Because I Said So

Frieda Arrives

Frieda was born last Friday evening. The labor went very well. Forgoing the epidural (or any kind of spinal block) was the right decision for me. I had a little narcotic assistance for the last hour, which took a bit of the edge off. So it was about two hours of progressively stronger contractions, of the "Whoa, that's intense," variety, followed by forty minutes of "Damn!", then about 15 - 20 minutes of "AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Then she was here.

She is a good size, born at 8 lbs. 13 oz., exactly a pound less than Henry, and she is healthy. The hospital personnel checked her blood sugar every few hours (not a fun thing -- to see your newborn baby stuck in the heel every two to three hours, and worse for her I'm sure) and everything checked out okay. My gestational diabetes has apparently resolved as well. Hello, carbs! Meet my gaping maw.

Henry came to the hospital on Saturday morning. He was disconcerted to see me in the hospital bed, and a little taken aback by Frieda's presence. Since then he's been a bit aloof -- not wanting to be around me much, and taking only quick looks at Frieda here and there (though he knows her name and says it clearly). I know this is normal stuff, and that this is a huge change for all of us -- especially Henry. I am willing myself to be patient and not bawl and feel guilty that we have rocked Henry's previously stable boat.

More pics and Frieda's theme song (many thanks to Uncle TR) can be found here.

And now, Frieda calls.

Baby or...?

I woke up this morning a bit panicked because I hadn't felt the baby move in awhile. I got up and drank a little juice (not a good thing for the gest. diabetes, but weighing the options it felt like the right thing to do), lay back down, and soon I felt her kicking around a bit. Overall, I've had very little anxiety during this pregnancy: everything has gone surprisingly well. But neuroses is like Jell-O: there's always room for a little more.

Tomorrow is, supposedly, the Big Day. I say "supposedly" because we are not given a set appointment time for the induction. Instead, someone from the hospital will call between 5:30AM and 7:30AM and tell us what time to come in.

The hospital where Henry was born had the same policy. I remember well that we were packed and ready to go when the hospital called and said they didn't have a bed, and could we come in tomorrow? This, after nearly five months of bed rest! Very frustrating.

So we went out for lunch and saw a movie (can't remember which one now).

As for tomorrow: what will it be, hospital people? Baby or "Iron Man"?

Rough Towels!

My friend M. believes that all of life's wisdom is contained in the "Godfather" films. My husband, Jon, would probably argue that Monty Python is more apt.

So as I hurdle toward the hospital visit on Friday, I thought about this bit from "The Meaning of Life." Like all good comedy, there's an element of truth to it. Let's hope it's not the "And...isolate it!" part.

"Mighty Pasty"

This was Jon's description of my appearance when I was wheeled back into the labor room from the surgery room yesterday. The procedure to remove the stitches didn't go as well as the procedure to place them back in November. I won't go into detail, but I will say that I never want to have another epidural or spinal block so long as I shall live, amen.

But the stitches are gone, "the door is open" as Jon says, and the baby is doing well (and still in utero). No labor yet. The nurse had me walk laps around the ward yesterday afternoon to see if it would bring on labor, but all was quiet on that front. Jon devised his own form of labor inducement: leaning over my belly, he called out "Don't make me come in there and get you, young lady!" But apparently she's just not ready yet.

But I am now free to do wacky, dangerous things like take a walk, which I plan to do today.

Aged Cheese

I was at the grocery store the other day, or rather at one of those big warehouse stores where you can buy groceries, and jogging suits, and Sopranos DVDs, and patio umbrellas, and bulk-packages of pita chips that require a wheelbarrow for transportation (which you can also buy there), and I bought some mozzarella with a June expiration date. And I thought, By the time this cheese expires, I will have given birth.

That really brought it home to me.

As did Dr. R's statement this morning: "Looks like we've made it!" Naturally my brain immediately launched into the Barry Manilow tune (damn you, 1970s!), which is still ping-ponging around my skull.

Yes. Soon I will give birth. This is such a good thing, because I am weary of being pregnant, of the heartburn, the sleepless nights, the sore hips and back, and the way my belly button protrudes to such an extent that it can clearly be seen through my shirt.

"I should put a Band-Aid or something over that," I said to Jon the other day. He studied it for a moment. "Nah. It just looks like a third nipple."

