Sleepy Hana

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hana's first christmas

christmas was pretty eventful 'round these parts. there's lots of pictures to post so for those of you who go in for that sort of thing, this post should feel like photo-palooza!

first of all, it was really special that nana - my mom- and granddad - my step-dad fred - were able to be here for hana's first christmas.

my brother richard - also known as "uncle poo" and creator of the nickname "pooty poo" - had been lamenting that despite his best efforts, he wasn't going to be able to make it up there this christmas to see the pooty. but then, my sister-in-law michelle surprised him and gave him a plane ticket for christmas to come up christmas eve and spend the night and then leave on christmas night.

WOOHOOOOO!!!! uncle poo and pooty poo together at last!!!! it was a blast to have him here and hana really seemed to enjoy her uncle. as usual, richard is something of a baby whisperer and he had her up and alert quite a bit which made for some cute pictures.

after playtime with uncle poo was over, hana nestled down into one of her fluffy blankets. this made for more photo ops... behold: hana in a cloud.

on christmas day, we also decided to give hana her first bath at home. nana's friend janie gave her a new christmas outfit that was distinctly southern ("...Tara!") so it seemed appropriate to spiff her up a bit. i decided to actually put on make up and earrings myself for the first time in weeks. these days, i appreciate a shower the way one appreciates a shower after several days of camping...

hana and me before we spiffed up:

and hana and me, post spiffing...

as for the bath, well, let's just say she's not a fan. oh she was fine for the first few minutes. but then the water started to cool off then she was over it. despite her cute and fuzzy pink fluffy bunny towel, she did not really mellow out until she was fully clothed again. although, there was an awful lot of poof in her christmas dress and she never really got comfortable in that either. so ultimately she was back in casual clothes within the hour. in that way, she's just like her mama...

it is worthy to mention the size of my child's feet. in an ultrasound we had around5 months, the dr. asked who in the family had big feet. since both jon and i have flippers rather than feet, we both sheepishly raised our hands. needless to say, those cute little christmas booties made their first and last voyage on christmas day. there are some socks and other cute shoes that she's quickly growing out of as well. that's momma's lil' big foot!

we did have other guests stop by for christmas day. cousin kim (my mom's cousin) came over. "auntie" noelle (my childhood friend) brought a fabulous cheesecake. and auntie yolinda and uncle jim were also in town from paradise, ca. it was a good day. it was nice (if not a little overwhelming) to have a house full of people on christmas. we ate lots of treats, we watched figure skating (of course), we had LOTS of laughs. it was super fun!

the "E" true hollywood labor and delivery story

some have asked about the labor and delivery story, so if you haven't heard it, here it is. if you don't want to know, stop reading now. you have been warned...

my first regularly spaced contractions began on the morning of 12/15 at 6:50 a.m. they were moderate in intensity and spaced every 10 minutes. they gradually increased in intensity over the next few hours. by about 11:30 a.m they'd progressed to 7 minutes apart. by 4:30 p.m., they really "kicked it up a notch" by going to between 2-5 minutes apart (BAM!). i would have a cluster of 3-4 contractions that were 2 minutes apart and then a 5 minute "break". dr. gentry's instructions were to call when contractions were 3-5 minutes apart for an hour so at 5:30, jon called the dr's answering service. we waited 30 minutes for a call back. a LOOOONG 30 minutes. (apparently, dr. gentry didn't get the page right away). i finally directed jon to call them back again because "this is cuttin' into my epidural time". after laboring all day, i was tired. i knew that if i needed to push out a baby in the next 24 hours, i would need to sleep. in order to sleep, i needed an epidural. also, i knew that unfortunately, they don't have anaesthesiologists that greet you at the door and hook you up. i was going to have to go through triage and some labs and stuff before i could get the good stuff. i figured it would take about 90 minutes after we got to the hospital for a little relief. so while we waited for the call back from the 5:30 call, i told everyone to get their shoes on, get their stuff together, back the car out, "because i KNOW we're going." but 6:00 came and no call so i told jon to call back. they apologized for the mix up (b*tches!!!) and sent us on our way. sadly, in all of this, i didn't have time to eat a descent last supper. they say that laboring women don't get hungry but i'm here to tell you. that ain't. i thought about eating throughout labor and delivery. we got to the hospital around 6:10. while in triage, i was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced. the triage nurse asked if i wanted the epidural to which i emphatically replied yes. then she asked a few more times to make sure that i really wanted one even though i was only 2 cm. i wanted to say " heifer, don't make me get up off this bed and slap you!" but instead, i said, "YES! if you want me to push out the baby , i need to sleep... (see earlier comments). coincidentally, dr. gentry called to triage room looking for me because of the errant page. she gave the order for the admission and the epidural so we were off and running. i was admitted by 7:00 or so. i got the hook up around 8:00 thanks to an angel nurse called claudette. she really, REALLY advocated for me.

after the epidural was administered, i was still 2 cm and 90%. so i decided to do some sleeping. i wasn't able to get a good sleep because i was awakened every 15 minutes by the automatic blood pressure cuff, cleverly disguised as a medieval torture device. this went on for 3 hours and then i started to feel more pressure. the magic button given to me by the epidural guy (you already get a constant flow of some medication, but the magic button gives a lil' somethin' extra as needed) was becoming increasingly less effective. the nurse checked me and said "oh, that's why... you're 8 cm dilated... you're moving right along. i'm gonna call the dr".

