A "Beary" Happy Halloween...

The fear, it builds...

Okay, so I'm beginning to get afraid. Only a few more days with Trip home with me, and then he's back to work and I'm on my own with the 2 boys. So far I have been spared any serious baby blues, but I have a feeling if depression is going to strike it will be once I'm alone with the two small ones.

Toby is growing like a weed, and beginning to chunk out nicely. I did a mini photo shoot with him today and got the photos I will be using for his birth announcements... which hopefully will be going out next week. (that might be a tad optimistic, but I'll do my best.)

Jack is cutting molars. 2 of the 4 are now through, but he is waking up in the wee hours of the morning every day, and won't settle back down unless Trip lays down with him. This means I end up alone in the bed, so I've been bringing Toby in to bed with me when he wakes up to nurse again, thus giving me easy access to nurse him again the next time without having to haul my butt out of bed.

I'm wiped out, and Toby is ready to eat again, so it's time to nurse my boo and head to bed. We head to the doctor on Friday, so I'll have more Toby news then...

They say "it" happens....

But they don't tell you it will happen when you least expect it. They also don't tell you it's a bad idea, in general, to attempt to change a diaper in your lap... especially with the business end of the baby pointed squarely at one's person. You might think this would be self-evident, but cut me some slack -- I just had a baby. :)

I also just found out that my new son has the ability to projectile poo. This, in combination with the newly-learned lessons above resulted in baby poop all over my shirt, hands, lap... not to mention a little in my hair and on my glasses. Who said motherhood isn't glamorous???

Cinnamon Ice Cream

Must randomly share that Cinnamon Ice Cream (care of Blue Bunny) is really, really good. You know when you eat apple pie a la mode, and you get to the end and there's just vanilla ice cream with all that apple-cinnamony goodness in it? Yeah, it tastes a lot like that. YUM.

We had Toby's first check-up today. He is well on his way to re-achieving his birth weight (he's at 9 lbs 4 oz as of this morning). He is nursing like a champ, and all his bits and pieces are in perfect order. They'll see him again in about a week, at which time Jack will also get a quick exam and a flu shot. Trip and I will also be getting the flu shot in the next week or so, as Toby is highly vulnerable at this stage and can't be vaccinated himself for it.

It is WAY too late for me to still be awake, so I'm heading to bed to get an hour's rest before the next feeding. This little boy is a bottomless pit.. and I suddenly have a whole new empathy for dairy cows....

He's Here!

Tobin Michael
Born: 10/15/2005 at 5:46pm EST
Weight: 9 lbs 7 oz
Length: 20.5 inches
15 inch head circumference. (yes, ouch.)

Here's the quick and dirty rundown of events...

Friday 10/14:

1:30pm: Went to the doctor for a check. As I arrived, he was leaving for the hospital where he'd been called in to do a delivery. He said to make sure I was still there when he got back, as he definitely wanted to check on me. I had left Jack with my friend Paige, so I grabbed some sandwiches and headed back to her house, just down the road, and left numbers to reach me with the receptionist.

An hour or two later, they called and I headed back in. A quick internal exam revealed I was dilated 1cm, and we were a GO for induction.

5:30pm: Dropped Jack off with my brother and sister-in-law and headed out to grab a dinner alone on the way to the hospital. Domani Ristoranti in Ashburn has a great tortellini with prosciutto (sp?) in cream sauce. It tasted all the better as it was to be my last meal for 24 hours. The calamari wasn' t bad, either.

7:30pm: Checked into the hospital for Cervidil.

Saturday 10/15:

8:00am: began pitocin drip.

11:00am: got the epidural. My left leg went numb, but my right side took convincing to be numbed at all. Got adjusted, and was suddenly pain free... which was a very good thing. Dilation: about 3cm

2:00pm: Anesthesiologist came to adjust the epidural to control break-through pain. It took a little while, but I finally felt better and Trip went to nurse the broken bones in the hand he used to hold mine. Dilation: 4-5cm

5:25pm: Excrutiating pain in my pubic bones. When I say excrutiating, I mean "Holy Hell there is NO WAY I can do this!" pain. In fact, I actually said repeatedly "I can't do this!"... Trip and Christie the Wonder Nurse (she was completely amazing) assured me that I could, in fact, do it... and also reminded me I didn't have much choice as the baby was already well on his way. A quick check revealed that the pain was probably due to the fact that I was dilated to 1/4cm less than the full 10cm and the baby's head was pushing insistently on my pelvis to get out.