He is such a wonderful human being, kind and giving and handsome and funny, and as I climbed into bed a few months ago (fairly early in the pregnancy), he helpfully suggested that I buy a larger size of underwear.

Thus are the odd side-effects of pregnancy not covered by the "What-to-Expect" books. I'm not talking about the bodily changes -- but rather the "husband turns crass" thing.

They should really think of listing that one.

Chocolate: Because Ham Is Not a Carb

I saw a dietitian yesterday who helped me set out a diet plan to control my gestational diabetes (GD). I've been feeling really low on energy the last few days, and I wasn't sure if it was just the usual pregnancy stuff or lack of carbs. It's probably both.

It turns out that I am a very good student, TOO good of a students, when it comes to cutting down on carbs. I've essentially cut them out (except for the "free" ones like salad, and some vegetables and fruits) and that isn't good. The problem is that adding more carbs will also make my blood sugars rise, so I'll most likely be countering that with medication. Fortunately there is a pill form so I probably won't need to be dealing with insulin injections. Just looking at the diagram of the best injection sites printed in my handy-dandy GD book makes me a bit queasy. Even the word "bolus" bothers me. I try not to think of it.

But now it's in my brain. Bolus, bolus, bolus! Ugh. Stop it, brain.

The upside is that I am eating some very nice chocolate. Not a lot, just a square of dark chocolate here and there, combined with a handful of peanuts or cashews. The sweet and the salty. Ah.

As for pregnancy news, I lumber when I walk. And strangers come up to me and say things like "You look like you're about to pop!" (woman at coffee shop) and "Whoa, you're gettin' BIG!" (guy at thrift store), and another woman who raised one eyebrow when she saw me, scanned my midsection, then shook her head.

What's that about? It was most puzzling. Does she think I should be hiding myself somewhere, and not lumbering about in public, my protuberant belly prominently displayed for all to see? Should I be "confined" as in days of yore, with a nursemaid or house servant scuttling hither and thither with towels and boiling water? (What was the boiling water for?)

I haven't had anyone try to touch my belly, though. There, I would draw the line. Or at least charge something, say, $5 for a good pat -- $10 for a rub. There's got to be something in it for me.

Bugs

The last two weeks have been bug-ridden, both technical and viral. First, my web host upgraded their servers and an error in the process left me without access to my blog for three days. Then there was another day or two of our local cable provider's spotty service. (We lose or have very slow access when it is damp. Why this should be, I don't know. But it happens.)

Then Henry got the croup/a cold/the respiratory flu, so that knocked everything off kilter for a week. And now I'm sick, recovering from the same cold/flu thing. Yesterday was the worst: fever and chills, feeling like I couldn't get warm. A stark contrast to the usual this winter, as the furnace in my midsection (i.e. the baby) has made me so warm that I have been sleeping with only a sheet covering me. But yesterday I was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, huddled beneath bedspread and down comforter, and still felt like there were ice cubes in my underwear. Today, thankfully, is better.

Re. baby news, nothing much is happening. I saw Dr. R. on Friday and everything looked fine. He was wearing some kind of spring-y shirt, a blue and white checked number, and a silver necklace. And he was talking about leaving for spring vacation to Mexico the next day.

"Don't go into the hospital while I'm gone!" he warned. I wanted to say, "Don't go to Mexico while I'm going into the hospital!" He'll still be on vacation when I make my weekly appearance on Friday, so I'll be seeing a colleague of his that I've never met before. I studied his picture on the lobby wall last week. He looks ok, I guess. But he's no Dr. R.

Five weeks from today, I have the cerclage stitches removed. The baby could come any time after that. I vacillate between excitement, and thinking "What have we done?"

I still can't quite get my head around it -- that soon our little family will be New! Improved! and 25% Larger.

It's Nothing Personal -- Or Is It?

I had a rather erotic dream about Dr. R. the other night. It wasn't sordid. He was very sweet and gentle. (I was pregnant in the dream, and he caressed my belly.) I don't feel an erotic attraction at all for Dr. R. in waking life, although I do love him -- in the same way I'd love the pilot who rescued me from my desert island (were I shipwrecked, with only my favorite book [War and Peace] and piece of music [hard to choose one, but at this moment I'd say John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things"] for company).

In other words, he's my savior, or at least my baby's savior.