the on call doc was dr. sandhu, a petite little female fire cracker of an ob who was running around the floor tending to a whole bunch of stuff. but apparently there was another dr. sandhu, a male proctologist or something who was also on call. they kept paging him, to no avail. (in the meantime, the right dr. sandhu kept getting pages to do colonoscopies to which she would reply, "i don't have male patients!". ) wacky! so an hour went by and they hadn't heard from a doctor. it was midnight and i was fully dilated, fully effaced. but the baby was still "quite high" according to claudette. claudette asked "are you ready to have a baby?" to which i replied "actually, i could sleep some more..." she shrugged her shoulders and walked out... probably to call the doctor again. maybe she went to call for a psych consult because i was really REALLY focused on sleep at the moment which probably seemed odd. but apparently my contractions were indicating that now was not the time for sleeping, now was the time for pushing a baby out because despite pressing that magic button over and over and over and over, it was clear to me that the epidural had worn out on my left side. that meant that while my right side was feeling fine, my left side was on FIRE!!! i love it when they say to you "ok you are going to feel a lot of pressure..." i work for CPS for crying out loud! some pressure, i can handle! this was PAIN!!! anyway, claudette and i decided that it was time to give a few pushes just to see how they would go. she figured since the baby was high, i had a lot of pushing ahead of me anyway. it would be a good way to kill time while they scare up the doctor. well, evidently, all that strength training i did during pregnancy paid off because the baby was crowning after two pushes (one contraction). that sent claudette scrambling. it was just jon, my mom, claudette and me in the room and claudette was not trying to deliver this baby by herself. she she told me that when i have contractions, i just need to pant through them. let me tell you, panting is exhausting... it really wasn't working for me. eventually we switched to the "light pushes" approach and that kept me in a bit of holding pattern for a while. in the meantime, claudette was busy trying to round up some nurses to help her out. each time i had a contraction, she would tell me what to do (push, pant, light push...) all the while, she's trying to rustle up a doc. finally a charge nurse came in and assessed the situation. her response was " we need to get ANY doctor in here to attend this birth... any at all". i started to worry that my birth would be attended by a podiatrist because they couldn't reach dr. sandhu - the right one. finally, they did get a hold of her around 1:00 a.m. and she was 10 minutes away. claudette was like "she's not going to make it!". more and more nurses started coming in. they wheeled in the baby warmer and stuff. they did all the set up and another few minutes passed with no doctor. then about 1:10 a.m. or so, dr. sandhu literally slid in the door like a character from a hanna barbera cartoon and said "whoa! ok, where's my gloves!!!!". so claudette and the other nurses started catching her up to speed and there was some discussion about how fast my labor had progressed and how this happened that she barely made it in time, etc... there was a lot of conversation in the room and i was going to have a contraction. now that the dr. was there, i was looking for guidance. so yes, i did raise up, snap my fingers over my head and said "hey! people! focus! i'm having a contraction!" that did the trick. and that's when the pushing began "in earnest". and by that, i mean, that's when i didn't do anything to hold back at all. i got the go ahead and i went. it felt like mile 24 of a marathon. i was tired. i was ready to be done. i just needed to push through the pain and get the hell off the roads to the finish. except the difference is that marathons take less time to finish and are FAR less painful. FAR FAR less painful. as a focal point, i had a sign that jon made me for the first marathon i did in 2004. it just said "Go Brittany!" but that's all it needed to say and it was like i was right there. while i was pushing, one of the people standing behind dr. sandhu, in the umpires position, said "less pushing in your face and more focussed on your bottom". to which claudette and dr. sandhu said "oh she's fine!". i'm glad they said something before i did. i suspect they were worried that if i pushed any harder or more efficiently, i shoot the baby out past them and down the hall, a la the opening scene in the movie "big fish" (if you haven't seen it, you must! it's excellent!). they told jon to look down so he could see the progress and that birth was very close. jon's response was "oh WOW. OK!" they asked me if i wanted to feel the head... "uh, no". i guess they were shocked by that. i really didn't need to feel all that to be motivated because frankly, i was already feelin' it! it really wasn't' that many more pushes before her head was 1/2 out. yes, 1/2 out... contraction stopped before i could finish getting her head totally out. that fraking hurts i tell you. THE absolute WORST pain i ever felt!!!! (incidentally, this was the only time during the labor and delivery process that i didn't think about eating.) someone had the nerve to say "ok you are going to feel a lot of pressure..." but i made a point to clarify that this was "...actually A LOT OF PAIN!!!" because frankly, i had felt a lot of pressure earlier in the evening and i felt i was able to handle this fine. this was the longest minute of my life. i was definitely not as composed as i had been earlier in the pushing and people thought i was panicking. actually, i may have been, but mostly, i just wanted the next contraction to come so i could finish the job. well, it did. and i did. and then they wanted me to stop pushing so they could suction. i frankly was not inclined to do that because her shoulders were delivering "a lot of pressure" as well, which felt remarkably similar to a lot of pain. i tried to hold back but the body overruled. i think they must have suctioned her as if she were on a moving assembly line where none of us had control of the speed like on "i love lucy". so out came the shoulders, and all the rest and the whole room went "WHOA!!!" and then they put this big hunk of throbbing baby on my belly. we looked each other in the eye and i can distinctly remember thinking, "thank GOD that's over". i'm pretty sure she was thinking the same thing.

