
Made the final table at a recent tourney.
Made the very bottom of the “In the Money” group.
Though after all the re-buys and add-ons I basically broke even.
In the world of 24…
I’m starting to wonder how the heck they are gonna drag this out another… what 6 hours?
I also hear that they signed on for another three seasons AND a movie version.
Sweet…
Once this season is over I am SOOOOooo gonna go get the video game to hold me over until the next season.
Hi there folks!
GREAT NEWS!
It’s a bit earlier than I thought I’d be posting anything like this…… but I can’t take it any longer.
The Doctors say everything is groovy and proceeding as planned so I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce… I’m gonna be a Daddy!
Yep! Jana and I are pregnant!
We’re not yet at 12 weeks (the traditional “tell everybody” time frame) so your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.
It’s been a long and winding road requiring all the marvels of modern science available, but it actually worked.
To the left is a picture of the two embryos that were implanted.
In the picture here they are about 2 days old. A collection of cells nine and six strong respectively.
It’s a bit odd how attached one can become to a collection of nine and six cells, but we did.
Jana and I spent a great deal of time wondering which would take.
Maybe both?!
What if none??
None was almost to sad to contemplate.
We’re very pleased that one did take, and now I find myself wondering which one was it?
We’ll never know for sure of course… but I do wonder.
The weeks that followed were crazy.
Fun, stressful, and everything in between.
We counted the hours until our next doctor visit to get another ultrasound and another thumbs up.
Here (to the right) is the six week ultrasound.
The baby has a heartbeat now and is about a quarter of an inch big. (7.09mm)
Let me digress for a moment.
The Six week image is actually four REAL weeks.
Apparently pregnancy takes 38 weeks.
But somebody decided that didn’t sound good so they started telling everyone it was 40.
Forty must have sounded like a nice round number.
So now… when you get pregnant.
They ADD two weeks to everything. So this is our “you’re six weeks along” picture… but we’re really only four weeks at this point.
ANYWAY…
That was a big day.
At that point our percentage of risk for “something bad” to happen that would derail everything before we even got out of the station was about 8%
Pretty good odds I suppose… but enough to make you nervous.
Our most recent visit (shown here) is the “You’re eight weeks along” visit. It went well, and we are now around a one half of one percent risk factor.
That feels better.
Still gotta worry a bit though.
I suppose that’s how the rest of my life will go. 
Here the little one is about 18.22mm long.
Growin’ like a weed already.
The heart rate is a good 160 bpm.
Jana is doing great, and despite a little nausea now and then is still functioning pretty much like normal.
We look forward to all the next little milestones.
And before you ask…
1) We DON’T know what it is yet.
It’s still too early to figure out the gender.
2) We DO WANT to know.
Stay tuned.
We’ll let you know when we do.
3) We DON’T have a name yet.
We’re accepting suggestions.. but it’s not a vote.
We have supreme veto power on this one. 
In the meantime….
We’re preparing a photo galery.
Today is Jana’s Birthday!
Happy birthday Baby!
Happy birthday Jana
Hope you like the present … no you can’t open it before dinner… and I’m sure we’ll enjoy our night out on the town.
I love you!