Just a quick update...

I've got Sophie in the Moby wrap right now - it's about the only time I get computer time! Things are going fairly well... during the day she is pretty content, but nights have been really hard! Last night she screamed for several hours, was pretty much inconsolable! :( I finally swaddled her tightly, against her will, and she passed out after that, around 4:30 am!! I hope this is a short lived thing because it is really exhausting and heartbreaking! She is getting more used to sleeping in her bed rather than on us so that will help a little bit. I think if we can help her get her days and nights straight, that will be good. Of course she is only a little over a week old so it sounds par for the course!

Otherwise she is nursing well, she's got a different style than Will - he gets down to business and doesn't waste time... she has to make sure things are "just right", yells at it a bit, and that can take a few minutes before she finally latches and gets down to eating. She saw the doctor on Monday and had already gained back her birth weight plus 4 more ounces - she's 9 pounds already!

We really appreciate the emails and well wishes.. I haven't had much time to get photos uploaded but when I do, I'll be getting them out to everyone!

Birth Announcement!

Sophia Katherine was born Monday, February 19th at 9:41 am, weighing in at 8 lb, 12 oz and 19 inches long! I had several days of labor followed by almost 26 hours of labor at the hospital. We are working on getting breastfeeding established. I had some interventions I had not wanted originally but looking back, I made the right decisions, because of the long labor, I would not have been able to get through it all without them. We are both healthy and for that, we're thankful.

More to come later... no time now!

Home, baby still in

I'm not real happy about this, but I think I'm in what is called "prodromal labor". I should have expected it since it took 50 hours for my son to be born with "all guns fully loaded" so to speak. We went in, and I'd made very little progress, so my doctor ordered a sleeping pill so I could sleep, I took it, and we went home. I'm having some contractions today but they are mild and pretty far apart. Will stayed with grandma and grandpa last night and that went well, but my husband went and picked him up this morning since not much is happening right now.

There really isn't much I can do at this point, alternate activity with rest and when they pick up again, waiting til they are stronger, then giving doc a call and going in again.

Thankfully nobody has been calling us, freaking out! That would REALLY piss me off at this point, so I've dubbed our house, and all electronic devices flowing into, and out of it, a NO FREAK-OUT ZONE. I don't want to talk to anyone who is going to freak out about anything! No negative energy, please! If *I* can be patient enough to let this happen, I certainly expect everyone else to be patient as well! (After all, they are not the ones going through this!)

I'll update as I am able. The nurse last night was a sweetheart and I can only hope she is our nurse when we go in for real the next time!

I'm in labor, going in soon

I am in labor, no doubt about it. Right now I'm having contractions about every 4 minutes apart, for about the last couple of hours. They were mild all day, then suddenly they became like this! I called the doctor and she said to come in when we're ready, or when I really have a hard time getting through them. We might wait here for a bit, then go, these contractions seemed to come out of nowhere so we probably shouldn't wait too long! We'll be emailing out a birth announcement later on and when I get home and get a chance, I'll post about it here too.

I am amazed at how much easier these contractions are to cope with, than when I was induced. It's like night and day!

Could be early labor...

I could be in early labor, in fact I probably am, but I don't have ANY idea how long it will be... I had such a LONG (50 hour) labor with my son (even though it was induced) so we're just hanging out at home today and I kept my husband home from work. Depending on how things go, I may or may not get a chance to update this again if we need to leave for the hospital later - in any case I will post again if I'm still here or maybe my next post will be a birth announcement! :)

More to come!

Sorry...

For all you hopeless romantics who thought it would be SO cool if we had a Valentine's Day baby, you're out of luck!!

The next holiday, according to my calendar, is President's Day. :)

Doctor update

I am certainly not going to complain, but my doctor has done a complete turnaround on the whole induction thing! I'm SO relieved! She made me so mad last week! I had a non-stress test yesterday at the hospital (they watch baby's heart rate to make sure it behaves normally with movement and contractions, if you have any) which was totally fine, and today when I went in, we were both totally fine. So even though she did offer to induce if I wanted, she seemed completely OK with me just going home and letting nature take its course. I am also 1 cm and 60% effaced so at least all these contractions I've been having are doing SOMETHING! Maybe now that she is off my back, I can relax and go into labor. Either way, the baby will come when the baby is ready, and that's fine with me. I will have another NST at the hospital on Monday and see her again on Tuesday.