for the first few minutes, i also thought, "what the hell am i supposed to do with this?" but then as the minutes passed, the hysteria gave way to joy in the room. my discomfort melted to fatigue. i can think better in total exhaustion than in total pain. i began to remember all the research of what i wanted to do in the first hour of the baby's life. namely, confirm the name - hana muzette, and try to nurse her and try to get some sleep. check, check, check. one thing that i didn't get for several days a decent meal. we did get some christopher's burgers one night, and some friends brought us zachary's pizza one night, both of which were like the best meals EVER! especially after that poison they pass off as food at the hospital. in fact, our 2nd night, jon had to leave and ended up in the emergency room himself because he got a wicked case of food poisoning from hospital food... so sad.

so today, hana (pronounced Ha-Na, not like the name hannah) is 11 days old and things are going pretty well. we had a good christmas, which i'll post about later. we are starting to fall into a routine. hana is a good sleeper and a good eater. and she's already growing out of some of the newborn clothes. cloth diapers are even going pretty well (lest you think i wash all those, we have a diaper service). i'm beginning to feel better but i still feel a little like i pulled a couple of shifts as a human speed bump at a monster truck rally. pharmaceuticals, cat naps and looking at hana's face, help me cope. and my mom being here has been a GODSEND! i don't know how we would have survived these first weeks without her. sadly, she leaves day after tomorrow. jon and i are trying not to panic, but suffice it to say, if the flight was canceled due to weather, we'd be OK with that.

the fog slowly lifts

well, we have been home for a few days and i'm beginning to notice things again... like there is an outside...

baby hana is doing great! as jon mentioned, while we were at the hospital, concerns rose about how much weight hana lost after birth. some loss is normal. but they don't want babies to lose more than 10% of their body weight. on sunday night, the pediatrician discharged her and she was 8lbs 11oz - within the normal range. but during the night, a nurse weighed her again and she had lost more weight still - down to 8lbs 7oz. the nurse requested a pediatrician check her again. it seemed strange that her weight continued to go down becasue she was being fed for 60-90 every 2-3 hours (start of feeding to start of feeding). so basically there would be like 30 minutes or so when she wasn't eating. but everytime she'd wake up, she was ravenous. so when the pediatrician came again in the morning, she said that 16 oz was too much. but then vaguely said that "breastfeeding was natural", "stick with it", "think about supplementing" and things like that that were marginally useful. well, that's a generous assessment. i was wrestling with everything i'd read and learned in classes prior to the baby coming about what baby needs and people advising against using formula if you are breast feeding. so frankly, i didn't really care one way or the other about supplementing, i just wanted my baby to get enough to eat so she won't go hungry. although everyone was long on concern, they were short on solutions. after three days of being poked and prodded every couple of hours, often just minutes after i got the baby calmed down, someone wanted to draw blood, i was growing inpatient with the nebulous nature of everyone's response. i was definately highly upset and emotional. especially after having to spend time alone at the hospital, my husband going to the hospital and all these nurses running around concerned about the baby getting enough to eat. to make matters worse, when i did become emotional, the nurses would try to console me and say things like "i know you feel like a failure" or " i know you think you are a bad parent...". this would infuriate me because honestly, i KNOW i'm NOT a failure or a bad parent! i just wanted my baby to eat dammit and no one had any answers!!!! i just wanted people to shut up talking to me unless the words "ok, here's the plan..." were at the beginning of the sentence. thankfully, dr. gentry called to check in on me (apparently one of the nurses told her i wasn't doing well and wanted her to convince me to stay another day - as IF!). talking to her is always huge relief because she's very pragmatic. i told her what was going on with me and about jon and about the baby and how i just wanted to know what to do. i'm not a failure but you would have to be dead inside to not be heart broken to hear your baby cry herself hoarse with hunger (and from people poking her constantly and saying "she's a hungry baby..." duh!). so she gave me some good suggestions and talking points and helped temper the propaganda of the lactation consultants so i could make a more real world decision about what to do. when the lactation consultant came in later in morning, i was ready to just say, " ok, here's the deal..." so we came up with a plan and i felt MUCH better. i told the hospital people and dr. gentry's on call doc that visited me that i know why they wanted me to stay and extra day but i'm not doing that and here's why. they agreed with my logic and liked that i had made a plan (because clearly, they are unfamiliar with the fact that i almost ALWAYS have a plan). so home i went with the baby. and once we walked through the door of the house, we were all infinately better and more relaxed. hana slept great and fed like a champ. by the time we did a 24 hour check up with the pediatrician, she'd gained 4 oz in 36 hours. this was amazing progress since they hope that babies gain just 3/4 of an oz per day for the next couple of weeks following birth. a visiting nurse came to our house again today and in less than 24 hours, she'd gained an additional 3 ozs! the nurse felt that all of the hubbub was officially over the top and that i needed to relax. so 7 oz in a couple of days is pretty freakin' awesome. the nurse suggested that our feeding plan was clearly working but probably wearing us out too much. she suggested a more relaxed plan, which we have embraced like one would embrace "the new black". so we're all pretty relaxed if not a little tired. thank god my folks are here to help. they have been a godsend. jon is feeling better too. he ate solid food today. i joked with him that getting food poisening from a hospital vending machine was God's way of assisting him with losing the sympathy weight he gained during my pregnancy. so we're settling in.

