A 'little' Update

It has been a while since I updated this blog, but I do have a very good reason for my tardiness: a burping, pooping, peeing, sneezing, crying reason: yes, sweetpea is here!!! He made his unexpected, much-earlier-than-scheduled entrance on the 8th of December, 2008 at 4:45 pm !!!
His vital statistics at birth:
Birth weight: 5 pounds, 12 ounces
Length: 19.5 inches

The following is more of a diary, than a narration. I wanted to write everything down before I forgot it. I do tend to forget details of events, and you know what they say- once a woman has her child, she forgets the pain of labor and delivery.
Let’s start at the very beginning. The weekend of the 6th was like any other weekend. S, V and I had just returned from Charlottesville on Friday night after my last meeting there; I planned to work from Virginia Beach for the rest of the pregnancy. On Saturday we went shopping, bought some wool for S to knit a blanket for sweetpea. On Sunday, we got our maternity photos done: that’s right, the day before sweetpea was born- just in time!! There were absolutely no signs that those were the last few hours that he was inside me!!

I did think that he was full term though (37 weeks is actually full term), that he was fully baked, and could come out anytime. I told him that too, looks like he heard me!!!
Danger Will Robinson!!! Danger!!! Too much information ahead!! Not for the faint of heart!!!
( To proceed at your own risk, just highlight the text below )

Ahh, Neo, I see you took the red pill. Bravo! Alright then, let's plod along..
At around 3:30 am on Monday (Dec 8) morning I felt a gush of fluid, jumped out of bed just in time. The first thought that went through my head was “Sigh, looks like it is beginning- the discomforts of the last month of pregnancy - that I have heard so much about- losing bladder control is just the beginning”. But when the trickle of fluid wouldn’t stop, I began to suspect that it could be my water breaking. The childbirth classes’ instructor had told us, though, that water breaking is actually a very rare event, it happens to only 15% of women, and is not as common as the movies make it out to be. So I wasn’t sure that this was it. I headed back to bed like a heady, and nervous, schoolgirl, but couldn’t go back to sleep. K woke up too, and we decided to wait and watch. . It was both exciting and scary at the same time. We could have our baby in our arms today!!! I ate some cake, browsed the internet, the trickle just wouldn’t stop. K decided that we had to call the doctor, so I did. She asked us to come into Labor and Delivery immediately. When S woke up, she was shocked that we had waited so long, if she had known she would have made me call the doctor at 3:30 am, she said. I wasn’t so convinced. I packed my hospital bag, took one last belly shot and we left for the hospital.

When we got there, we walked upto the reception and told the lady there that I might be in labor (When I imagined going to the hospital after my water breaking, I had visions of K running in, with me in a wheelchair barking at them, asking them where Labor and Delivery was. ) We even waited in line while she finished helping someone else out. She asked us to go upstairs. We were then given a room, a huuuuge room complete with television and internet facilities. The nurse gave me a hospital gown, you know the ones with a tie at the back, covering barely anything? Except this one didn’t have a tie! When I told the nurse, she said she would give me another one if I did indeed have to stay; if my water had really broken. I could see the skepticism in her eyes, and didn’t blame her, I was skeptical myself. Hopeful, a little scared, but skeptical.
She then performed some kind of litmus test, a swab needed to turn dark upon contact with the fluid (if it indeed was amniotic fluid) and it turned black- the darkest shade of black I have ever seen!- immediately! Yikes!!!! There was no turning back now. Ready or not- here comes sweetpea!!
Dr. F was the one who was on call that day, which was fine with us, we liked her. She walked in, and asked us how I was doing, and if we were ready to meet our little girl!!! Huh??!!?? We let her continue on for a while, not wanting to correct her and embarrass her, but after a bit K mentioned that sweetpea was, in fact, of the male variety. Dr. F looked puzzled for a moment, but said she was pretty sure it was a girl, and that she had just looked at all the paperwork. Huh!!??!! That was certainly an unexpected twist in the tale, but at least we had a girl name picked out, our boy name was still up in the air.
She checked me, and found that I was 4 cm dilated already!!! She said she thought she could feel his (her?) head pretty low, but said she would check that with an ultrasound machine, just to be sure. And that way, we could also check if we were on team blue or team pink. She turned on the machine, and we saw that he, that’s right ‘he’ (phew!!) was in perfect position, locked, loaded, and ready-to-go!
K went out and told S&V that this was it, and they all came in and made themselves comfortable. A began to knit furiously, she had thought she had plenty of time to make the blanket before sweetpea got here, but he had other plans!