I have my moments of feeling pretty good and optimistic, to feeling really bad and just MAD that I haven't gone into labor yet. I suppose that's all par for the course. If I'm feeling OK tonight, I think we are going to head to the mall to do some walking. I plan to do some shopping as well, because I'm not going to haul my big pregnant ass all over the mall and not buy myself something to make me feel better! Even if it's another book! I've been going through a lot of books lately, I've read Jimmy Carter's "Palestine - Peace not Apartheid", I've gotten halfway through "The Iraq Study Group Report" and "The Weathermakers" which is about global warming. With all that heavy and depressing reading, now I am reading Bill Bryson's book about his travels through Europe. He is really funny and I've enjoyed every single book I've read by him! (Thanks Dad!) I got really tired of reading books about birth and breastfeeding, so I had to get something different!

I still think my due date was yesterday and not the 7th, but I'm too lazy to change my ticker. I'll put up a new ticker when the baby is born. Just do your own math and subtract 5 days. It's not that hard! :)

It's my dad's birthday...

And it doesn't look like he'll get a new grandchild today! *sigh* Sorry Dad, we tried!

Unless something unexpected surprises the heck out of us, it looks like it's business as usual....

More contractions...

I had a TON of Braxton Hicks again last night, and whew! They hurt! They weren't bad while I was laying down to go to sleep so at least that was good, I got a fairly decent night's sleep. But if I was up walking around, I could barely stand it. I could have spent some time walking into the night but I figured if it was really turning into labor, I needed to get some sleep first and foremost. I'm having a few mild ones right now but it's nothing that I'm excited over at this point.

My husband asked me if he should stay home today and I told him no, he should go to work. Will and I are getting together with some friends this morning, he will play with the other kids and us grownups will be working on some stuff for La Leche League. I need to continue on with life as usual!

I would love to have this baby tomorrow because it's my dad's birthday. I have a feeling it won't be that much longer anyway, definitely within the next week.

"Due"?

Today is my due date, I guess. Honestly I would be more willing to go with the 12th, only because when I look at my dates and the bigger picture it makes more sense. In any case, I saw the doctor yesterday and she royally pissed me off by attempting to get me used to the idea of induction - I'm not even due, this is a totally healthy pregnancy, and there is no reason for it! So she will have to make a very convincing argument, if I do need to see her next week in the office. I will not be induced because of the day on the calendar. I will consider it if there are concrete signs that the baby is not well or if I am not well, but otherwise, she will have to step outside her comfort zone and live with my decisions. In the meantime, she suggested (at least!!) evening primrose oil and red raspberry leaf tea. I have both so yesterday I started taking EPO and drinking as much tea as I could stand.

Yesterday after my appointment I met Clane for lunch. I started having Braxton-Hicks contrations during lunch and I had them for the rest of the day, they were still going when I went to bed. I have had a few this morning and I am sure they are helping things along, but they are really nothing to get excited about.

I am going to the hospital for a non-stress test on Monday if I'm still pregnant, and I will see the doctor again on Tuesday. I know at that point she will try to get me to set an induction date but she will have to be pretty convincing. If my NST is normal, and her exam checks out normal, I will go home and continue to wait. Unless she can tell me that the baby is definitely compromised, she will have to bear with me. If I am really only 40 weeks on Monday next week, in my opinion, it is still jumping the gun and really inappropriate to be talking about such an invasive procedure! I'm just really mad that she is laying all this on me now and that I have something else to worry about when I should just be relaxing!!

Otherwise, all is well. My BP is excellent, I am showing no signs of trouble, the baby sounds great and is doing very well, so there should be no need for this kind of crap, right?

Maybe a LITTLE is happening...

Things are going along well! I'll see the doctor on Tuesday, supposedly my "due" date is Wednesday the 7th but honestly I think it is more like a week from now or so. In any case, on Thursday night I had some pretty good contractions, they lasted well into the night but they were mild enough that I fell asleep before they went away. I had more on Friday but they weren't as frequent. By the weekend, they had pretty much stopped. Just some practice, they weren't painful or intense, just enough to notice them. Every little bit helps! I still don't think I will have this baby for another couple of weeks. It's just my gut feeling about it.

I also think this baby is going to be smaller than Will. He was 9 lb 8 oz and I just don't feel as big or swollen like I did with him. I am still wearing my wedding rings but my legs have gotten pretty puffy.

Aside from some minor organizational stuff, we are pretty much ready. The clothes and diapers are all washed, we have the baby bed upstairs now and all the bedding for that is washed. I've washed the car seat cover but still need to wipe down the car seat itself and have Clane install the base. I'm all stocked up on breast pads (I leaked like a maniac last time, for a really long time too) and baby wipes and still have a ton of baby wash that we're still using with Will. All I need is my body to start gearing up a little more intensely! I'm glad that I don't feel too bad most of the time, that's making things a little easier for now.