Pictures of Hana

A rough couple of days

Friends continued to stop in to see Hana and wish us well.
Noelle came by and Jenny and Nadia dropped off some Zachary's pizza on their way to a Survivor finale party.
Things seemed to be going well, although being on Hana's feeding schedule meant not knowing whether it was day or night and getting sleep in 45 minute to 2 hour increments. As far as feeding went, she seemed to have "a good latch," as the lactation consultant said. But we found that she was feeding almost constantly and always seemed to be hungry!
I had developed a headache, probably from fatigue and lack of sleep (even when Hana was sleeping, it was hard to go to sleep myself because I just wanted to hold her and stare at her little face).
At one point, Hana got a bit of a fever, which may have been because the room was simply too warm, but I meanwhile was having a hard time staying warm. Around 11:00 PM, on Sunday, I suddenly became naseous and developed diarrhea. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me, I thought maybe it was the flu, but I figured I shouldn't be around the baby if I was sick, so I called Brittany's mom and she came and brought me home. Then she went back to the hospital to be with Brittany that night.
Once I got home, my symptoms got even worse, I couldn't keep anything down. I tried calling the on-call doc at my doctor's practice, but they were tied-up with some emergency. Worried that I was becoming seriously dehydrated, I drove myself to the emergency room around 2:00 AM. I spent several hours Monday morning in the emergency room, with IV liquids being pumped into me. The ER doc diagnosed me with gastroenteritis, wrote prescriptions for Ciprofoaxin and Famotidine and gave instructions to be on a liquid diet for a few days, slowly building up to solid food, and to follow-up with my regular physician in the morning.
Meanwhile, Brittany was having a rough go at it with Hana while I was gone. It ended up that she didn't bring Hana home from the Hospital until late afternoon on Monday because she was meeting with a second lactation consultant and trying to figure out what was going on with our little girl. Turns out that although Hana was latching on well during breast feeding, she didn't have a strong suck, so although suckling soothed her, she wasn't getting enough to eat.
I couldn't get an appointment with my doctor until the afternoon, so I spent the day getting my prescriptions filled and shopping for a couple things we needed. I felt terrible and was still in a haze, not having gotten more than 3 hours of sleep the night before. Plus, the whole prospect of being sick and not being able to hold my baby had me seriously tripped out!
Eventually, I got to the doctor and he confirmed that I had food poisoning. The medication would help and I should be better in a few days, in the meantime, it would probably be best that I didn't touch the baby for a couple days. I tried to adhere to that for the remainder of that day, but half way through today, I abandoned that plan when, with Brittany in the shower and Jayne on the way to SFO to pick up Fred, Hana started crying. My doctor said that since newborns' immune systems haven't totally kicked in yet, even if she were to get the bacteria in her system, it likely wouldn't have much impact as the symptoms are all the immune system's attempts to get rid of the intruding bacteria. A newborn's system isn't likely to even respond. Anyway, we are all washing our hands thoroughly before handling her (the skin on my hands is raw as a result).
Hana had a visit to the pediatrician's office today for her routine check. She's gaining weight again, so that is very encouraging. She'll go back for a two-week check to track her progress. We had to undress her to weigh her and just as I was putting her diaper back on, she peed. Not just a little, either. This was a real gusher! Totally soaked the diaper!
Now that Hana is gaining weight and I'm starting to feel better (I moved up to Jello today), we are all feeling a lot more at ease, if still quite tired.

Abracadabra!

Intellectually, I know where babies come from and sure enough, yesterday I saw it happen, but it was a bit like watching a magic trick. Even though I saw it with my own two eyes, it seems unbelievable that one human being could spring from another human being that way!

Just a few hours old...

and already surrounded by friends! Nadia, Jenny and Leah visited us today. They were all so overjoyed to meet Hana. After hearing the story of Hana's birth, posing for and taking pictures and bestowing hugs all around, the trio departed to give the little one an opportunity to have lunch.

After a moment or two though, Nadia returned briefly just to say how proud she was of Brittany!

Welcome Baby Hana

Hana Muzette was born at 1:33 AM, weighing 9 pounds, 8 (7.5) ounces (21.26 inches long, head circumference 14.37 inches).



Her Daddy and Nana were there to witness the birth and support Mommy. Dr. Sandu delivered her, sliding into the delivery room like a character from a Hana & Barberra cartoon as the baby was already crowning! Claudette was the nurse. Hurray Claudette, she was a great advocae for Mommy and very supportive!

Ten Centimeters!

Getting close to pushing time. Baby still has further to drop, though. Even with he epidural, Brittany is feeling lots of pressure now with each contraction.

Post Epidural!

