I swear I’m going to write out the whole birth story and all of the gruesome details and everything, but we just got home a few hours ago, and I slept maybe two hours total last night, so I’m exhausted.
I just wanted to let y’all know that I’ve added more pictures to the Flickr set. And now, I’m going to try to nurse her one more time, and then little Cate and I are heading off to bed.
You know, for the next two hours. Until she needs to eat again. Rock on, motherhood.
Catherine Renee Wilkinson arrived at 3:51 p.m. on January 27, 2007. She’s a teeny-tiny little thing, weighing in at only 5 pounds, 14 ounces; and she’s 19 inches long.
More photos to come soon, as I’m understandably a bit distracted. In the meantime, the set so far is here.
Around 3:30 this morning, I woke up to pee. As I was washing my hands, SPLOOSH! And thus, my water, it hath broken.
So we’re at the hospital now. Contractions are mild and about every seven minutes or so. I’d like to think that the pain is going to stay this low-key, but I don’t think I’m that stupid.
Oh, and does everyone remember how my mom said she had “a feeling” that I was going to go into labor at some point on Friday or Saturday? And then this happens at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning? Yeah. Will someone please get that woman her own damn psychic hotline already? Jeez.
So… um, hi. I’m still not in labor. Ho-hum.
In fact, there hasn’t been a whole heck of a lot going on at our house lately, other than my constant whining about feeling miserable (par for the course at this point). And Dave is frantically trying to finish up some last-minute work projects so he can take a few days off next week.
Actually, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but one of the perks of his new job is that he primarily works from home, so it doesn’t really matter if he takes an official paternity leave or not. He’ll still be around to help me out with the baby, and just knowing that he’ll be present is an enormous weight off my mind. He can re-adjust his daily work hours however he needs to, which is fantastic. I’m being very careful to ensure that he gets the amount of “quiet time” every day that he needs, because I think it’s a good habit to establish. We’re pretty good with our boundaries; if his office door is closed, I leave him alone. (Actually, I’m very housewife-y these days, so I do check in to see if he wants a snack or another cup of coffee, but that’s about it.) I know most of our routine will get thrown on its head after the baby arrives, and who knows, maybe Dave will want to go into the office more often, just to get a break. But it seems to be working pretty well so far.
Yesterday, Kris emailed me to remind me that this will be my last child-free weekend, and she wanted to know if I wanted to do something to mark this momentous occasion. Or at least have her come over with some take-out and a movie. Which was very sweet of her, even though I’m not up for it. My attention span can barely keep up with “Friends” reruns on late-night TV these days. A two-hour movie plot? Forget it. My brain is way too focused on its own little internal Baby Watch.
It’s weird, though, it hadn’t crossed my mind at all that this will be our last weekend before the baby arrives. I haven’t been thinking of it in terms of “my last moments of freedom.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite – I’m very much looking forward to being a single-resident human again, and I think that after she’s born is when I’ll feel “free” again. Most of it is just based on how miserable I’ve been feeling lately, but there’s all the other little things, like hey, I could eat sushi again if I wanted to! Or (gasp!) maybe have a cocktail! What a concept!
So! The waiting game is almost over. We only have three more days to go at the most. And three days is tolerable, right? Actually, it’s less than that – we’ll be all checked in to the hospital in a mere 65 hours. Even better.
Hope all of you have a good weekend. You can probably expect to see some sort of “exploiting the hospital’s free Wi-Fi for all it’s worth” post on Monday. Stay tuned.
Last night I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, totally drenched in sweat and having a contraction. It wasn’t too terribly painful – sort of like doing an involuntary sit-up, my stomach muscles were literally contracting without any participation on my part. It felt more strange and uncomfortable than anything. I noted the time and tried to go back to sleep.
I kept having contractions every six minutes for the next two hours. I started to get really excited, thinking ok, obviously this has to be it, right? All the books say that false labor has no pattern to it, and that’s one of the primary distinctions between the two. And this was precisely every six minutes, so I thought it had to be The Real Deal.
I didn’t wake Dave up, because I thought that if we were going to be heading to the hospital later in the morning, I might as well let him be as rested as possible. I remembered that our childbirth class instructor had told us that early labor can take a long time, so she suggested that we (meaning the mom-to-be and her coach) try to rest as much as possible. Take naps, shower, eat, whatever – since we’ll be needing our energy later on down the road. That sounded logical to me. And besides, the contractions weren’t too bad on the pain scale, so I figured we had lots of time.
Somewhere around 5-something in the morning, the contractions suddenly dropped from being every six minutes to being ten minutes apart. Then… nothing. I fell asleep, and that was it. I woke up a few hours later, no more contractions. And other than a few sporadic Braxton-Hicks type sensations, there’s been nothing else happening all day today. Zip, zilch, na-da.
So, um, what the heck was that??
I talked to my mom a couple of hours ago, she said she has “a feeling” that I’m going to go into labor on Friday or Saturday. She’s never claimed to have any psychic abilities in the past, so I’m not sure where this is coming from. But she guessed I was pregnant before I knew I was, so who knows? Maybe she’s right.
