What no one tells you...

A long birth story is in the works, but if you'll excuse my one-handed, holding-baby, typing, I'd like to spill some proverbial beans about child birth. In short, it's not bad. There are wonderful pain management options (of which I whole-heartedly partook--is that a word?) and I had a pleasant experience. What has taken me by complete surprise was how completely scary and horrible the post-baby pooping is. There, I said it. While I chose a medicated child birth, I had no option for a medicated poop birth. As a result, I feel as though I've experienced both natural child...er poop..birth as well as medicated and the medicated child birth was so much less scary and more pleasant.

My advice to anyone who is about to give birth and whom I've just scared the bejeezus out of: fiber, fiber, fiber. Eat it, drink it and pray.

Cutest baby EVER...

Here's the link to some of the pictures that they took of her at St. Luke's before we left the hospital: Anna Claire

Could she be any cuter?

She's home!

She came home this morning and is doing great! Sleeping all day and eating like a champ. Pictures and more deets to follow.

Happy Birthday, Anna Claire!

...assuming that you are, in fact, the little girl baby that we've prepared for and not a boy 'cause that? would be really hard for me to wrap my brain around and he/she might be grounded for the first few months of his/her life if he/she's been deceiving his/her mom and dad like that this whole time.

We have to be at St. Luke's between 7 and 7:30 this morning to begin the induction, so unless she's decidedly stubborn, she should be born sometime today!

Amazingly enough, I managed to get some sleep last night. We didn't go to bed until 1:30-ish and then I woke up roughly every hour to check the clock and make sure that I wasn't over-sleeping, but the sleep that I did get was restful and full of wacky hospital dreams.

And we're off...so, wish us an easy, uneventful labor!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day. There will be no sleeping for me tonight...

Technical Difficulties

Our home phone and internet aren't working so well this weekend (hoping to have it fixed on Sunday). So, don't worry if you can't reach us via phone or email this weekend. We'll be in touch if anything exciting happens...

Induction Junction

Went to the doctor today. I'm now 4cm dilated; still 90% effaced and baby is still is -1 station. Dr. Dryden went ahead and stretched my cervix (SO much fun!) today. While we were there, we also went ahead and scheduled an induction for Monday. We don't have a specific time yet...have to call the hospital on Monday AM to see when they might have a room for us. So, we're going to hang around the house all weekend and see if anything happens on it's own and, if not, we know that by Monday, or Tuesday (at the lastest), Kevin and I will be a Mommy and Daddy.

Blizzard Update

My doctor's appointment got canceled due to the torrential, blizzard-like conditions in Houston today (insert sarcasm here). I'm not sure when they'll reschedule me--hopefully tomorrow. I came home, only to find that we didn't have internet, phone or cable (again, due to the artic disaster) so I sent a lot of friends and family into a tizzy, when I was out of touch for much of the day.
p.s. Those are wee little icicles on our birdfeeder today.

Stay tuned for more up-to-the-minute coverage of breaking baby news as it happens...(I think I've been watching too much local news).

Blizzard!

Houston is in a full-fledged tizzy about the weather. We have a (GASP!) chance for sleet (OMG!) tonight and into tomorrow. The temperature is currently 34 degrees--oh, the horror--stock-pile supplies, STAT! As a result, I got a phone call from my doctor's office today, saying that there's a possibility that the office will be closed tomorrow, due to the weather. That means that I wouldn't get to see my doctor and find out when this baby is getting her eviction notice. She's more than welcome to stay as long as she wants, but she's approaching check-out time and we all know that she's mooching all of the free cable, ice and little shampoo samples that she can before she has to vacate.

Stalled

 
She's still in there. Our big, bad, cold front has stalled and so has Anna Claire. Send labor vibes our way. We're getting bored. 

Baby Update

There's nothing new to report. Yesterday, some odd, alien-like things started happening to my body and we thought that it was something for sure. I went to bed, having had cleaned the kitchen well, showered, washed my hair, etc., and then we woke up this morning and all was back to normal.

Everyone is guessing that she'll arrive along with the nasty cold front that's supposed to hit our area tomorrow or Monday, complete with freezing rain and icy roads.

I think that she's hanging out, weighing her options as to what astrological sign she wants to be. Depending on when she's born, she could be either a Capricorn or an Aquarius.

Thar She Blows!

 
Ok, I never said that my belly was pretty, but wanted to document it here for posterity's sake...since there's a good chance that it won't be that bulbous in the coming days (with any luck). And the red dot on my hip isn't a zit--it's a scar, FYI. Stretch marks, yes, but zits, no. 

Perfect Timing

This could be bad....This could be really BAD.