I'm at the hospital with my wife, Brittany, who is soon to give birth to our 1st child, a daughter. Brittany is at 8 centimeters now, so the delivery should take place relatively soon (after months of waiting). The due date was December 8th. Brittany is eady to not be pregnant any more. Brittany's mom, Jayne, is here too, which helps to set Brittany at ease (that and the epidural).

"funny you should call..."

so, as i was getting out of the shower today and about to get dressed, i sneezed and had a trickle of fluid come down my legs. i might have actually even made the scooby sound when it happened ("whoohh'?!"). coincidentally, within seconds, the phone rang and it was dr. gentry's office calling to confirm my next appointment. i said "funny you should call... tell me again, how do you know when your water breaks?" she described it, and i described what i experienced and she said "hmmmm... sounds like that could be it." she then said she would leave a message for dr. gentry to call me back and tell me what to do. i figured, well if this is what's going on, i better make sure i eat a really good meal since who knows the next time i'm gonna eat. so we went to cactus taqueria for some crispy tacos... DE-lish! we also figured that since we were in the area, we'd swing by rockridge kids and pick up a few things.

dr. gentry called back while we were eating. she wanted to me to get to labor and delivery pretty quick. "but can i finish my lunch?" "sure, you can finish lunch" she said. "but what about stopping at home to get my stuff. can i do that?" "well, ok. you can do that" she said. "what do you think about us swinging by rockridge kids to pick up a few things?" "uh, no. you need to get to labor and delivery right away" she advised. she said that if my water broke, they want to admit you within 12 hours. it's possible that it happened this morning shortly before i got up so running errands would be pushing it. and then she says "and by the way, i'm not going to be around to night... i've been up for 2 days and i need to sleep." to which i replied "huh. ok. i see." what i didn't say was, "well then i won't be around either. me and pooty are just gonna hang on until you are rested and can be available." although i don't want to prolong this pregnancy thing any further, i prefer not to be delivered by an on call doc if i can manage it.

so we went home, gathered our things, loaded the car and headed off to the hospital for what i had already decided would be a quick round trip. i mean, despite all of this, i really wasn't having any discernible contractions so as much as i am ready for the baby to come, i figure it'll keep until the morning. plus, once we arrived at the hospital, i realized that i forgot my favorite sweats which i planned to wear home. they were fresh from the laundry but they didn't make it into my bag. we got to the labor and delivery triage around 5:00 p.m. and we're helped by this fabulous nurse mary, who actually turned out to be a friend of a friend. she was great! and after about 90 minutes of monitoring, she confirmed that my water hadn't broken. the baby is fine. she talked to dr. gentry and they agreed to send me home to which i replied "you know, that works better for me."

so it was basically a false alarm. for anyone who does not want to know more detail about what could have been leaking, you should stop reading now because this is a serious TMI alert. if you choose to read on, know that you have been warned.

for all other interested parties, nurse mary said that it was likely urine or watery mucus leakage. if it was amniotic fluid, it would have been a more obvious trickle and with greater volume. since i'm full term, it is unlikely that i have a high leak so she really didn't think it was that. additionally, they did the little litmus test they do and the paper did not turn bright blue (the blue indicates that it's amniotic fluid). what she did find was a lot of mucus that would be consistent with the "spotting" i experienced earlier this morning and a couple of times throughout the day. she said it could be the mucus plug coming out or it could be that i already lost it (i though i might have this morning) but it's hard to say. the monitors did show that i was having mild contractions, but frankly, i didn't notice. she didn't really check to see if i was dilated because i wasn't complaining of painful contractions and to check that would have involved her spelunking deeper into my lady business with a speculum which, as you can imagine, is not pleasant. while i was there, a lady came in clearly in active labor and i certainly wasn't moaning like her so i just didn't see the urgency in checking that since i don't believe i would be so mellow if there were any significant progress in that area. besides, as i mentioned previously, giving birth tonight really doesn't work for me since dr. gentry's not available. so that's the scoop. everybody do the labor dance so that tomorrow, when i imagine dr. gentry will be available again, we can really get this labor and delivery thing moving along.

releasing my inner eeyore...

sigh.

no baby yet.

it's official. i'm tired of being pregnant. i wouldn't say that i'm miserable. but i'm bored with this particular experience now and i'm ready for something else. i'm ready to get this baby thing moving along. she apparently has other plans. i've been off work for almost 6 weeks without much to do and you know that is not a scenario i cope well with. i'm beginning to think that my earlier writings about the baby not coming without the benefit of a pitocin cocktail are prophetic. i only had 3 contractions yesterday right before bed. they were 5 minutes apart but they went away a soon as i laid down in the bed.

the day yesterday was generally very low key since i got about 3 hours of sleep the night before. although the baby was active, that wasn't what kept me up. i went to bed at about midnight that night and woke up at 2:20 a.m. wide awake. i read for 3 hours (memoirs of a geisha... the first non-baby related novel since finding out i was pregnant) and then finally fell asleep for an hour around 6:00 a.m. so yesterday, i spent the day laying around the house watching figure skating recordings with noelle, jenny (party of 5!) and my mom since i don't think i would have had the energy to do much else. i did cave and eat some fudge as well.

