Momma speaks

Finally have a few minutes today when I'm not either so exhausted I need to go right back to sleep, and also not feeding Alexander just at the moment, so I've had a chance to get on line! First, I just wanted to say thank you for all the e-mails, cards, and other well wishes - it will probably be a while before I'm able to get back to people in person. I'm doing well, just spending a lot of time feeding Alexander, and grabbing naps in between when I can.

And now, the stuff everyone really wants to see in the first place. Today Alexander is a week old!

And with his eyes actually open for a few minutes.

Making faces at the camera already. Just like Mom. :)


Alexander and Daddy.
A very welcome nap. And one of these things is not like the others.... here's one of the completed projects that the granddads helped build.

How are things?

Everything is good. I've attached some pictures from when the grandparents were here. We had a good visit with both sets of grandparents down. Got some projects done around the yard/house with the fathers' help. Today we had another doctor's appointment for Alexander. He's doing good, weight's stabilized(they all lose weight the first couple of days, but his has stabilized and risen a little since friday) and he's transitioned to 'velcro baby' stage. He's constantly attached to Julie's boobs. Mostly for the milk but probably at least as much to just have comfort. he's even gotten to the stage of eating while sleeping, handy habit but making it a little difficult for julie to get sleep, so she's trying right now resting while he's sleep-eating. Here's more photo's from this weekend for everybody though:

First Doctor's Appointment

Alexander had his first doctor's appointment and apparently likes movement. He was quiet in the car, and would quiet down almost immediately when I'm walking around with him. Was pretty good over all for the doctor and nurse. Christened his diaper with pee instead of the scale this time(christened the nurse, scale and area around him at the hospital when they went to weigh him during one of the checkups). Everything looks good, little jaundice but standard for babies. Slightly dry skin, again nothing surprising. We'll go back in monday so our family doctor can take a look at him again. It's kind of good in that all three of us have the same doctor.

Because people seem to want pictures

Alexander's in the Kitchen, learning to cook.


Mom and Baby, still doing good!



Oh but Grandma what big teeth you have!

Burrito Baby, mom's got the milk.

Innocence and quiet, love it while it lasts. Which these days seems to be about 30 minutes.

Update

So Julie and Alexander have checked out fine and been discharged. We're all home and the cats are very curious but were more interested in food than the baby. So on to getting the first few weeks down. Due to recovery Julie's banished to one floor and since the upstairs has more of pretty much everything except housework, including the setup of the crib as a cosleeper, Julie's banished to the the 2nd floor. Works out fine anyway since I do the cooking anyway, and she has no excuse for not eating breakfast, or whatever meals Alexander lets her get, in bed.

Alexander's First Day

Julie this morning
Please welcome Alexander Stephen Kilbride to world. In a speedy process of approximately 5 hours, Alexander was born at 3:01 pm(EST) to two very happy parents. Julie came in this morning and they broke her water to try and get things moving, and they certainly moved. The only real 'slowdown' in the process was near the end as Alexander had decided his toys needed to come with him and he had wrapped his arm, and his neck, up in the cord. He was delivered fine, just took a little longer than it might have otherwise. He is a hefty 8lbs, 11 ounces and 22 inches and has all of the expected parts. He and his mother are doing quite fine(outside of some soreness, as would be expected). So here's some pictures for all of you as well.

Round two

Heading in for round two shortly. Mild contractions last night and this morning, but I was able to get a good night's sleep, nothing too intense. Now to go in and find out what the midwives want to do for the next step, and hopefully have a baby soon!

Procrastination Starts Earlier

Apparently Julie and Alexander are starting procrastination early. We went in, she got an omellette and then kicked her back out again. They were going to start the first of the two drugs which is meant to soften her up. But Julie's as effaced and at 3 centimeters(out of the 'final' 10) already. So they sent her home with, "Come back no later than 8am tomorrow morning and we'll go from there for stage 2." So, as always, Julie is holding out till the last minute to do just enough to get by. I expect around 7:50am her water will break as we walk into the building.

Also, web nursery

Seaton has a web nursery - http://www.setonhealth.org/NewArrivals/index.cfm?InstanceID=450 They should be posting the wrinkly red newborn photo there at some point after he arrives - I don't know how long it usually takes to get updated though.

Countdown

A few hours left before I'm scheduled to head in to the hospital. Keep me in your thoughts this evening and tomorrow!

Irony

So, I just noticed that the little baby countdown thingy now has a picture of the baby being held in someone's arms. *snort*

Lots of really weird dreams last night. I think I may have been playing to much Neverwinter Nights lately - in one dream I was in labor, and every time I had a contraction the little status box would appear over my head. Then I woke up and told James about the dream, and he told me I'd offered him a sandwich in my sleep. That turned out to be a dream too. There were several other points during the night at which I dreamed I woke up and told someone about my dream.

