Backlog

While playing the odds on how many wet diapers I can change in a two hour period (so far we're up to 4, if anybody's counting), I realized I never did share one of the more hilarious moments from our stay in the hospital the day after Kaycie's birth.

The hospital phone rings quite early that morning. Greg answers it and a woman from scheduling informs him that she's calling to schedule our baby's circumcision...

Ummmm.

Now I'm wondering why my child is still awake. Aren't newborns supposed to sleep like 22 hours a day? She's been up since like 5:30. It's now 9:30. She's been fed twice in that time and should be in a milk coma. I put her down less than 10 minutes ago and now I hear her mumbling away in her crib. Seriously child. I hope this means she plans to sleep a loooong time tonight!

Adjusting

And in case anybody is wondering how the pup is adjusting...

And By the Way

Do you ever get the feeling you're being stared at? I don't care what they say, I don't believe for a minute that she can't see me from this far away. She is staring right at me...

Anyway, it occurs to me today, as my friend Nicole is in labor as we speak, that I haven't expressed proper kudos to the folks at Baptist Hospital for Women.

Those people are awesome.

We had terrific nurses, from our L&D nurse to our baby nurses, everybody took an interest in us and made sure we had everything we needed. When we went in for our new baby clinic visit on Saturday the nurse spent a solid hour with us talking through things and helping me with some nursing issues. Then she scheduled us for a follow up visit tomorrow, even though Kaycie is physically perfectly fine, to make sure the nursing situation has improved and that I'm feeling better about things.

I am starting to come out of the haze a bit. I may revert back when my mom leaves. It's nice being able to hand Kaycie off at 5:30am and go back to sleep without worrying about her waking up every ten minutes! But she's sleeping better, like 3 hours at a time during the night, and I'm getting more than an hour of rest between feedings. And did I mention that she's just so darn cute that really, who wouldn't want to hang out with her??

She's staring at me again. I swear she's thinking something vitally important. I also think she may be driving by next week. Sheesh.

Pictures

I've started uploading pictures to my Flickr account. There will more added over the next few days (and weeks...) but here's the link to the album.

Everybody is doing well today. Kaycie passed all of her first set of tests with flying colors. Doc said she's looking good. She's been super good. More awake than I expected, but not upset about much! We should be going home tomorrow morning. I'm sure her peacefulness will come to an abrupt end within 3 minutes of getting to the house...

Kaycie

Dude, that child is stubborn.

We had a long, long day and a longer evening, but Kaycie finally arrived at 6:16pm. It wasn't exactly fun, and whoever had the idea that the epidural wasn't really necessary was crazier than a bat. Kaycie was not only slow to cooperate, she was transverse and got the idea that sitting on a couple of my nerves was a good idea. Like the nerve that shoots pain through my hip. Whoever had the idea that turning off my epidural in the middle of all this was a good idea was even crazier. But we got it done. After two solid hours of pushing.

8lbs, 7oz. 21 inches. Amazon for a child who wasn't supposed to be very big per Dr. T.

But she's just as adorable as she can be. Waiting on her to get out of transition now, hopefully in the next half hour or so. Even though I was in a drug induced stupor most of the day, I'm exhausted. Going to work on getting some rest now.

Live! From Baptist Hospital for Women

I haven't been hospitalized since I spent a week in ICU with bronchitis in 2nd grade. I broke that streak tonight.

Have I mentioned that I really dislike having a needle installed in my hand?

So they started the cervidil about 8:45. They said I can eat if I want until midnight, but I can't get out of bed for 2 hours. You don't tell a pregnant woman she can eat but can't go pee. That's just mean.

On the nicer side, they have offered to give me drugs so I can get some sleep between now and 5:30am when the cervidil comes out. Normally I hate taking anything that's going to knock me out, but tonight I may take them up on it. I'm going to need the rest, and I don't see sleep in my future without it. Greg's jealous. I don't think he's going to get much sleep on the less than comfy looking fold out couch.

They've got me hooked up to all the monitors, which is cool. I've been laying here listening to the little Tot-beat. Sounds like a galloping horse. Greg thinks the contraction monitor is cool. He was wishing we'd had one of those at home.

They should start the induction drugs between 6:30 and 7am. That's when the party gets started. Lets hope the cervidil does it's job, because I'm still not dilated at all. I'm afraid if I don't get anywhere with this I'm going to end up with a C-section. If that's the case, I just hope they don't wait all day to make that decision!

I guess I'll go back to thumb twiddling now. Watching the mountian ranges on the contraction monitor and hoping the Broncos can pull off a Monday night win. And start counting down until I can get up and go pee. This is going to be a long night, and an even longer day tomorrow.

Checklist

Checklist:

Wash as much laundry as humanly possible - check
Wash every dish in the house so bugs don't move in while I'm gone - check
Make arrangements for the pup for tomorrow morning - check
Pack clothes, toiletries, more clothes, extra socks, and a book - check
Clear all camera storage devices and charge all batteries - check
Give up on ever getting a plan from my parents - check
Pack 138 battery chargers and assorted electronic device cables - check
Wash yet another load of laundry - check
Check all social networking sites for the 300th time today in attempt to procrastinate - check
Pack several thousand dollars worth of electronics to utilize chargers and cables - check
Wonder why I can't leave home without every piece of electronic equipment we own - check
Pack a bag for Tot - check
Wish Lauren and Nicole a happy birthday - check
Feel guilt for abandoning my poor pup for a week - check
Feel more guilt for what the pup doesn't realize is about to happen - check
Wish this was done so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore - check

Alright guys, finishing up preparations and heading to the hospital in a little while. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be posting pics of a freshly cooked Tot. In the meantime, depending on how bored I get and how miserable I am, I hope to post updates here and on FB. And pictures when we have something to take pictures of. Anybody that wants to come by the house and entertain the pup this week, feel free.