last night i did get a good night of sleep so i feel more myself again. i'm heading to another mall today to go walking since it's raining out. maybe this will gets things moving. at least i'll feel like i'm doing something about the situation. but frankly, i'm cynical about the prospects of it working. i feel that my generally sunny disposition is receding, and now my inner "eeyeore" is coming out. oh bother!

week 41 and counting...

well i went to the dr. today and there has been no progress. my mom was able to come with me and she got to hear the baby's heart beat for the first time which she cool for her. dr. gentry says that heart beat was really strong and she said "that's a healthy full term baby". i have another appoinment scheduled next week. i'm hoping that i won't need it. now that mom's here i feel like pooty-poo can come at anytime. she needn't hang on any longer. i have been trying to wean her off the fudge to eliminate that incentive but since that isn't working really, i'll just keep eating it because there's no reason for me to suffer any more than is neccessary.

so, no baby yet. stay tuned...

ok... let's get this party started!

i decided that since today would probably be the last day for the next 20 or so years that it will be just jon and me (mom arrives tomorrow to stay for a few weeks) i wanted us to blow off chores and go for a walk. i chose to do that walking at the mall because there's good people watching there and, more importantly, there's snacks (namely, "teacakes bakery", maker of DE-licous, but spendy cookies. oddly enough, they don't sell teacakes, but i digress).

my belly button poked out today farther than it has ever been. back in late september or so, i noticed that it would poke out, but only if the baby moved. this kind of freaked jon out. he was convinced that when that happened that it meant the baby was coming immediately. i kept having to tell him that we still had several weeks to go. "relax. it's not like a turkey timer!" but today's belly button protrusion has been constant ever since i got out of be this morning. so maybe it is like a turkey timer. i guess we'll see...



i also felt contractions like i have never felt them before whilst we were out and about. i felt one that lasted longer than a minute that started at the top of my belly and worked it's way down (unlike my braxton-hicks contractions which seem to just involve the bottom of my belly). this one had a lot of downward pressure. i could keep walking but it wasn't easy. but then that was it for an hour or two. we went to dinner and as we were leaving the restaurant i had another contraction unlike anything i've ever felt. it started at my back and worked it's way around to the front with plenty of downward pressure. it probably lasted about a minute or so and then it went away. driving home, about 20 minutes later, i had another one. (even the braxton-hicks contractions seem to come more often when driving in the car... go figure.) i felt less downward pressure but i was also sitting. we've been home for a couple of hours now and i haven't felt anything since. tomorrow morning, i plan to go walking around a different mall with jenny (party of 5!) and we'll see at my dr.'s appointment tomorrow if any of this walking is making true progress. i'm not going to outright predict that i'll go into active labor soon since i've read that these kinds of early labor symptoms can last for days... if this is in fact early labor.

in the meantime, since marianne (my stepmom in wisconsin) has been complaining that there have been no new pictures in some time, we took some today by the christmas tree. jon also wanted a picture of me next to one of the "snowmen" at the mall today. we had pretty comparable girth, me and that snowman, but he was able to strike poses i don't dare try...




anyway, it was a fun day. i'm glad we had one last hurrah as a duo before the baby comes.

what if all the world were vacuum fresh?

i'm down to about one project per day these days. some days that project is "operation rest a lot". very productive. but i bought a "food saver +" the other day so that i can vacuum seal some meals. i'm pretty excited by that. i've wanted one of these since college but have resisted the impulse to buy for so many years, thinking that i wouldn't really use it after the new kitchen gadget sheen wore off. in fact, i recognize that there were certain infomercials that had an intoxicating effect when one should be studying. that is precisely why i chose my first credit card to be a discover card. it just wasn't accepted that many places at the time so when i felt myself begin to weaken, the relative obscurity of the discover card kept me strong. (i've since dumped them - bunch of crooks). besides the vacuum sealer, i lusted after the food dehydrator because who wouldn't want to make their own candy out of fruit?! and i do love a good jerky. and they took discover card! but i never got one because i felt like although it would be a cost savings to make my own snacks if i had the jerky habit of an interstate truck driver, i might save money by simply not buying it in the first place. i kind of used a similar argument to talk myself out of the food saver (that, and they didn't take discover card). i have always been able make meals big enough for leftovers so why do i need to have this fancy food gadget for that purpose. well i'll tell you why! i have never trusted being able to just throw several bowls of chili into the freezer that's why. so when i make my chili or beef stew or chicken n' dumplings and there's enough for left overs, i put it in some tupperware and we basically eat it for the next four nights in various incarnations (anyone for "stew surprise"?). couldn't we all benefit from a little more variety?

so i was cruisin' the babycenter.com site the other day and they had this article on things women wish they knew or did before labor and delivery. one really stuck out to me. one lady talked about wishing she'd done less puttering around with baby's room and more preparing and freezing meals. (take out can only carry you so far. and since we live in east oakland, not a lot of places deliver). it was as if the heavens opened up and angels sang to me "now is your tiiiime. geeettt the fooood saaaverrr." since it's rude to ignore angels, i happily obliged.