It would actually kind of suck if I go into labor over the weekend, since my obstetrician isn’t on call until next week, and I don’t know how that works with weekends. Like, would she be there on the Saturday or Sunday before or after her week on call? I only know for sure that she’d be there on Monday. I just really love her and feel comfortable with her, and I want her to be the one who handles the birth. Which is not to say that I have any problems with any of the other doctors in the group, I just don’t know them. So really, it’s no big tragedy either way. As long as we can hurry up and get this baby out of me, I’ll be fine either way.
The funny part of going into labor over the weekend is that it makes me think that maybe the baby overheard all this talk of inducing on Monday, so she’ll decide, “All right, all right, I’ll come out on my own!” at the very last minute. That would be very apropos for a child of Dave’s and mine – the stubbornness factor alone could make her decide to beat us to the punch. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Yesterday was my last obstetrician appointment before we get this baby out of me, through one means or another. It was kind of weird to leave without scheduling my next follow-up appointment, since I’ve been doing that for the better part of the last year. I mean, I know I’m going to be seeing my doctor within the next week, but I’ve gotten pretty familiar with the office staff there, and to walk out with just a “ok, see you later!” felt kind of odd.
The good news? I’m already dilated 2 1/2 centimeters. Boo-yah! So if we do have to induce next week, at least I’m not starting from zero, which apparently makes the whole process a bit easier. And faster. I like that.
Even better news? Ever since she examined me yesterday, I’ve been having lots of weird crampy, Braxton-Hicks type sensations, and I feel distinctly more bow-legged when I walk. So that’s making me wonder if I’ll go into labor on my own at some point this week and not even have to be induced. I told Dave last night that I had a strong feeling that it was going to happen this week. Of course, I also had a strong feeling that this baby was going to be a boy, so obviously my pregnancy instincts kind of suck and I probably shouldn’t put too much faith in them.
The best-best-best news ever? Even if I don’t go into labor on my own this week, I only have six days left until this baby is born. SIX DAYS. Hallelujah!
I’m at the point where I’m so completely desparate to get this baby out of me that I’m considering trying some of the old wives’ tales for naturally inducing labor. Well, at least one of them. You know the one. (Hint: it doesn’t involve spicy food or castor oil.) Yeah, that one. Pray for Dave.
Oh, and apparently the hospital just recently got free wireless Internet access, so whether it’s this week or next Monday, I think I’m going to be dragging my laptop along with me. I doubt that I’ll be live-blogging through the birth – I mean, I know I’m a nerd and all, but that’s pretty hardcore, even for me. (Although I hear that when they induce, they give you Demerol along with the pitocin to counter-act the pain of the contractions. And I’m sure that being high on narcotics would make for some interesting blog fodder. So, who knows.) But at least I should be able to let y’all know when she arrives, and maybe get a photo online or something.
Dave will almost definitely have his laptop too, because if we go with the induction route, I’m sure there’s going to be some downtime – especially at the beginning. And there’s no point in him just sitting around bored all day. However, I have already warned him that if he starts playing World of Warcraft while I’m in active labor, I may have no choice but to bludgeon him to death with my Boppy pillow.
(That’s a total joke, btw. I’m fully expecting him to be a nervous wreck the whole time.)
I really thought that since I’ve been feeling so horrible lately that I would be spared that whole last-minute “nesting frenzy” that you hear about pregnant women going through. HA! Apparently not.
Since I haven’t been up for shopping, I ordered one of those glider rocking chairs online(thank you, target.com! And thanks to my parents for the gift card that bought it!). It was delivered to the house in a big box, and Dave put it together for me, which was great and lovely and sweet of him. But then yesterday morning I started looking around our living room thinking about how that one chair made the whole room look off-balanced. So I was thinking, “well, if I move this bookcase over to that wall instead, and that big ol’ trunk really needs to go back in the bay window [we had moved it to make room for the Christmas tree], and then I can move this stuff over here, blah blah…”
You see where this is going, right?
Basically, an hour or so later, Dave wandered in the room and was totally shocked. He was like “what the hell have you been doing? You shouldn’t be moving heavy stuff!” I told him that I figured the worst-case scenario from me moving a bookcase would be that it might make me go into labor, and at this point? Bring. It. On. He just shook his head and left the room, and I finished tidying up.
A couple of hours later, I figured out that, actually, the worst-case scenario is not going into labor, it’s just being in horrible, excruciating pain. I don’t know what I did to my back, but it’s now been an entire day and I’m still waddling around the house like some sort of hugely pregnant invalid. (Sex-ay!)
And I’m having some weird pain on the left side of my stomach – I know it’s not a contraction because the pain is constant, and contractions are supposed to happen in waves. I think I just pulled an abdominal muscle. Which was really brilliant on my part. Since, you know, I’m not going to be needing my ab muscles for anything important in the next, oh, nine days or so.
I am so, so stupid. And I’m also incredibly grateful for that huge econo-size bottle of Tylenol in my medicine cabinet. Because, in case this wasn’t already crystal clear? OUCH.