Maxwell Thomas – 6 days old today May 31, 2009

Max arrived all of a sudden on Monday, Memorial Day.  Though he was 10 days late in the end, once he was ready to get out, he wanted OUT!  My friend Julie had her twins by cesarean at 2 am that morning.  I thought for sure Max would not have the same birthday as the girls, but I was wrong.  At 4 I woke up with contractions, but they weren’t that painful – felt like menstrual cramps.  They were about  4-5 minutes apart and then over the next few hours slowed down to 8 then 10 then 20 minutes apart.  I was starting to get frustrated – he was already 10 days late, and labor kept seeming like it might be around the corner and then going away… But then after two walks, a trip to Borders and lunch at home my contractions started to change and become more painful around 1:00 or 1:30 that afternoon.  They sped up and got more intense really quickly and by 2:00 or 2:15 we called our doula, she arrived just before 3:00.  At 3:07 we were on Lakeshore Drive headed to the hospital. 

After three contractions between the car and the triage area (and after going through transition in the car on Lakeshore Drive - not so much fun) , my water broke in triage and I started feeling like I had to push.  They rushed me upstairs, got a tub and started getting it filled up, and got me a squat bar.  I pushed for about 20 minutes on the squat bar and another 20 or 25 in the tub, and he was born at 4:48 pm.  Really only 4 hours or so of what I would consider labor.  It was so intense because it was so fast – I hardly got a break between the pushing contractions.  But I am grateful that it was quick.  Thank God I was prepared for natural childbirth, because even if I had wanted and epidural, there wouldn’t have been time for it.

M ax is beautiful and perfect and healthy.  He was 8 lbs 3 oz at birth and 21 1/2 inches long – the same length that my 6′8″ brother was at birth.  Probably my little half-Japanese baby will not be 6′8″ though…

We’ve been home since Wednesday night adjusting and things overall are going great  We have some breastfeeding problems, but I am pumping to try to increase my milk supply.  Thursday night was really tough when we realized he wasn’t getting enough and was really hurting me and we had to end up giving him some formula, which is not how I had planned this at all.  Fortunately we had a fantastic lactation consultant come on Friday and though the problems are not solved, I feel like we are on our way to a solution.

Mike leaves in two days for Switzerland and has been absolutely amazing taking care of me and Max – feeding him and changing diapers and keeping up the house and also snuggling with the baby and really getting comfortable quickly with handling a brand new baby, which he had never done before.  I’ve been so impressed with how he has handled it all.  He is going to have a hard time being away, and I am going to struggle with him away, but I am now feeling really happy that my mom will be here and then my dad and Cathy will be here.  I am definitely not ready to be alone with him quit yet.

We’ve had a couple of field trips besides to the pediatrician already – yesterday to Best Buy and Whole Foods and today Max and I went alone into our little downtown area to get a gift for our doula who is coming for a post partum visit tomorrow.  It was so great to get out and enjoy the beautiful day and walk around town with my baby.  Our doula was also great during the delivery and worth every penny that we paid her.  Even with our Bradley class, I think there were some times in the birth process that Mike might have been really freaked out if she wasn’t there to tell him that what was happening was normal. 

It still seems pretty surreal that this little person came out of my body less than a week ago and that he is mine, ours.  I love just sitting and watching him make his funny little faces and sleep in his funny little positions with his hands going every which way.

41w2d May 24, 2009

According to the midwife on Friday, I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced, so making some progress.  However, it is Sunday and I am not in labor.  I did lose my mucus plug yesterday (sorry – TMI…) and the contractions that have been happening for the last week-plus continue, but nothing big is happening.  Next appointment is Tuesday.  If he is still doing okay in there, they’ll send me on my merry way again and induce on Friday (at 42w exactly).  We made the decision to wait until the last day possible to give my body the best chance of going into labor on its own, but with Mike leaving the following Tuesday for Switzerland for 10 days I am not too excited about that plan… But I know it is the right decision.  It also gives me three more very long days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) to fill on my own.

The last couple days have been much easier because Mike has been home, so I have some company and something to do, despite the fact that our cable TV and internet has been out at home since Thursday.  GREAT timing Comcast – thanks for that.  Fortunately it is a long weekend, so I get to have him home again tomorrow, though his parents might be coming in for dinner.  I like his parents fine, but don’t really feel like spending another weekend day with them.  I feel like we have seen a lot of them lately and I will probably be seeing a LOT of them in the next few weeks after the baby arrives.  His mom has been pretty good about not hovering (unlike my mother who calls every other day and infuriatingly predicted that the baby will arrive this weekend – I am not sure why that bothered me so much, but it made me really angry), but does feel the need to pass on all of her friends’ advice about how to get labor going.  I have just about had it with the advice and the “trust him, he will come out when he is ready” that I am getting from everyone.  Yes, I know.  Thanks.  That doesn’t make it any easier to wait and wait when Mike is leaving on the 2nd and I am going to be left with just my mom to help me in my first few days of being a mother myself.   Between that and my increasingly painful hemeroids (still don’t know if I am spelling that right) I am READY for this to be done.  You would think that after waiting more than 2 1/2 years it wouldn’t be so bad to wait a few more days.  But, good lord, I am tired of waiting!  I have to keep a good attitude though – this is a much better problem to have than we had at this time last year, and a much better problem than we could have had if this round of IVF hadn’t worked…

Ugh May 19, 2009

I thought that after the past 2 1/2 years of waiting – ttc, then getting sick, then IVF, then pregnancy – waiting for this kid to be born would be the easy part.  Ugh, was I wrong. 