5:30pm: We're pushing, baby.

5:46pm: Tobin Michael takes his first breath and lets out a very impressive squeal of indignation at being removed from his comfy uterine home and pushed out into a very cold and very bright world.

That's the blow-by-blow. The rest was pretty standard stuff... started nursing, changing diapers, re-learning to use the potty and whatnot. Everything was going according to plan until Sunday night...

I was exhausted, and Trip made me promise that I would let Toby go to the nursery while I got some sleep. The nurse came and wheeled my baby away, and I reluctantly laid the bed back to get some rest. Within about 2 minutes, the side of my head felt like it had been blown off and my sinuses erupted in what I can only describe as The Pain Second Only to the Above Mentioned Pain of Childbirth. There was no escaping the pain, and it grew rapidly worse with each passing minute.

After Tylenol 3 had no effect, the nurse called and got orders for Percocet. 2 Percocets every three hours got me through the night in a drug-addled semi-coma, but at least it was something akin to rest. By morning, I was exhausted and nauseated... and had already seen my doctor and promised to call the dentist ASAP.

The end of this little saga is that I left the hospital and went directly to the dentist chair for a root canal. Yes, apparently giving birth just wasn't tough enough for me.. I had to add the root canal.

SO... all of the drama is over, and we are on to learning to live the day-to-day. Thank God I have Trip for another week... the man is a wonder. The laundry is done, the sink is empty of dirty dishes, the Jack is fed and washed and asleep, and my sport bottle is full of icy-cold watery goodness. If they have Most Awesomely Awesome Husband awards, I hereby nominate him for a super-platinum recognition. Seriously... I'm just waiting to find out he has some deep dark secret, like a serious foot fetish or a collection of nude photos of Margaret Thatcher... Then again, as long as the laundry is done, I suspect I could find it in my heart to find even Margaret rather fetching...

Toby is still figuring out how to sleep in his crib, but he's getting there. Jack has developed a bad habit of wanting one of us to lay with him until he falls asleep. When we don't give in right away, he lays on the floor sobbing his little heart out and saying "Please, Daddy... Please Please Please Please....". Needless to say (especially in my current emotionally fragile state) this results in him getting exactly what he wants because, really, what mother could stand to hear her baby crying and pleading like that for very long?

SO.. to make a VERY long story short... Toby is here, we're good, and I'm beat. Thank you for all the well-wishes, and to Trip's office for the beautiful flowers. It's good to feel loved.

Not Counting Unhatched Chickens...

Heading for another check-up this morning... without expectation that there will be significant changes. Pessimistic? Realistic? Let's just say "preserving sanity". I'm desperately refraining from getting my hopes up.

Then again... (*Damn you Murphy and your Stupid Law!*) as Jack has suddenly decided that "bedtime" is a filthy, sailor word... it would be typical irony to bring home a mewling newborn in the midst of this new night time chaos...

More News As It Becomes Available. I Promise.

Deja - Oh to hell with it.

You can basically just cut and paste last week's baby update here. No change... none at all. My body has frozen in time at about 6 weeks ago, and is steadfastly refusing to prepare for labor.

Next check-up: Friday morning. If there is any change, we'll induce Saturday.... but at this point, I'm gonna say... there's not gonna be any change. And we'll be doing this well into next week. And it will be allowed to continue as long as the following Friday, so let's just say this baby is gonna show up around the 21st, and forget for now that there IS a baby, okay? It's too depressing. And I'm too pregnant.

The one good thing I can report is that my doc gave me the OK to take sudafed in the morning and benadryl before bed until my cold is cleared up. The benadryl last night knocked me O-U-T .. OUT! and I got 6 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Of course, by the time I woke up I nearly wet the bed, but hey... SLEEP!! Neat! I took a half dose tonight, and hopefully I will be able to breathe through my nose well enough to wake up tomorrow sans sore throat (which appears to be a result of mouth-breathing the incredibly dry air in our house)...

More updates as they become available. Which means.. I'll probably have more to say in about 10 days, and until then DON'T ASK ME IF I HAVE HAD THAT BABY YET... I know you mean well, but really... I promise, we would let you know... k, thx. Love, MeL

Deja V- Wait A Second!

Over the weekend I realized that, in a past life, I must have done something horrible enough to warrant the thorough karmic ass-kicking I am now receiving.