now before you think i was just having some sort of pregnancy delirium moment a la joan of ark, since purchasing the food saver, i have been able to prepare about 6 different meals and put them in the freezer, safe in their vacuum fresh cocoons. there they lay, ready to be rejuvenated by the healing rays of the microwave. therefore, i feel this extravagance is justified now. and can i just tell you, vacuum sealing is fun! once you lock the handle in place and press the button (hands free operation!!!), you can see the power of the vacuum hard at work, exorcising the evil air from the package that would prefer to stick around and render my culinary masterpiece a freezer burned mess worth nothing more than those fake foster farms chickens you see on t.v. but not this time, you evil corrosive air molecules!!! i have foiled your diabolical plans once again!!!!! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

ok, to be honest, i do fear that vacuum sealing things will become addictive and jon will come home one day to find that i am woman out of control (“uh honey… where are the cats?”). i'm sure there's support groups for that sort of thing. and besides, i can stop anytime i want. but since dr. gentry and i both think that baby girl will be a little late, i have some time vacuum pack some things and explore how much better food can taste when it has been vacuum packed for freshness.

Today's the day! well, probably not...

so today is baby girl's official due date! i don't feel any different and neither does she. they say that when labor happens, it's as if nothing's going on and then all of a sudden, everything's going on. guess we'll have to wait and see. today is jon's last day at work before he starts paternity leave and mom will arrive on monday 12/11 and stay through christmas so she can help out with the baby when she does come. although i want the baby to come when she's ready, i'd prefer if she chose to do that sometime early to the middle of next week. it would be a huge bummer to have my mom here to help me and all we do is sit around for 2 weeks waiting for the baby to arrive...

i am betting on the fact that i won't go into labor tonight and i'm planning to take jon out to dinner. this will probably be the last nice dinner out for a while and i want to do a little something for jon to express my appreciation for how well he has taken care of me throughout this pregnancy. from braving the baby registry at "babies r us" (a 4-hour trip during a heat wave when it was 112 degrees outside, with not one, but two pregnant ladies!), to comforting me through the trauma of the labor and delivery videos at the child birthing class (um... ew!), he really has been a rock star. although i think things have been a little wacko for him lately, i know he's ready to be a daddy and it's really exciting to see. i can't wait for him to meet the little one.

40 Weeks and counting...

well, this is my first ever blog post and i must say, it feels as if i have crossed over into a new dimension. but i've always been a journaler so i guess this is the natural progression. my unborn child will probably have a blog all her own in a couple of years where she will share her daily comings and goings, including ways in which her parents have embarrassed her or otherwise cramped her style. so i figure i'd better get with the program so i can be hip with the kids (as if...).

i am now in my 40th week of pregnancy and as predicted, there has really been no progress toward delivery. pregnancy, in general has been pretty kind to me relatively speaking. perhaps i can summarize with a quick review for those who might be interested...

FIRST TRIMESTER: i had some morning sickness (queasiness and fatigue) for the first 12 weeks which graduated into full blown hurling - prompted by a head cold - between weeks 12 and 15 (good times). being on the verge of barfing all the time makes you a bit of a bathroom connoisseur. i seriously would avoid places that had terrible bathrooms (or people that might smell... like berkeley) because nothing compliments morning sickness worse than a "purell moment" in a public restroom. of course walking into my office building every morning in downtown oakland - which serves as a homeless encampment by night - was no picnic either. every day was an exercise in mouth breathing and dry heaving. super fun! no really. probably the most embarrassing place i hurled was the target parking lot. jon could only helplessly stand by and watch. the poor thing.

the first trimester was a weird time, not only because i'm not typically a squeamish person, but also because i am also not a low energy person. however, i could fall asleep during the pause of a comma and be out for hours. and when i awakened, i felt like i'd been up all night and that i could sleep an additional 8 hours. it's like the worst hang over you ever had without the benefit of the buzz the night before. i have also never been without an appetite (unless i was sick... and even then only for, like, a day). and yet, i didn't experience hunger for about 2 months. cooking (which ordinarily i LOVE to do) and grocery shopping (which frankly, i'm happy to delegate under any circumstances) grossed me out too. at around 8 weeks, i went to wisconsin to visit my dad and stepmom and enjoyed the most relaxing vacation ever. their home is in a small town and is quite tranquil. i slept most of the time since most activities (such as climbing the stairs, flipping channels, petting the cats, eating lunch, etc) would tire me out. i think they were thrown off by my lack of appetite and my round the clock sleeping at first, but once i declared after a 4-hour post lunch nap that "this is the best vacation EVER!" they began to relax.

that all changed on 6/7/06. yes, i do remember the day very specifically because when you haven't been at all interested in food and you suddenly feel hungry, it feels very urgent. in fact, i believe that i made jon drive me to the el pollo loco for lunch, where i purchased a decent sized meal. and then promptly began to panic because i was not sure i really had enough food. up until that point, all i could choke down was fresh fruit - like pineapples and mangoes - cereal, rice, sushi (the cooked kind, although i would have eaten the raw if i could) and the occasional cheese on a stick from "hot dog on a stick". i'm sure jon, who became principle nagger of the house, was happy to see me eating a meal unsolicited. i think he thought aliens abducted his wife and replaced her with this sleepy facsimile. kinda boring and high maintenance. i mean, the brittany he knew never had to be told twice it was time to eat (in fact, you really don't have to complete the sentence...). i'm sure that day, after he saw me finish the food on my plate for the first time in months, he did an in-zone/touchdown dance. for me, having an appetite for real food, with actual protein, was like a homecoming for an old friend. (hellooo old friend!) despite all this, what i went through was really nothing compared to what some friends went through, so in retrospect, it wasn't that bad.