When we first moved into our new house, after the electricity, gas, etc., was connected, our next call was to Time Warner to get our cable hooked up. We hadn't even attached our TV to the existing cable connection and had been watching our local stations via the antenna. Well, when Kevin called Time Warner to see about getting our cable hooked up, he found out that the previous homeowner hadn't disconnected his cable yet, so there was no way for us to order cable ourselves--at which point, Kevin plugged our TV into the cable/wall-doo-ma-hickey and VOILA! 90-something channels of basic cable were ours--FOR FREE! We knew that we wouldn't be able to get away with this for too long, so, for the first week or so of the free cable, we tentatively waited for that day when we'd turn on the TV to find only static-snow and we'd know that the gig was up.

Fast forward 4 months: Still blissfully enjoying the free cable and have sort of forgotten about the possibility of either the old homeowner or Time Warner realizing their blunder and taking the cable away.

Thursday, January 11, 2pm cst: Me, having just been told by her doctor this morning that labor is imminent and beginning to feel rather crampy and like maybe something exciting is about to happen, goes to turn on the TV to get her mind off of everything. SNOW--NO CABLE. Surely, SURELY PEOPLE the Gods didn't choose to smite us now! A lot of women labor at home for hours or days before going to the hospital...what on Earth am I going to do to keep myself occupied?

Here She Comes!

Latest update from today's appointment:

3 cm dilated
90% effaced
Per my doctor, "Baby is VERY LOW"--but I forgot to ask what station she is.

Dr. Dryden said that she thinks that I'll have this baby before next week and also that (and I quote), "You'll have an easy birth because of the head-start that you've gotten, with the dilating and effacing". I should've gotten that in writing, eh?

Why We Don't Have Nice Things: Chapter 2--Vomit Boogaloo

 












Middle of the night...awoke to the sound of "Hoark! Hoark! Hoark! SPLAT!". Our cat, Banjo (whom we affectionately refer to as "Binge-o") had binged on his food and purged this beautiful heart-shaped vomit for us. I can't even imagine how he fashioned it in this shape. You just have to laugh to keep from crying around here sometimes.... 

Sisterhood of the Knowing Glances (or Sisterhood of the Pilling Pantses)

Now that I'm quite obviously big and pregnant and am in no way trying to hide it (complete with waddle and belly rubbing), I notice women giving me the funniest looks--sort of "I've been there, honey" kind of looks. I don't think that I look uncomfortable or miserable, but I keep catching women giving me sympathetic smiles and winks. I find it rather amusing.

A couple of weeks ago, (actually, the day that we made the flying trip to Babies R Us to get the car seat, et al) we stopped by Lowe's on the way home. I'd already been on my feet, walking around for the past couple of hours, so I was getting really tired and "Braxton-Hicks-y" (which is a phrase that I've coined during this pregnancy). Kevin was in the power tool department, scrutinizing the difference between a hydrofluoric screwing tong and a rotating pie crust spreader, (or something like that) when I got sort of faint-feeling and knew that I needed to sit down. Now, you have to visualize what I look like on any given day--especially on a weekend day: All of my maternity tops at this point, are stained into oblivion, possibly torn somewhere and stretched out in the belly area--assuming that they still stretch OVER said belly area. The bottom-half of my body is usually clothed in some sort of sweat pant-type of pant, that's probably stained too and pilled in the crotch-area from my thighs rubbing together. My hair is limp, greasy and in dire need of a color touch-up and a cut (note to self: make hair appointment THIS week and possibly pedicure appointment too 'cause who the heck knows when I'll get a chance to go to a salon after the baby is born). Anyway, I'm probably not the picture of a glowy, child-bearer, goddess-type at this point in the pregnancy. So, I waddle outside at Lowe's to sit in one of the porch swings that they have set up near the entrance. Just sitting there for the next 20 min or so, I got probably 35 of those "looks" from women. It was funny and sort of sweet at the same time. It's like I've joined a sisterhood of women who've forged the trail on which I waddle.

Ring Of Fire

....no, not THAT "ring of fire" (at least not yet). I mean the "ring of fire" that is my esophagus right now. Damned acid reflux. Yuck. I never understood why people complained so much about it...why there were prescription medications for it...commercials dedicated to the malady. Now I get it--it's very unpleasant. I had a brief bout of it a few weeks ago, after gorging myself on yummy food at Jurica Christmas. I promptly bought the largest vat of Tums that Target sells and it, naturally, promptly went away without me ever even needing to open the Tums. Well, now it's back and with a vengeance. I thought that all of these types of symptoms were supposed to go away once the baby dropped a little. Why is it that I didn't have any problems when she was camped out directly on top of my stomach, gleefully kicking my ribs, but now, that she's currently down low, head-butting my bladder on a regular basis, I'm NOW experiencing the heartburn?