Still, when I entered the clinic this morning and he called out "Good morning!" to me as he walked down the hall, I stammered out "Hello!", blushed, and looked down at the floor. Still later he inserted his fingers into my person to examine my cervix. It's just too weird, the intimate-yet-not relationship I have with him. How could anything be more personal than the kind of medical care I require? Unless it's the fact that he'll probably be delivering our baby girl when the time comes.

Although, if it's anything like the Henry delivery, I will be so exhausted by the end that the entire U of MN football team (Go, Gophers!) could be between my legs, cheering me on, and I wouldn't feel the smallest slice of embarrassment.

It did feel like that, during the last hour of the delivery nearly five years ago. There was a team of nurses and a perinatologist helping to get Henry -- stubborn thing! -- birthed. They piled on top of me, so it seemed, one nurse shouting, "C'mon! Get angry! GET ANGRY!!" to encourage better pushing.

Surreal, to say the least.

To C (-section) or Not to C (-Section)?

I saw my OB/Gyn today, Dr. R. I felt some pressure in my abdomen this weekend, so I was feeling a bit nervous about what we'd find -- as pressure can be a sign of cervical shortening. Also, I'm at about week 21, which is right about when we lost our first son and when the stitch failed during the Henry pregnancy. I feel like I'm in dark waters, and will feel that way for the next several weeks.

But everything looked fine.

It's too bad that alcohol is verboten during pregnancy, because really -- now's the time when a girl could use a good, stiff drink. Ideally there'd be a martini bar in the OB waiting room, a handsome, swarthy fellow mixing up cocktails, admonishing us to put our feet up on the cushy footstools, read our People magazines and our Real Simples, and forgot the fact that we're constipated, tired, bloated, have to pee every 1.28 milliseconds, and are forced to wear those God-awful maternity pants that slide down your behind when you bend over.

So one of the big unanswered questions of this pregnancy is the method of delivery. A previous doctor said a C-section would be a must (this was before I got pregnant -- based on data from the Henry delivery). Of the two docs I see now, neither of them says that a C-section is a given, but one doc wants to induce two weeks before the due date because of my advanced age and increased risk of problems. The other, Dr. R., takes more of a wait-and-see approach and would rather not induce unless there's some immediate medical necessity. Both would like to see the delivery notes from the hospital where Henry was born, but after three attempts to retrieve such records, none have appeared. Grr.

Of course there's a few months before this has to be decided. In the meantime I am to "take it easy" (i.e. lie around a lot, at which I'm particularly adept), eat low-carb (dang!), and allow Juan to serve me only virgin cocktails.

A Goil

On Wednesday we went to my perinatologist's office for a Level II ultrasound. The sonographer did a thorough check of all of baby's major organs, the arteries, the chambers of the heart, head measurements, etc. Most of it looked like grey, grainy blobs or squiggly lines to me. Thank God for experts! And thank God for the miracle that is my human body, building another little human body with all its amazing intricasies. As I joked the other day, I'm glad that all happens naturally because I'd never remember to complete all those details on my own -- even if I had a nice to-do list with my beloved check boxes next to each item, e.g. "form superior and inferior vena cava" -- the phone would ring halfway through, and I'd get distracted, and I'd forget where I left off, and soon it would be another project gathering dust in the closet.

But it's all taken care of -- my body is building away, forming and creating and cell-by-cell making a beautiful baby girl.

Yup! It is definitely a girl. So my arbitrary choosing of the pronoun "she" can be done without said arbitrariness. I was "fired" by my perinatologist the other day. (That's exactly what she said -- "You're fired!") Things are going well enough that I only have to go back if something goes wrong. From here on in, I will be seeing my regular OB -- one more appointment in mid-January, and weekly visits starting in February until the baby is born in May.

But we're still in the woods. There are a couple things to keep tabs on (gestational diabetes, which will be checked on in a couple weeks, and a couple other age-related [sigh] issues). But so far things on the baby front are going swell. Henry will have, as he says, a "sistah" -- a "goil baby" -- if everything continues to go well.

And I have the lovely prospect of perusing all those aisles of baby girl clothes at the thrift stores. Not being much of a girly-girl myself, I fear that I may overcompensate with the pouffy skirts and the pink spangles and the shiny little beribboned shoes -- and before long I'll have a 3-year old that looks like a drag queen.

Hurrah!