38 wks 2 days: Fiona's Arrival!

Fiona arrived the day before Thanksgiving!  She was transverse breech and B had to have a c-section (unfortunately), but otherwise it was great.  B did great and we got to be in the operating room with her.  I held her hand almost the whole time and cried.  It was very emotional.  And then little Fiona came out weighing 8 lbs and 12 oz!   We've had 48 glorious hours with her so far....and we're totally in love! 

 

Promise to give more details on her birth story and more pics to come.  We're operating out of a hotel room currently and still adjusting to life as new parents!!

38 week update

Fiona is in a transverse position, and the doctor wants us to wait to see if she turns before doing a c-section.  All of B's four previous pregnancies have been natural, so obviously none of us are wanting her to have to have a c-section if we don't have to.  And the baby was head down on Friday.  Please pray that she turns back down tonight!!!

37 weeks 4 days update: Freakout

Big changes and No changes.  Here's the quick and dirty, starting with the least interesting.

1.  I still haven't heard a peep from my HR dept about whether or not I'm getting any pay during my leave.  I've left messages, sent emails, had multiple conversations.  I'm trying not to freak out.  

2.  B went to her 37 week 3 day appt with the delivering OB yesterday.  He's a different OB than her local one in MS.  (B/c of legalities, we are trying to deliver in AR.)  He's 2 hours from her house.  This craptastic doctor didn't check her to see how much she was dilated or give her an ultrasound.  (Note, I wish she'd simply ASKED him to check her since she felt like she should be checked.  But I'm trying not to focus any frustration onto her at this moment.)  I'm trying not to freak out.

3.  She went into her local MS doctor today for him to check her and give her an ultrasound.  On the bright side, we got 100% proof today that the Fiona is a girl.  I'll spare my child the mortification of showing photos her underside splashed onto the internet.  It was very exciting though b/c all our other ultrasound techs told us, "I'm 99% sure it's a girl."  But this was the extra 100%.  I'm trying not to freak out (in a good way).  

4.  At the local MS doctor today, he checked B to see how far dilated she is....and she's 3 cm dilated and 80% "thinned out."  (I have no idea what that means other than that we now need to change our flights and get down there much sooner than anticipated.)  Note, she's not having contractions yet.  I'm trying not to freak out.

5.  She's going back to the AR doctor on Monday so he can "check her out to see if she's 3cm dilated according to what he's seeing."  If so, then he's going to induce on Tuesday....assuming she hasn't gone into labor beforehand.  Are you still following all this mess?!  I'm trying not to freak out.  

6.  We changed our flights and are flying down Sunday.  Trying not to freak out.  Holding it together. 

7.  I'm about to be a Mom!!!!  Still trying not to freak out!!!!!!!!  :-)  

What I learned today is that things never go according to plan when you're dealing with a baby...especially when it's in someone else's belly.  More to come soon!

Update: Paid Maternity Leave Drama

So it's day #2 trying to deal with the bombshell that my company won't pay for my maternity leave because I'm not the one who's technically giving birth.  This infuriates me because the company pays for other women's maternity leave.  Am I not equal to them?  Is my child somehow lesser than because I was not able to carry it?

Human Resources is currently "discussing the matter" with the VP of Benefits in my company, and I hope they can come up with a solution that allows me my pay.   But I'm livid about getting this sprung on me so late in the game when they knew my situation.  This makes me so angry.

If it doesn't get resolved by the end of the week, then I'm taking it directly to the President of the company.  This is outrageous!

36 weeks: Long overdue update

So today is 36 weeks, and I'm long overdue for an update.  A lot has happened since my last one... We set up the baby's nursery.  We decided on a name.  Hurricane Sandy hit Brooklyn.  My friend and mother-in-law threw me a baby shower.   Human resources at my job dropped a major bomb on me.

But first, let's start at the beginning...

Two weekends ago, N and I finally had a free moment to buckle down and put the baby's room together.   What started out as a simple rearranging of furniture, turned into larger painting project too.  The baby's room had already been painted and so we felt like we were in good shape, but when we started moving stuff around in our dining room (now our catch-all family room) we realized the walls needed some major help.  Anyways, the end result is great and the baby's room is really cute.  Here's a peak.

Our baby room theme is loosely based on a children's book called "Maude & Claude Go Abroad."  It's about two little fox siblings that want to travel the world and end up meeting a whale who becomes their friend.  (The book was merely a way for me to decorate around foxes, whales and travel.  Oh, and with a little vintage mixed in of course.) 

N is making the baby (who's name is 99.9% likely going to be Fiona) a mobile with characters from the story.  And I'm making her a patchwork baby blanket that consists of napkins from our wedding.  I'm getting much further along and hope to finish it this weekend.

Then Hurricane Sandy hit, and we were cooped up in the apartment for days.  Fortunately we had power so we were able to continue working on our baby craft projects, but sadly many of our friends and co-workers were not so lucky.  We feel very blessed to have come out of everything alive and well.