The sore throat I had last week turned, over the weekend, into a full blown nasty fall cold. Swollen glands? Check. Clogged sinuses and MASSIVE sinus headaches? Check. Body Aches? Check.

Today has been a bit better, but we called the OB to give him a heads up. Basically, he said I can take Sudafed in the morning, Benadryl before bed.. and hey, if my cervix is still not favorable tomorrow, we'll just postpone inducing until the weekend so I have time to recover from my cold...

SO... yeah. I'm drinking water by the gallon, herbal tea, SoBe (with echinacea, zinc, and vitamin C) and using saline spray to clear out my sinuses. I am waging all-out holistic war on this cold. I am willing every cell in my body to be conscripted to the fight, so that by tomorrow morning I can feel GREAT.

I have also given my cervix an ultimatum... DILATE or face the consequences. There really aren't any consequences, but don't mention that to my cervix....

Mental health. Hanging by thread. This calls for drastic measures.... time for a bagel and a vitamin C...

Here comes the rain again....

Blessed rain.. which halteth construction. Praise be to you. Even if you did wake me up at 4am, pelting against my window... I had to pee anyway, and your soothing lullaby rocked me back to sleep until a blissful 7am. Thank you... even if this means our outing to the Renn Fest tomorrow is cancelled due to Mass Quantities of Mud. After all, my sore throat is gone but has been replaced by some sinus junk... so my nose probably thanks you for keeping it indoors anyway.

In other news, Trip will be working from Home on Monday, so I won't have to endure my morning anxiety attack as I watch him drive away and think "but if I go into labor today I'll have to DRIVE MYSELF TO THE HOSPITAL!" Never mind that chances of me going into labor on my own are up there with a cure for cancer before Tuesday or winning the lottery without buying a ticket... but I dare anyone to tell a pregnant woman to think rationally at this point. Plus, I'm sick... and having him here to keep half an eye on Jack will give me a much needed cat-nap here and there...

Speaking of naps... there is a very large recliner calling my name. No, really... I can hear it now, and the voice sounds just like James Earl Jones. Irrational? Please see above....

Don't Wanna Start Any Blasphemous Rumors...

But somebody up there definitely has a sick sense of humor... Allow me to demonstrate...

5:30am: The construction crew building a subdivision behind us apparently decideshat this is a reasonable hour to begin using their JACKHAMMER. It woke Trip up at 5:30. It woke me up at 6. By 6:30, Jack was also awake... so it was a party at our house in the early pre-dawn hours...

6:00am: My throat, which was a little dry and scratchy at bedtime last night, is now fully red, raw, and sore. My head is pounding. My body aches in bizarre places.

10:00am: All of the above symptoms continue, and now I am dozing in and out of consciousness while Jack blissfully plays at my feet in front of Dora the Explorer. We can now add the chills and some monster sweats to my list of symptoms.

1:00pm: After a morning of intermittent napping, returning phone calls that came in while I was dying of the hoo-doo virus in my recliner, and a snack with Jack of apples and wheat thins, I put Jack down (he's still up there singing to himself) and told him to play if he must, but Mama had to visit the puter and then get more nap.

All of the above adds up to the fact that I now feel slightly less dead than the raccoon that was smeared on route 9 yesterday, and STILL none of this leads up to any indications of Labor beginning. SO, I am still pregnant... and feel wrung out enough that I am imagining a kinship with barely recognizable road kill. I wonder if delusions are ever a sign of impending childbirth??? Anyone... anyone... Bueller?

Medically Speaking....

Trip and I came to the conclusion the other day that the naming of male and female reproductive parts must have resulted in a spirit of competition gone horribly wrong.

Allow me to elucidate..... We imagined events something along the lines of a male doctor named all the female parts as distastefully as possible (Cervix? Labia? Are you kidding me?).

The female doctor, who had just about finished naming the male parts with fairly reasonable syntax (Prostate? sounds like a car insurance company..) played the ultimate trump card by inventing the mother-of-all, shudder-inducing nomenclature.

Say it with me, now... and I dare you not to flinch...

Scrotum.

See? Told ya.

Deja Vu All Over Again...

We went to the OB today and, in spite of our best hopes, there has been no activity in the baby department. No dilation, no effacement, and the baby has not engaged or even really moved down to a satisfactory degree. The doctor, who was very sympathetic to our disappointment, basically said that he is confident I will still be able to deliver the baby if we let it grow another week, and if we tried to induce now (even with Cervidil) he's worried we may cause unnecessary complications and end up with a c-section that could have been avoided...

