Phase 2: Adulthood has definitely begun

Well, she came. Early. After a few days last week of "decreased fetal movement" and "fetal d-cells" (which means her heartrate would drop) we found out that she would be joining us on Friday morning. I went to the doc's office to sit on a fetal heart rate monitor for an hour, at the end of the hour the doctor asked me "let's have a baby today, huh?" I immediately went into a dream state and for some reason obsessed about the fact that the baby would be born before I had a chance to clean the window sills in the house. I called Ryan and said "your baby's birthday is going to be April 25th." Needless to say, it took him a few minutes to grasp what was going on. We made all the necessary phone calls, Ryan went home and grabbed our hospital bags (which I literally packed the night before based on my intuition that the baby would be coming sooner than later), immediate family arrived, and by 1:10pm we had a healthy baby girl via c-section.

Maizey Louise (or Maizey Lou as we call her) came into the world weighing 5lbs 3oz and was 18.75in long. The cause of all the decreased movement and heartrate was the umbilical cord, which was wrapped tightly around her neck 3 times!!! Ryan and I fell in love with her immediately and now understand what it means to have your heart live outside your body in the form of a teeny tiny little girl.

We got home from the hospital on Monday afternoon and are adjusting to life with a baby with ease. She is nursing really well and slowly putting on the weight she lost in the first few days of life. Last night she only woke up once, and that is because I woke her up to nurse--so we feel really lucky to be sleeping so well. We pretty much feel like we won the baby lottery.

Life has definitely changed. I log poops and pees--I mean I log them on a chart and everything. I say things to Ryan like "can you rinse my nipple shield" and get excited about any amount of breast milk over 4oz, and we were ecstatic to hear that Janie and Jack sell preemie clothes. We went for our first walk as a family today and are enjoying all of these firsts. We're having so much fun that we already can't wait to do it again. I miss being pregnant already, and I never really loved it to begin with.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll post a bunch here. Because Maizey Lou is so cute I can't choose just a few, so here are a lot.

Maizey's life in pictures...

Waiting for her to arrive via c-section--excited and scared

5lbs and 3oz

Napping together, maybe the most amazing feelings in the world...

Maizey showing that you can be funny at 2 days old, this is her practicing karate

First family photo

Maizey's favorite toy--the mirrorMy familyShe loves to stretchMaizey in her bed. I get to wake up to this.My favorite picture of Maizey. She's wearing her first preemie outfit from auntie Georgia.Getting ready for her first walk.With Grandpa and Uncle Brion.She loves nothing more than being nude. It's playtime.Here we are doing kangaroo care and blogging. We're so hip.

You've gotta be kidding...

So I went out for pedicures and dinner with my girlfriends tonight. This is what I saw when I came home. We went from "snowy-for-april" to snowy-for-anytime. Snow Snow go away come again another day--like next December.

3 weeks to go!

After a fair amount of back and forth with the surgery scheduler, we finally got our c-section date this morning. Maizey's birth date will be Friday May 9th, exactly 3 weeks from today--which feels very soon. There is still a chance that she could choose to come on her own anytime between now and then, but I think that the odds are in our favor that that won't happen. May 9th will be 39 weeks and 1 day gestation, that is considered full term and so the fact that she will be 6 days early isn't really a concern. We're really excited and feel thankful that, if nothing else, we get to be prepared--planned cesareans really are quite convenient in that way. We check in at 6am, surgery is set to be at 7:30am and Maizey should be here within about 20 minutes. It's likely that I'll be in the hospital until the following Monday, but I am hoping that I'll be feeling well enough to check out on Sunday (which is the earliest they'd let me leave). I think I'll be pretty anxious to get home. I know Ryan will be looking forward to sleeping in his own bed, the hospital's options for partner sleeping are ridiculous and certainly not meant to accommodate a 6'3" man. In any case, we definitely want visitors. So feel free to come by anytime--we may just con you into picking Starbucks up for us on your way over!

In other news, it snowed today. And accumulated! Can you believe it? I can't, and I don't want to. I'm so over winter. I think everyone is. Last week at this time it was 80 out. Is this what global warming is going to be like? I knew I didn't like global warming, but now I know I hate it. Also, last night Ryan and I did our belly cast. It turned out really great, it's already so cool to see. You never get a chance to see your own body in that way. I'm a lot bigger than I thought I was. But, I'm sure that once this baby gets here it will be really fun to see it and remember what it was like to be pregnant. It's going to take a while to finish, we still have to sand and paint it, but hopefully we'll get it done and hung before she's born.


That's the news for now...

Our Snowy-for-April backyard

Belly Cast

Belly cast side view

Allie in the baby bouncer--this cat finds the weirdest ways to sleep!

C-section it is...