Full Circle

For whatever reason, today seemed to be a really busy day in the Med Center (or what we Houstonians call the part of town where most of the big hospitals are located--M.D. Anderson; Texas Children's; St. Luke's; etc). As I maneuvered my way down to Fannin Street (the main drag of the Med Center) this morning for my 9:15am doctor's appointment, the traffic was much worse than normal. Only compounding this problem was the misty rain which had been spitting down for the past 12 hours or so. Some of the hospitals and doctor's offices have valet parking and, I assume due to the rain, more people than normal were opting to valet park. This causes a back-log of potential valet parkers to spill out onto the street and clog up one whole lane of Fannin, which is only 2 lanes to begin with.

Once I finally made it to the parking garage where I normally park, I had to drive up, up, up to the tip top of the garage to find a parking spot. Upon stepping off of the elevator to my doctor's office, I was met with a waiting room full of women. Typically, an earlier morning appointment affords me the luxury of getting right in to see the doctor once I sign in. Today, I could tell would be different. As I sat in the waiting room, in the uncomfortable, straight-backed chair (Come on! This is an OB/GYN practice! Can't you people help a sistah out?--50% of the women in the waiting room have big, bloated butts, swollen, puffy feet and already-sore lower backs!) I had a chance to really look around and watch what was going on. I saw several interesting exchanges. I saw one couple come in--the woman looked to be maybe 5 or so months pregnant and her husband was accompanying her to the doctor, as Kevin did with me back when each appointment seemed exciting and new. Due to it being the first of the year, the receptionist was trying to update patient insurance info, so shortly after signing in today, they'd call us one by one up to the front desk to get an updated insurance card from us. When they called this particular lady up to the front desk and asked for her insurance card, she said that she didn't use insurance. This couple obviously wasn't poor and it really surprised me that, in this day and age, someone would opt not to have insurance. I can't even imagine what this pregnancy is going to cost them.

Then, I saw a man and woman--about me and Kevin's age--getting onto the elevator, having just left their appointment. The man was carrying what I recognized as the "Welcome To Pregnancy" goodie bag that Kevin and I got at our first appointment back in June. This couple looked just as scared/excited/dumbfounded as Kevin and I felt that day that we went to the doctor and confirmed this pregnancy. For whatever reason, watching this couple made me choke up. I think that it was sort of a full-circle moment for me. There I sat, uncomfortably bloated and crampy--very near the end of my journey of pregnancy--in the waiting room, watching a couple just beginning their journey. I don't know if I was wistful for those early days, when Kevin and I were still getting used to the idea of a baby living inside of me...a baby that we'd created together, quite unexpectedly or if it suddenly struck me that we'd never have that moment again. I remember coming home and looking through our "Welcome To Pregnancy" goodie bag, where everything was so new and confusing. So many pamphlets on breastfeeding, cord blood banking, what to take to the hospital when you go into labor. There was a sample of a Huggies newborn diaper that perplexed us! It was so tiny and so foreign to us. Now, we have a whole drawer of our changing table dedicated to just that type of tiny, foreign cotton/plastic contraption! It's amazing how everything changes in 8 short months. Maybe that's what choked me up: how quickly this whole pregnancy has gone by. Have I taken every opportunity to relish in it and enjoy it? How did the time go by so fast? Could it really have been 8 months ago that Kevin and I were that same couple? Or maybe what struck me was the idea that we'd never be that innocent, glassy-eyed couple again.

Holding Pattern

Appointment Update:

No new progress....still 1-2 cm; about 80-90% effaced; and baby still in about the same position (although I think that she's scooted down a little more. Do you have any idea how odd it feels when your crotch hiccups?).

I think that Anna Claire is pulling a Classic Jenny move: I'm compulsively early and sometimes, I'm so early to appointments; meetings; etc, that I get there with too much time to spare and have leave to go and kill some time (i.e. get some coffee; wander around a store; etc). I get rather annoyed when I do that. So, I'm thinking that Anna Claire decided sometime last week, to go ahead and start heading out--you know, traffic could be bad or whatever--and then realized that she was going to be too early. Now, she's probably wandering around the little gift shop in my womb and maybe grabbing a Cinnabon or something at the food court located in my uterus as well.

Coming together nicely--only one thing still missing

Finally got the baby bed all put together with the mattress, bedding, etc. It's probably my favorite part of the nursery (with the bunny lamp being the exception). Here are some pics.

More baby stuff

If you don't think that this is the cutest bedding ever, you're dead inside and you and I just can't be friends.