Category: expecting

Who knew life could be this wonderful? It probably goes without saying that we are enjoying the heck out of our little one. Every day is a new and amazing adventure and they all seem to go by in a blink of an eye.

We left the hospital on Wednesday and have been parenting without experts for over 24 hours now. It's as much of a challenge as I thought it might be, but oh so rewarding. More photos here for you friends and family types.

We love all of the sweet comments from all of you. Thanks for them and the emails. We'll get back to you soon(ish).

What you've been waiting for, right? The details. Well here you go. For those amongst you who are squeamish or whatever, skip this one.

Friday Morning dawned with a phone call from the hospital saying that they were all full and we'd need to call back at 8 to see if we could come in. The rest of the day pretty much followed this pattern. Finally, after a day of wating, we went out to dinner with Mom and Kelly. And then they called us in. We finshed dinner and got to the hospital around 10 PM.

They evaluated me and decided some cervix ripening was in order. So they gave me some meds and we settled in for the night. “Get some sleep,” they told me. This was a bit hard to do with the blood pressure cuff that automatically did a boa-constrictor on my arm every 15 minutes. They did another dose of the meds around 3 AM as well.

They must've worked because at 7 AM I had my first real labor contraction … with a “pop” – broken water. Kelly arrived on the scene shortly after this to witness the birth of her niece and spell my primary labor coach and add some sisterly love to the process.

For the next 5 hours, I labored on without meds, having fairly irregular contractions that were increasing in intensity somewhat. By noon, based on the availability of the anesthesiologist and the intensity of my pain, I opted for an epidural. Excellent choice, I must say. Continue reading “Birthin Baby”

As some of you might've heard by now, we welcomed Ms. Tabitha Faye Nichols to the world this morning at 4:20 AM. As you might guess, it was something of a long journey, but needless to say, worth every moment of it. We are absolutely elated to have the newest member of our family here and so proud to call her our daughter. We have spent most of the day dozing off and on in our hospital room and learning how to be a family of three. We're so in love with her it's incredible. We'll share more later. Thanks for all of your emails and comments.

After being poked and prodded by the lovely nurses at my doc's office yesterday, Matt and I were sitting there chewing the fat and such when the doctor knocked and entered the room. After sundry pleasantries, she casually says, “I've scheduled you for induction on Friday morning.” My BP was good yesterday, but thanks to all of the ups and downs and proteins and swellings and whatnot, she wants to go ahead and get this thing moving along. So 8 AM on Friday we get the ball rolling.

After having time to let all of this sink in, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I like the “end in sight” aspect a lot, I must admit. So that's the deal. Think happy healthy delivery thoughts for us!! Continue reading “Planned Induction”

I had a very nice weekend. Friday we got together with my mom, sister and grandma and went to our neighborhood Italian restaurant. It was the first time we'd been there since it went under new management. Parts of it (the service, paticularly) were better than the original. Most of it was very similar. And parts of it (no pine-nut cookies) were not as good. They did give us samples of their bellinis. I had a sip or two … YUM. As soon as it gets warm, I want to go sit outside and enjoy a bellini.

Saturday we went to breakfast with my parents and Kelly and then mom and I spent the rest of the day hanging out, shopping and getting a mani (her)/pedi (me). My mom's sweet friend and nail tech, Judy, gave me a pedicure as a baby gift. I picked “Diggeriedo Your Nails” for the color and Judy put some orchid decals and rhinestones on my big toes. They look awesome (as you might be able to tell from the photo). Matt and Kelly took Loki to the dog park and then Matt went to the woodworking store. Saturday evening we got together with our friends and had meatballs and tortellini for dinner and hung around chatting. Continue reading “Happy Feet”

Morning kids. I guess you all get some baby talk today. For those of you who don't like to hear about the more … medical … parts of pregnancy, you might wanna skip this. I will likely mention my cervix at least once more. I had an appointment with the docs on Friday. I am apparently dilated a bit, “a centimeter or so” and “a bit” thinned. Possibly of more interest is that I had highish blood pressure. Don't quote me on these numbers, cuz I am not positive, but I think it was something like 148/88 and I really don't know what that means. There was also some swelling, particularly in my ankles and something was amiss with the pee. I think they said protein. So I won the jackpot as far as OB visits go and got another stress test, ultrasound *and* blood work-up. I got my favorite phlebotomist though and she got me in one stick. Yay. I also got to do the “pee jug” or 24-hour urinalysis. All kinds of fun for the weekend. But it's done with now.

What all this means? Possibly preeclampsia. I'm sure most of you know generally what that's all about, but for those of you who don't, here's a link. It explains it better than I could. So I should hear back today whether they want me to come in for more tests or if they just want to take a “wait and see” attitude or if they want to induce me sometime soon or what. For the record, I do not know how I feel about induction at least emotionally. I don't think I'll really know until they tell me what their decision on all of this is and then my gut will tell me. Academically, I am not thrilled with the idea of induction since it's supposed to be a harder, much more painful labor, but if that's what baby and I need, so be it. God invented epidurals for a reason. Continue reading “Oh Baby!”

Alright kids, here it is in all its glory, the belly. Contained inside is one wiggly little girl. We hit 36 weeks last Friday and celebrated with a trip to the doctor's office. She's head down and there is no progress on the cervix front (which I'm sure you were *dying* to know). Her movements had changed somewhat (which they DRILL into your head to tell them about) so I mentioned this and we got to extend the visit by an hour plus while they did a non-stress test. They said everything looks great.

Anyhoooo … we had our last childbirth class last night. Afterwards, I chatted with little one and let her know that she was cleared for landing. She's full-term on Friday. I feel fairly certain, however, that she won't be showing up until closer to her due date. Luckily, I'm still not feeling tooooo uncomfy most of the time. I've had a couple hour-long bouts of irregular don't bother calling the doctor contractions and the heart burn has been a bit err.. well firey … but most of my nights are still pretty sleep filled and as long as I don't have to stand up for too long, I feel pretty good.

As for the rest of it, I guess we're prepared. We've got a carseat and Matt has been tasked with taking it to the firestation to get it installed properly. Our bags are not packed, but I've got a list. We've got pretty much all of the material goods she'll need, though I haven't washed anything yet. Shelves are the buzzword for this evening … Matt's building and hopefully installing one this evening (it's just a couple of boards jointed together laid on top of brackets, so theoretically easy) and I'm painting another set of shelves for the closet. Then we'll have some more places to put all her stuff which will be great cuz we're sorta out of room right now…

So I guess that's it for now.

Saturday was the second of two amazing showers thrown for our little one. This one was a mostly family affair hosted by my delightful aunties. It was wonderful to get a chance to see everyone and my aunties put together a really fun and yummy shower.

Little one was, once again, spoiled like crazy!! Continue reading “Showered in Love”