Since I hadn’t had my weekly appointment when I would have had a Group-B strep test, they needed to put me on antibiotics just in case I was positive for the bacteria. So they hooked me upto a penicillin drip IV (after a few unsuccessful pricks, ugh, my elusive veins), they also tied 2 bands around my stomach, one to monitor sweetpeas heartbeat, and one to monitor my contractions. That was a fun thing to do while waiting for me to dilate- watch his little heart rate go up and down with each contraction. At that point, it was the only indicator that I was; in fact, having contractions- I felt nothing.
After a while, with every contraction, I felt pressure, but no real pain. I was put on a small dose of pitocin to help move things along. I was still very scared of the pushing part, and had already decided to go with the epidural. I might have been able to go though labor without it, but not delivery. So I asked for it, and the anesthesiologist came in a little while later. I am not very good at remembering exact times, and they don’t hold too much information anyway. Suffice it to say that it didn’t take too long for me to dilate to 8 cm, and the epidural kicked in pretty soon. K watched them put the needle into my spinal cavity, and he said it was scary-looking. K was pretty amazing through the entire experience; he was calmer and braver that I ever hoped he would be!

When I was 8 cm dilated, I felt this overwhelming need to push, but the doctor told me not to. Now that was difficult, the pressure was immense. When the time came to push, I was relieved. The first few pushes took a lot out of me and I was exhausted. I was hyperventilating, and not breathing very efficiently. K and S held my legs; S couldn’t stomach it and left with V towards the very end. I was very very glad they were with us, and got to be in the room while their grandson was entering the world.
When a few more pushes didn’t bring him out, it got scary; the doctor then brought out a suction cup and gently pulled him further out. A few more pushes and he was out!!! Screaming loudly- the sweetest sound ever!! The cord was cut; he was put on my belly; both K and I were in tears! They quickly took him to do all their measurements and tests.

Ten perfect little fingers, ten perfect little toes  He was such a tiny little thing – 5 lbs and 12 ounces. He was just perfect  They weren’t too happy with his cries (they weren’t lusty enough; though we would find out later on that he tended to cry very half-heartedly, and stopped crying fairly quickly in the first few days), and his heart rate was on the higher side, so they took him to the nursery to observe him and clean him up. I had a small tear so Dr. F stitched me up. K, S and V took turns visiting the nursery, and bringing me updates on sweetpea. K recorded everything so I could watch the videos from the recovery room. The nurse cleaned me up, and took me to the room that would be our home for the next 48 hrs. They brought sweetpea in and a nurse helped me feed him for the first time. It was a challenge as he kept falling asleep mid-meal. S and V went home; we elected to keep sweetpea in the nursery, and asked them to bring him to us for feeding. That way, they could monitor him closely, and we could get our last relatively uninterrupted night sleep for a long time to come. I have very fond memories of that night, I was in a good deal of pain, but it was so nice, quiet and calm, I don’t know if he drank enough milk, and that was worrisome but just the act of feeding him was amazing. Because he was so tiny they suggested supplementing the nursing with some formula. I had two lactation specialists come and talk to me and help me out. One was very very very anti-bottle and the other was all for it.