After spending the entire week on our sofa (attempting to work from home), we escaped to Philly for the baby shower.  It was great seeing friends and family come together to celebrate Fiona's arrival. My friend said it was the first time she'd ever been to a baby shower where the mom was double fisting champagne.  (Oh well, there's a first time for everything!!)

This cashmere blend baby blanket with a fox on it is probably my favorite gift that we received.  It's sooooo soft and it's not PINK!!  :-)  Plus I love foxes!

Unfortunately today, Human Resources at my job decided to ruin my day when they came down to inform me that it doesn't look like I'll be able to take a paid maternity leave.  What?!?  WHAT?!?!  This is news to me and coming at a very late stage in this process.   Tomorrow I have another meeting with them to further discuss the matter.  As it turns out, if you're not pushing the baby out of your vajayjay, then the world seems to want to rain on your parade.  Oh well....hopefully I'll have better news on that.

33 wks 6 days Update

Things are humming along here.  Work has been so crazy that I've hardly had time to focus on the fact that we're about to have a B.A.B.Y.!!!  Every weekend we've had something to do as well (with this weekend being a wedding in Philly that N was shooting), so we've not finished setting up the nursery either.  Talk about feeling behind!  Ay yi yi!

Anyways, I'm TRYING to not stress about it all, but this week has been extra tough with deadlines and other stuff happening at work.  And in spite of my best intentions, I have to admit that I let the stress get to me on Friday night when N and I were walking to our car and realized that it had been towed.  We had just walked three blocks with the dogs, our clothes for the wedding, a box of stuff for storage and other misc when we realized the car was gone.  Needless to say, I had a complete meltdown.  It started off about the car, but ended with work, frustration with NYC, time for planning for the baby, upcoming parenting, etc.  All I can say is that now [two days later], I'm only now starting to feel recovered from last week.  Maybe it was all the dancing and drinking at the wedding last night that lifted my spirits and made me feel whole again.  

One little bit of solace last week though was that I was on a job with an acquaintance of mine who when someone asked him about the impending arrival of his twins said..."I'm freaking terrified!!  It's two of us, two dogs and now two babies in a NYC apartment!"  I chuckled to myself, and thought..."Me too!!  But at least we're not having TWINS!"  Hah!!    

Anyways, on a VERY positive side, my wonderful friends [with kids] have been giving us so much stuff lately that it's hard to believe we're even going to need a baby shower!  Before heading to the wedding yesterday, we stopped at a friend's house in Philly and she gave us a huge box of baby clothes and toys. Clothes that had never been used and receiving blankets that had never been un-packaged!  And our shower is in two weeks!  I don't know where we're going to put it all.  So tonight I came home and began sorting it into sizes and putting the bigger stuff into plastic bins for later.  I can't believe what awesome friends we have!  I can't wait for her to get here so we can dress her up and kiss her little tummy.  And to make us laugh we dressed our Boston Terrier in a few hilarious pieces of baby finery.  Here's a pic of him trying on his baby sister's little bonnet!  LOL!!  

(You can tell he loves wearing it, right?!)  

And last but certainly not least, I chatted with B today and she says that the baby seems to be doing good and is quite the active baby!  She says that she's more active than her previous four and is always moving and kicking.  She thinks we're going to have an active munchkin on our hands.  But I just think that the baby is a long, tall sally and looking for more wiggle room. We'll see once she gets here!   

Anyways, here's a pic of B at 33 weeks and 6 days!

I think she looks small, but then again...what do I know!? I can't believe tomorrow is 34 weeks!!  Talk to you all soon!

31 wks 3 days: Doctor Visit Update

Today was an awesome day!  Thanks to Tonya's suggestion, we were on speakerphone during B's first appointment with the new doctor!  This was our second doctor visit, and I was much better prepared than last time with lots of questions!  (Such as when is the induction date so we can plan?!)  But anyways, I loved feeing like a part of it all.  For any other intended moms out there, you should definitely do this if you can't make it to the appointments.  I don't know why it never occurred to me before!

At any rate, the first thing the doctor said when doing the ultrasound was, "This baby looks to be 33 weeks instead of 31."  I almost fell over in my chair.  Anyways, it turns out that our baby girl is measuring big!  She's already weighing in at 4lbs 11oz!  And I guess she's long too.  (Although I forgot to write down her measurements.)  So that was the good news.  The bad news is that she's currently breach.  Of course, we're hoping that she turns back down, and I won't worry about that one b/c we still have time.  (B's last doctor visit, the baby was head down...so I guess she likes to squirm around alot in there!  The doc said she was definitely active on-screen!)

Not much else to tell.  My mom and I were talking tonight (as I was telling her all about the appt) and it came out that she was planning on being in the delivery room with us and B (plus don't forget B's husband).  It had never occurred to me that she thought she was going to be in the delivery room...and I don't know how comfortable I am with the thought of it.  I certainly haven't talked about it with B.  Anyways, I need to percolate on that for a bit.  I'm not sure the protocol...

So that's it for the day!