My due date came and went last Friday.  Friday evening I noticed I was having some painless contractions, so we started timing them and they were getting closer together, peaking at about 6-8 minutes apart.  So we called the doula to give her a heads-up that we might be calling her in the middle of the night to go to the hospital.  Four days later there is no change.  I am still having contractions every 10-12 minutes sometimes, every 6-8 minutes other times.  They are not getting more painful, there has been no bloody show – nothing is happening in terms of a progression. 

After Friday we cancelled all our weekend plans (including going to the grocery store!) and got mentally prepared to have this baby.  Now that I am sitting here on Tuesday, seemingly no closer to having a baby (though I know I am really 4 days closer), I am getting frustrated, grumpy, and really antsy.  I have fabric for a second quilt that I am working on and maybe I’ll go to the movies, but I really have little to occupy my time, and that is a hard state for me.

My mom, as usual, is driving me nuts too.  She bought me a webcam “for my birthday” – she seems to not realize that it is not a gift for me, but something for her… Yesterday at 8:30 am my time we had a date to test it out.  She got the time wrong and totally wasted my time while I sat here waiting for her.  When we finally got together on the computer later in the day, she still couldn’t figure out how hers worked.  Then she told me she was thinking about taking the train out here when the baby is born which makes NO sense at all if she is so concerned (as she seemed to be) about getting here as quickly as possible.  Then she e-mailed me later to tell me she heard that raspberry tea might help with labor.  I wish she would just keep her advice to herself, especially when she doesn’t have any idea what she is talking about – it isn’t raspberry tea, but raspberry LEAF tea, and I have been drinking it by the gallon (at my midwife’s suggestion) thankyouverymuch.  Ugh.  I have a feeling that the first few days of Mike’s trip when she is going to be here staying with me are going to be some very difficult days between taking care of a newborn without Mike and trying very hard not to kill my mother.

Next midwife appointment isn’t until Friday – they’ll hook me up to the fetal monitor for 20 minutes and do an ultrasound to check for the level of amniotic fluid and then decide what to do.  At some point we’ll have to make a decision about whether we want to be induced before the 29th.  I think the worst case scenario is induction on the 29th that leads to  c-section and Mike leaving on the 2nd for Switzerland.  I could potentially still be in the hospital when he leaves.  Ugh.  That is going to be a very hard 10 days either way.

Come on baby, time to come out!!!

I Have an Outie May 6, 2009

My belly button has finally popped out in the last week or so.  Before it was still an innie in the morning and would pop out sometime during the day – it was almost always out by dinner time.  But now it is consistently out.  It is so bizarre though – it is like a little nose or something.  It protrudes further on the top ridge and then tapers down towards the bottom.  But the turkey timer has popped out, so hopefully that means that he is close to done. 

I wouldn’t be worried about the timing if it wasn’t for the fact that we found out this morning that Mike got accepted to the next level of this leadership program at his job, which is FANTASTIC news for him, but not such good timing since it means he’ll be in Switzerland from June 3 to 11.  The timing could be worse (like May 15 to 25), but if the baby is two weeks late (the latest they’ll let me go), he’ll only be a few days old when Mike leaves, and we will have only been home for the hospital for a day or two in all likelihood.   So now I am really hoping that this baby is on time or a few days early.  Hopefully all my sleep and good nutrition and protein will help him get out of there on time.  Not that these things probably have anything to do with it… Ah well.  A girl can hope.

I am concerned about solo-parenting a baby so little, but also concerned about having a lot of motherly visits – both his mom and my mom.  They both make me a little crazy (my mom way moreso than his mom, actually), and if they think I am in need of a lot of help while he is gone, I think it is might be more than I can take.    I am not sure how I’ll delicately handle the “I am fine, please leave me alone” conversation when (not if) the time comes…

Back to the belly-button thing – I have really been on the tail end of a lot of the physical things in pregnancy.  I didn’t feel him move until pretty late in the game – I think I was 22 or 23 weeks along before I knew I was feeling movement.  I couldn’t identify body parts until at least a few weeks after the books/newsletters were saying that I would be able to, and now finally my belly button has popped. 

I still feel really good.  Getting out of bed can be a challenge, as can be picking up dropped knitting needles off of the floor, but I can still bend over to pick things up for the most part, and am not feeling uncomfortable.  I have been going to the gym some still (though have not been good about doing my kegel exercises or the other exercises they taught us in our Bradley class).  The elliptical machine has been good for me the last weeks/months as has the pool when I can force myself to get in.  When my feet are swollen, it does feel really good to get in the pool, but I find it totally boring, not a workout, and sometimes cold getting in, so I don’t find I have a ton of swimming motivation.

I have pretty much completed my to-do list that I had been working on.  I think the two last things are to finish my quilt (I am going to go pin it now) and my knitting projects (three projects down – a green sweater/hat set, a football helmet style hat, and leg warmies) and one project to go (a tan sweater and maybe a matching hat if I have leftover yarn).  If he is late I am going to find myself with a LOT of time on my hands.  I always say that I am never bored because I don’t sit still well and always have lots of projects going on.  But if I really get to the end of my to-do list (other than the general cleaning stuff I do every week or every-other week) I am not sure how I will fill all my time besides going to the gym and knitting, and that only takes up so many hours in the day.  But at least I will feel like I really got everything done before he arrived, which would be nice. 

So, anyone out there in internet-land, please think happy thoughts for an on-time or slightly early baby so that Mike gets in some bonding time before he has to head to Switzerland for 10 days!