Patrick.Brian's photostream

I believe I owe an explanation after my last post promised a 365 for Isabella.

I posted the last photo about a week before she was born, because between being in the hospital for three days after she was born and visiting family I did not have the chance to post it before that.

The plan was to post 2 photos a day until i was caught up.

But, when Isabella was 9 days old, she got sick. She started throwing up a lot and she could not keep down every a little bit of milk. So we rushed her to the emergency room at 4am one Wednesday. The doctor had us wait for a few minutes and try to feed her again to see how she did. Not even 2 minutes after drinking a little bit of milk, she threw up again.

She was checked into the hospital and we were told to come back later. Throughout the rest of the day they ran tests and xrays to try and see what was wrong.

It turns out that she was born with an intestinal malrotation, which basically means that she intestines were in the wrong position. They looped around each other at one point and started to swell until nothing was able to get past.

And for this, she had to have surgery the next day, when she was only 10 days old. I've never experienced something more heartwrenching than when the doctor told us to say goodbye to her before they wheeled her into surgery.

After a very long 2 and a half hours, they came and told us that the surgery was a success and that the problem was the least threatening condition that it could have been.

After her surgery, Isabella had to stay in the hospital for three long weeks.

I am pleased to report that she is now that happiest and healthiest little baby that she can be.

So through all this, and the ensuing emotional roller coaster that it took us on, we weren't able to take photos of her (nor did we really wish to remember so vividly what it was like to see her hooked up to so many tubes and wires).

We are still taking pictures of course, but we are not going to stress ourselves out with the 365. We are just go to enjoy having her with us.

She is a little angel. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

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This photo was taken after her bath the other night. She really LOVES to take a bath. Juuust like mommy, she wants to spend all her time in the water.

I hope all is well with my flickr contacts out there :)

Isabella Zoe was born on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 11:43 PM in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She came in weighing 8 pounds and 8 ounces and was just over 19.5 inches long.

She was a risky delivery for several reasons and in the end, she had to be delivered by C-section. While the nurses were cleaning her she was crying and kicking and punching all about as hard as she could but as soon as she was wrapped up, the nurse put her in my arms and she calmed down, opened her eyes and gave me a little smile.

She is the most beautiful and most precious little thing that I have ever seen.

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Cristina and I have decided that we will do a 365 project for the first year of her life. We will be posting to flickr and we will start a blog that I hope will be up tomorrow. We are running behind scheduled already with the hospital stay and family visiting from out of town. We will be updating once or twice a day until we are caught up.

It was an ugly, grey, rainy, cold and wholly welcome day and a wonderful change from the heat we have been having.

By chance I looked out the window at the right time and saw the clouds breaking just in time for a beautiful display of colors across the sky.

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Panoramic stitched together from 6 or 7 photos (I think it was 7 but I'm to tired to find out for sure)

Big news in the coming days for my Flickr contacts. Stay tuned to see what I've been doing for all this time I've been away.

Being in a city such as this, one sometimes feels that the only thing here is the city. The people, the cars, the stores and parks all become the city. It seemingly extends forever, in every direction, taking over the earth, the river, and the sky. Nature cannot penetrate it, a few trees and birds are overshadowed and overrun by buses, skyscrapers and trains. The city consumes everything so only the city is left.

But in the morning, on the rooftop, under the majestic clouds and colors of the sky, I realize that the city can not be everything for it will be forever below the sunrise.

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Panoramic stitched together from eight different photos.

Taken on the boat to Uruguay the other day. It was a beautiful trip. We left at sunrise form Tigre, which is 30 minutes outside of Buenos Aires, and arrived in Uruguay after three hours of sailing through the river delta. Very nice, relaxing trip.

More photos to come!