SO... long story short... after a few tears (me) and some reshuffling of work schedules (Trip) we rescheduled the induction for next Wednesday, October 12. We also went ahead and scheduled the Cervidil treatment, which means I will plan to check in to the hospital next Tuesday evening. We'll have one more check at the doctor's office on Tuesday afternoon, just to see if things have progressed at all... but at this point, I'm not optimistic that this baby has any plans to arrive on his own or help the process along at all....

All in all, a bit of a disappointing day... but, as Trip keeps reminding me, the baby is healthy, and even if we have to wait one more LOOOOOONG week before he makes his appearance, our son will have 10 fingers and 10 toes and everything in its place... so for that, I am grateful. I'm sure I'll be even more grateful once my pity party has run its course... and once I've consumed my body weight in chocolate...

Notes from the Edge...

Well, it is Monday night and tomorrow morning we head to the doctor to get the verdict on whether we go to the hospital tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.... (we won't consider any other possible outcome at this point.... just cross everything on your body that crosses for us, and hope that we are not cervix challenged come noon tomorrow....)

Jack and I spent our last day alone together doing nothing in particular. Chris the Wonder Plumber managed to dislodge the shave gel lid that has been stuck in our master bathroom toilet for the last 2 months. Yes, for 2 months we have been using the hallway guest bathroom toilet. This is because Jack figured out that if he gets caught doing something naughty, it's more fun to finish up your dirty deed fast and watch momy and daddy freak out when they can't stop you in time... and damned if the kid isn't speedy like a ferret on meth when he wants to be... you've never seen a lid flushed so fast in your life...

Jack pretended to be a puppy for a few hours, and chased me around the house on all-fours trying to lick my shins. He woke up from his nap after just an hour or so crying for a drink of water, which I brought him. He obligingly took it, said "thank you, mommy" and climbed back into bed... at which point I realized I was exhausted, and climbed in with him. We napped together in blissful quiet for nearly an hour, and then he got up and very quietly played while I dozed off and on for another half hour or so. Have I mentioned that I have the most awesome kid in the history of the world? Because... Yeah.. I do.

Here's the tally of "things we normally do, but which took on special significance because it was our last day together before we get this baby-birthing started":
# of diapers changed: 4
# of times we read "Colors with Oswald": 6
# of hugs: a lot, but never enough
# of episodes of SpongeBob watched: 2
# of zerberts: 20 or so
# of times Jack wrote on something he shouldn't have: 3. (once on the little TV with permanent marker, once on the dust jacket to a book with the same marker, and once all over his legs with a ball point pen.)

For all the jangle of nerves I am feeling with the uncertainty ahead (and the certainty of pain to follow...) at this moment in time, I am feeling incredibly lucky to be a Mama. I'll feel even luckier if I manage to sleep 3 consecutive hours tonight without having to get up to pee... but hey, at least tonight I can go in my own potty... it's the little things....

Hurry Up and Wait....

4 days and counting. I have been attempting to keep my days as full as possible in order to keep my ferret-like attention span occupied... so as not to actually FEEL the impatience bubbling just under my calm exterior.

Okay, so the exterior is not so calm, but compared to the interior it's a calm day on a Cayman Beach.

Today we are attempting to polish off any remaining chores, so as to have the house as close to "company condition" as possible. This way, when reinforcements arrive (in the form of Trip's Mama) in a week or so, we will be in need of some sprucing without requiring a full-on Extreme Makeover-style overhaul.

So far, many loads of laundry have been washed, folded, and mostly put away. Dishes have been done, counters have been wiped. I will be doing another vacuum once-over this afternoon (with 2 cats, you can never vacuum too much).

Jack's bedding has been washed and his bed made. Hopefully he manages to keep the party in his diaper between now and Tuesday... he's been swimming in his blankets a few times a week the last month or so. (We moved to the next size of diaper, to no avail.)

The hospital bag is gathered, and this afternoon I will pile my survival kit into the small travel suitcase. It was highly disappointing to find out the hospital doesn't allow Italian Ices during labor.. just plain old ice chips. I've been pondering whether they would allow me to use my ice shaver, so at least I don't chip my teeth while I'm wasting away with low blood sugar on the delivery table. (And hey... if the machine is used to make the odd margarita without my knowledge or consent... I can hardly be held responsible)

SO... the wait continues. All I can say is... Tuesday, you better hurry up and get here... and bring Wednesday with you, huh?? Let's get this show on the road....