SECOND TRIMESTER: as i started to get my energy back, i was able to work out more. although i wasn't working out 3-4 days a week as i did in my pre-pregnancy days, i was able to get in 1-2 days of strength training and step aerobics during the week and a long run on the weekend. i was able to run all the way through my 6th month of pregnancy. of course, that run gradually looked more and more like a traddle (combination trot and waddle) as my belly grew and people did look at me funny when i was running on the trail. but it made me feel good so i didn't care. plus, i am generally used to people looking at me funny, after all, i did have waterfall bangs in high school.

i got to travel during my second trimester as well. for my birthday, i went to atlanta with jon and my friend leah (the picture of us, is on tybee island. we took a quick overnighter to savannah, ga and tybee island is just outside of savannah). and despite the crushing heat and humidity, we had a fabulous time. i also went to a training conference in baltimore. while the conference was fun, and i got to eat more than my share of maryland crab while i was there (DE-licious!), the air travel was rough - it takes all day to get there because of the multiple stops and i had to eat at burger king, like 2 times! ugh... the direct flight service to baltimore from oakland for southwest airlines didn't start until the day after i got back. brutal.

all in all, my second trimester was pretty easy. i didn't have an outrageous appetite so i really didn't gain a lot of weight like i was afraid i would. i was grateful to look more pregnant than fat, so my maternity clothes would look better. despite that, some people didn't seem to notice i was pregnant until i was actually 6 months along. it does make me wonder what did they thought was going on before (since i was wearing maternity jeans by week 8)? i did lose a bunch of weight about a 3 years ago so maybe they just thought i was gaining that weight back. gosh, i hope not... but people did make a lot of comments about me glowing and "looking good" and keeping my weight down. funny, it seems that people observe different social rules with pregnant women. most of the time, people wouldn't dream of touching another person's belly or commenting on their weight out loud and on a daily basis. but people i barely knew did it all the time. outside of the unsolicited belly rubs, the running weight commentary, the burger king, and the people who tell me casually that i should stay home and take care of my child (as if mortgage payments grow on trees), the worst part of my 2nd trimester was the leg cramps. these were helped when dr. gentry (my fabulous obgyn) suggested i take calcium and potassium but they were still pretty heinous when they came.

THIRD TRIMESTER: frankly, these last few months have been relatively easy as well. the sonogram photo is from 9/12, around 28 weeks (her hand is near her face in these shots). it does seem that once i hit month 7, some of the more typical pregnancy complaints (TMI alert!) like hemorrhoids, became an issue. but certainly there was nothing debilitating. while i definitely slowed down, and i clearly no longer walk, so much as waddle from place to place, i haven't really felt super uncomfortable. i still sleep pretty well (although the number of pillows involved has grown exponentially with every passing week) and i haven't had an insatiable appetite. and i up until about 34 weeks, i was still able to work in one session of strength training per week, which really helped me feel good. plus i did my long walks on the weekend (3-6 miles) with my friend jenny (who's pregnant with twins - together we call ourselves, "party of five"). around this time, i stopped bending down to pick things up. instead, when something drops, i try to remember to tell jon about it so he can pick it up when he gets a chance. sometimes a couple of hours would elapse between the droppage and the notification but jon was always very dutiful nonetheless. i have often thought to carry around post-it notes so that when i drop something i can write something like "pencil down" and post it on the wall near the fallen item so someone can pick it up.

but during week 37, my feet and ankles started swelling pretty badly and my blood pressure spiked. dr. gentry not only took me off work on 11/9 (a week earlier than i'd planned), but she threatened to induce labor the following week if i my hypertension didn't subside. that kinda freaked me out because i wasn't ready. while i certainly wanted the baby to come before christmas but i had no intention of having a pre-thanksgiving baby. i had errands to do. the house wasn't clean. the baby's room wasn't finished. i had plans! and while i expect the baby to disrupt up my plans, i didn't expect the doctor to. fortunately, my blood pressure went down immediately and i didn't have to be induced.

the week of thanksgiving, i got the second cold of my pregnancy which quickly turned into bronchitis. and after a brief run in with a rude answering service lady, dr. gentry prescribed antibiotics which knocked it out pretty quickly. once that was gone, i was back to just feeling pregnant and a little tired. which is about what you feel at 39 weeks.

so that brings us back to doh o-o-o oh... week 40. the projects are done. the house is clean. and now jenny's off work too (party of 5!) so we lounge around our respective houses and lunch with friends. it actually feels pretty luxurious. i fully recognize that this is the calm before the storm. although, i frankly think that storm will not come without some sort of pitocin cocktail (that's the drug they give to induce labor).
and so, we wait...

Posting is underway!

Jon had the idea to make a baby web site. Brittany was sooo impressed with Christine's blog, that she wanted something similar. So heeeere we go!