So today was our appt with Dr. Banfield (the cutest OB ever). We found out that I am dilated to 1cm (which is pretty normal for this point in pregnancy). This fact gave validation to what I thought could be early labor last night, I was having uncomfortable contractions every 4-5min for about 4 hours. We also found out that our precious little diva baby is still up-side-up which is, of course, wrong-side-down. While we haven't exhausted all of our baby turning options, I've decided I'm too exhausted to try. The truth is we just want to do what is safest for the little peanut at this point and that is a planned cesarean section. I'm still majorly bumming over the loss of what was destined to be the most perfect labor anyone had ever seen, complete with candles and Thievery Corporation, massage oils and deep primitive breathing. I was so looking forward to joining the club of women who birthed their babies naturally and were so empowered by it. But, instead I'm joining the slightly more stellar club of women who have elective cesareans which includes: Britney Spears, Elizabeth Hurley, and Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham. I may not be among the earth mothers of the world, but I'll be among the fashion elite and one total idiot--err the fashion elite/3 total idiots. Anyway, I'll be getting a call from the schedulers in the nest couple of days and I'll let everyone know then what our revised due date will be. I'm hoping for the morning May 8th or 9th. Just over 3 short weeks away.
On a brighter note, I had a glorious time in Tahuya this weekend. Saturday sky-rocketed (for Seattle) to 80 degrees on the peninsula. I enjoyed it by reading in the sun, getting a slight sunburn that lasted for about 12 hours and then was nowhere to be found, and walking on the storm-changed tide flats that more resembled the moon than the old tide flats of Tahuya. It was a really beautiful day and I loved every minute of it. It was promptly replaced by a rainy, coldish Seattle spring day, which also holds value as pregnant women don't look that hot in shorts--at least I don't.
So our journey is winding down/just about to begin. I'll keep blogging and update everyone with dates and new info as I get it. In the meantime enjoy a really beautiful picture of a really beautiful place by a really great photographer (sissy). I feel so lucky to have this place in my life. I know Maizey will dig going out and searching for crabs on these tide flats just like I did/still secretly do.

Tahuya, Washington 4/12/08

Spring Day in Tahuya

It's 60 degrees and beautiful and warm in Tahuya. Honest to blog. We could still be experiencing what Aliya and Travis call the February fakeout, but I don't think so. This feels like a real spring day to me. The air even smells different. A warning: I'm writing on my sister's laptop and it has a sticky H, so if you notice Hs missing from my post, that is why.
It's so quiet here and I'm eating HInt of Lime chips with guac and a diet root beer thinking tat this will be my last time here without a baby for probably a couple of years. I want to do all the reading that I can (even if I am reading a baby book--The Happiest Baby on the Block and it's so great). I want to lay on te chaise in the sun and nap all day. What I really want to do is sit in the hot tub, but that will have to wait until after baby.
So, I've officially ruined my chiropracter's perfect history of successful baby turning. Before me he had a 100% record of flipping breec babies. But, alas, my girl is stubborn and is happy being butt down. I've had five visits with te chiropracter so far, I will keep seeing him, but less often. I have my next doc appt on Tuesday. I will probably try external cephalic version (or just version for short) before conceeding to c-section. That is when the doc tries to rotate the baby to be head down by pushing on your belly to flip the baby manually. From what I've read it's reasonably safe and about 50% effective. It is kind of a big procedure, it takes place in the hospital, often with use of an epidural. It can send you into labor or cause the baby's HR to drop enough that they would preform an emergency c-sect. If we do this, it will be in the next week or so, while she is still small enough to turn. Otherwise we will be planning our c-sect. I will let everyone know the date if/when I get it. But, it looks like we'll be having our baby in 3 and a half weeks! How is that even possible?
I have to go, I'm having a baby in 3.5 weeks and I have a lot to do/figure out.

Crappy News

So, I had my 34 week checkup today. The doc told me that my stomach felt "lumpy" in the wrong spots. After a quick ultrasound, it turns out that "lump" was her head--which is up in my ribs and not down like it's supposed to be. In other words, she's breech. Butt down. This is not good news. It's hard to extricate the emotions, but I will say that you don't realize how much you want to have the natural child birth experience until the option is taken away from you. Sure it's the worst pain of your life, but it's so empowering (I imagine), it's part of the experience, one that I've been looking so forward to. Anyway, there is a chance she could turn on her own, but it's probably less than 10%. We are going to see a specialized chiropractor in the city tomorrow. They have a technique (called the Webster Method) of aligning your pelvis in a way that can get the baby to turn into normal presentation. It's between 85-100% effective according to some studies. We'll see, but my doc isn't all that optimistic.
It's likely that we'll be getting a c-section at the end of all of this. Aside from the fact that you are deprived a normal birth experience, it's less optimal in many ways--including a maternal death rate that is 4-5 times higher than a normal labor. Yay, the information you can get on the internet is soooooooo encouraging!
Anyway, we'll keep you up-to-date on any changes. At this point, we'll be scheduling a c-section at 39 weeks, which will mean somewhere around May 8th.