week 33

Ahh hee ahh hee ahh hee ahh hoo

This weekend, K and I attended a childbirth class at a local hospital. It was a crash course (Friday evening, Saturday) covering everything from epidurals and c-sections to baby swaddling. The instructor was a nurse practitioner at the hospital group that I will be delivering at, and she had a 1 year old, and was pregnant with her second. She was very good, informative, and fun to listen to. She also had personal anecdotes, and great insider advice (‘make sure you ask each nurse (the nurses change every 12 hrs) for a few extra panties (the special greatgranny panties), and stash them in your bag to take home.’). As both K and I have not yet reached the exciting final chapters of ‘What to expect when you are expecting’ there was a lot of useful information that was new to us.
She led us through some breathing techniques. Maybe it works wonders while in labor, but chanting "Ahh hee ahh hee ahh hee ahh hoo" while in a conference room in a hospital on a sunny day was pretty funny. She took us out into the lobby and asked us to give each other massages, it was nice, I don’t know if we gained anything from it, and we almost fell asleep next to the stairs. Another activity was a labor and delivery version of the Newlywed Game- How well do you know your spouse? Or at least the avatar of your spouse during actual labor and delivery- questions like ‘What kind of animal do you think your spouse will be during L&D?’ The lad sitting next to me seemed to think her husband would be an ostrich – he would love to bury his head in sand and not resurface until it was all over! I thought (hoped, more like) that K would be a cat, cool as a cucumber. He thought I would be one too. Haha, let’s see. He was asked to guess my pain threshold level on a chart ranging from -7 (Give me an epidural even before labor begins-impossible) to +7 (I can handle anything. anything. a c-section. without any medicine-Impossible) He selected -6 (Give me an epidural whenever safe) – perfect. I am a wimp, and proud of it. Another game we played involved the men leaving the room, and separately making a list of the pros and cons of pregnancy and childbirth.
The list we made had Pros such as (1) Nursery Decorating and (2) Babies-r-us
The list the men made had Cons such as (1) Nursery Decorating and (2) Babies-r-us
K and I didn’t really have much input to offer, at least none that were stereotypical and expected.
The one Con that our instructor said was always on the men’s lists but never on the women’s list was money. Hmm.
The labor instructor talked about the TACO test for water breaking (to test if it is indeed your water breaking, test the fluid for 4 things), and I've already forgotten what the T stands for (I do know, however that it does not stand for Taste, the instructor made sure to point that out to us-ick!) but the rest of the letters are Amount, Color, and Odor.

My least favorite part of the class? The videos. I am sure that seeing the couples go through the different stages of labor, and the actual delivery, was educational in some way, but a part of me wished that I could have just read the book and skipped the visuals. Isn't the book usually better than the movie anyway?

That morning K told me that S had invited us to a surprise birthday party for U. It was at 4 pm, an hour before the end of our class. We hoped the class would end early, or that we could afford to miss the last hour of class. A few times during the class, K went out to attend phone calls. He told me it was S, telling us that we could stay longer, that U was still out at the store. I was gratified that S thought we were pretty important guests if she felt the need to call us to give us blow-by-blow details of what was happening, to make sure we were there for the big surprise. I told K that S was good, that it was pretty hard to have surprise parties these days, especially when it at the surprised persons own home! We went to a store during lunch, bought U a birthday gift, bought something for S too. The last part of the class was on swaddling a a baby, we quickly swaddled a plastic baby, got the instructors okay and left. And wouldn't you know it, not only was S good at keeping secrets, so was K! Yup, a surprise baby shower!! When we walked in and I wished U, he looked a little confused, quickly recovered and took the gift (K hadn't told them the story he told me, but U's birthday was around the corner anyway, so it was a good one). S had arranged for some fun games, she was a great hostess; and there was so many people there; I felt blessed to have so many people care about us so much; especially when we live so far away from family. There was so much great food, it was a great evening!

Week 32 of Pregnancy: Fetal Immune System

This week sweetpea is anywhere between 17 to 19 inches in length and weighs more than four pounds! He could grow a full inch more this week alone, and his weight can double before the big debut!
The level of amniotic fluid in my uterus has reached its maximum level, making it likely that I have more baby than fluid now. That's one reason why I've been feeling lots of nudges and pushes — there's less liquid to cushion the blows.
If my uterine walls had eyes, here's what we'd see: sweetpea acting more and more like a baby, with his eyes closing during sleep and opening while awake. And because those uterine walls are becoming thinner, more light penetrates the womb, helping him differentiate between day and night (now if only he can remember that difference on the outside!).
And good news! He has reached an important milestone about now: The development of his own immune system that (along with antibodies from me) will be able to provide protection from mild infections.

Week 32

"Fall"ing even more in love with you....

pat-a-cake pat-a-cake baker's man...

....... bake me a bun as fast as you can