I Knew It.

Last week when the weather guy first mentioned that there was a random named storm in the southern Carribbean I immediately told Greg that I just knew Tot would be born during a hurricane. He totally made fun of me. It was way too far south and would be making landfall in Central America, there's no way it would get into the Gulf and make landfall, at least not before I was induced Tuesday morning.

Uh huh.

Would somebody please go check the weather forecast and tell me where all the rain is coming from Monday night and Tuesday? What? From some random late storm named Ida?

The lesson here, don't argue with a pregnant woman past her due date.

And by the way, Tot turns 41 today. I'm quite sad that she didn't arrive on her Uncle Bill's birthday yesterday. That would have rocked big time. But Tuesday is fine as well, although I'm afraid she may end up getting a restraining order against us to stop the eviction.

Enough is Enough

I've heard about crazy pregnancy dreams.

Some people have fun dreams. Not me.

Some people dream about their baby. Not me.

No, I have spent my entire pregnancy having crazy disturbing nightmares. You know the ones where you sit straight up in bed at 3am desperately wanting to call Grandma just to make sure it was a dream? Nine months of that.

This morning was the last straw. My psyche must have run out of variations for killing members of my family or my husband leaving me. I'd gotten a little used to those anyway, they weren't freaking me out as much as they used to. So it dug deep to come up with a large, creepy, very fast snake (which has been a regular feature of my nightmares since childhood) and my pup. It culminated in a frantic attempt to get to the vet which, as you can imagine, didn't end well.

I should apologize to my hubby at this point for stumbling into the living room a crying blubbery mess, looking for my pup who of course was playing outside at that moment.

I've decided to give up sleeping altogether. I won't be sleeping after the baby arrives anyway, what's a few extra days?

Some Days...

I took a walk today, because walking is supposed to help bring on this labor thing, and I took my camera because one of the houses on my street has a really cool tree and I wanted to take pictures. We think it's a ginkgo tree, based on the yellow color and shape of the leaf. I'd show you the pictures, but when I got down there I realized my camera battery was dead. So I came back home. Because I can't even seem to get something that simple done right.

Now I'm thinking if this walking thing is going to work I need to do a lot of it. I'm meeting my hubby and in-laws for dinner tonight. Perhaps if I leave now I can walk to meet them at UMC by 4:30. It's only like 25 miles. Not that I think it would help.

Ok, enough whining for the moment. I'm just getting a little tired of myself these days. Thank goodness Greg will be home for the next 8 weeks!

Notice of Eviction

Dear Ms. Tater Tot:

You are hereby served official notice of eviction. You have until Monday, November 9, 2009, at 7pm to vacate your current residence or else preparations will begin to evict you.

Sincerely,
Management


I really can't believe that I made it two days past my due date and I've progressed to nowhere. Dr. T actually said she'd call it dilated to 1/2 cm, a very generous 1/2 cm. Of course, that was after I told her to lie to me and she kinda said it with her eyes rolled. Sigh.

Unless Tot suddenly gets super motivated we'll go into the hospital Monday night. They'll start a procedure to try to force dilation overnight, then start the induction at the crack of dawn Tuesday morning. Hopefully we'll have a Tot by that afternoon. At this point it's all kinda surreal. I'm not looking forward to having to go in the night before. It's going to be a loooong night of contractions, waiting for the real party to start the next morning. And I can't eat after I check in at 7pm. Telling a pregnant woman she can't eat for hours and hours on end is not nice. Anybody walks into my hospital room during that time with food will be beaten and tossed out the window.

In totally unrelated news, my dad is having surgery on his broken foot Wednesday morning. I can't remember whether or not I mentioned that he ran over it with his back hoe last week. Of the 18 or so fractures he has two bones that need to be "fixed" through surgery. He's not happy about it, but finally agreed to have it done after Mom promised she'd still come stay with us for a few days after the baby comes. He'll be out of commission for 3 months. We're not sure how he's going to work, as he runs a machine shop by himself. This time last year he was talking about closing the shop because business was so bad. Last week he had to turn down a couple thousand bucks worth of work because he can't put any weight on his foot. I dunno what's going to happen, but I'm just going to keep praying about it. It'll work out. I don't know how but I feel certain he'll come up with something. He's already figured out how to get his coffee from the kitchen to the living room while on crutches, so I think he'll figure out how to work. Dad's just like that. He'll figure something out.

Memo to Tot

Memo to Tot:

Today's your day. Really. You're officially due today. We've been shooting for this day for a long time. But it'd be even better if you'd participate.

To make it easier, we all got together and agreed to add an extra hour to your day. You have 25 hours to arrive on your date. It's a little something we call daylight savings time.

I know it's getting tight in there. You're running out of space. But you can fix that. You have control over the situation. There's a lot more room out here to stretch and squirm. But it's up to you to make your move. We're just waiting on you...