He's here!!!

Dean Michael Catalano was born on August 17th at 9:24am. He was 19.5 inches long and weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
Everything with labor and delivery went really well. I started having contractions around 10:00pm on the 16th that were progressively getting stronger. Mike and I went to the hospital around 12:30 (we didn't want to wait too long since our new house is a lot further away from the hospital). Once we got there, everything went pretty quick. So quick at the end in fact, I made the nurse really nervous - I needed to push and there was no doctor in the room yet! My doctor made it and in a few pushes, Dean was here.

One thing we weren't prepared for was that Dean was born with a clubfoot. This is a birth defect that takes several years of treatment to correct. The good news is that since it's not too rare (about 1/1000 kids are born with it) the treatment is fairly proven and he should be just like the other kids his age once it's corrected. The bad news is that the treatment is not easy... He's currently in a full leg cast and gets it removed and a new one put on every week (Thursdays for Dean). These started the day after he was born and the doctor thinks he'll need to have about two more after the one he currently has on. After that, he'll have to have surgery where they'll be severing his achilles tendon which apparently will grow back longer (a three week healing process in a cast). After the surgery, he'll need to wear braces on his feet 23 hours a day for about 3 months. Then, the time in the brace will slowly decrease to by the time he's one, he should only be wearing them while he sleeps. He'll need to continue to wear them while he sleeps until he's four years old.
The whole thing has been very overwhelming for Mike and I and gives us an additional set of worries for our little man (as if I don't worry enough about him and Luciana as it is...). His current cast is very heavy and bothers him a lot. It breaks our heart to see him in pain, especially knowing that this is just the beginning of a long road for him. I'll try to update as I can so everyone is aware of his next steps, especially his surgery which I have a hard time even thinking about. Hopefully writing about it will make it easier to go through...