I also had other strange dreams such as one that involved random people climbing into the back of our car when we were in a downtown city someplace and asking to be dropped off at any bowling alley, and one in which mom was trying to take me on a cruise ship and I was worried about whether that was a good idea because what happened if I went into labor, and she said they had a helicoptor that could fly me back. And in one I walked into Target to have lunch and ran into Mom and Melissa there and had lunch with them. (Yes, in Target. While our local target does have a little cafe area, in my dream it was a full food court/restraunt. And for those who aren't aware, Mom and Melissa both live several states away from me, in opposite directions.) And those are just the ones I remember vivdly. Pretty much every dream either had an element of me being in labor, or me being worried about getting to the hospital in time for labor, etc. I wonder what's on my subconcious mind these days.

Unfortunately none of the dreams turned out to be prophetic, and I woke up still pregnant, so here I am. *sigh* Went for a mile walk this morning, may head out for another one later.

Still here!

Planning to go out for a nice long walk today. Positive thoughts are as always appreciated. If the baby decides to show up today, his birthday will be pi day! :)

I forgot to post earlier in the week that I finally was able to get in touch with someplace to inspect the installations of the child safety seat, and I got it in right! :) He was able to get it a tiny bit tighter than I was, but said I did a good job with it. Which is a nice feeling for when I eventually have to take it out and reinstall it because the kid made a big enough mess that I can't just clean up around the carseat.

Not a Baby

Still no baby. She can tell you all about it I'm sure but basically.. He's taking his own sweet time. Little things suggest it's moving along and getting a little closer, but kind of in the way that somebody setting out plates suggests dinner might be ready in another 3-4 hours(or days in the case of labor)..

Deadline....

This morning's checkup looked good - the baby is still nice and active and doing well, and I am still feeling fine. I have until Monday afternoon to get this kid to start labor on his own before the midwives will feel a need to give him a helping hand though.

Still Ticking

Julie is still pregnant. Internet is just defeating her today but she is still very round and pregnant. Alexander seems to be quite content where he is. Figures with the job market the way it is he should put it off as long as possible.

Nice rainy, windy day today. No going outside to enjoy the weather today for me I guess! I'll just have to shake my booty around the house to get exercise today.

All is well

The non stress test, where basically they hook me up to the baby heart beat monitor and watch the heartbeat to make sure there's variation over time, indicating that the baby is moving around and stuff, came out just fine. So if I'm still pregnant Friday I go back in for another non stress test and appointment. Otherwise, it's just continuing to wait till the baby decides he's ready to show up.

Dr's appointment in a little while for my weekly check in, and a non-stress test just to make sure the baby is doing well. I'll post an update on the results this afternoon.

I "slept in" today, by which I mean my body still thinks it's standard time. (Can it be called sleeping in if you don't have anything specific to actually get up for?) Given that I don't have anything I have to get up for most days, and given that I need as much sleep as I can get before the baby comes, I've just been sleeping until I wake up, which is usually between 8 and 9 in the morning. Not having anything to get up for may make it a bit harder to get my body reset to daylight savings time schedule. I may set my alarm tomorrow just to reset my sleep schedule.

I'm glad I got out to enjoy the nice weather a bit this weekend. Today started as rainy, then went to sleet, and between the time I opened this post and when I just glanced out the window has shifted to snow. With the weather this weekend I was beginning to wonder if spring had decided to come early, then remembered that a major snowstorm between mid March and mid April is par for the course around here. It will be interesting to see if I actually end up needing the little snowsuit I bought for the baby. I wanted to make sure I had at least one really warm thing in case we were bringing him home from the hospital on a bitterly cold day, but at the rate the weather has been going it might not be necessary!

Looks like we finally got almost all of the ice melted off of the driveway, which will make getting out to the mailbox in my current condition much, much easier. Beautiful, sunny day today - I think I'll be heading out for a walk a bit later.

Don't forget daylight savings time starts today! It randomly occured to me last night that I thought it was this weekend, so I went to look it up. I haven't heard as many reminders about it as usual this year. Of course, that probably has more to do with me not hearing as much news lately - I tend to get most of my news coverage from listening NPR when driving around, and since I've been home much more often, I haven't been hearing it as much.

Taken last night...

Just in case anyone is wondering if I'm still pregnant...


Random fact of the day - average delivery date for first time caucasian mothers is actually 41 weeks, 1 day, not the 40 weeks that the doctors office sets the due date at.

Quiet Friday

Enjoying a nice quiet Friday at home with my husband, since this is one of his Friday's off. Thinking of going to see Coraline in 3D this afternoon!

Still here. :) Nothing of real interest to share today, so I'll just say hi. HI!

Still growing

Every time I think it's impossible for me to get any bigger, I run into another sign that I'm still growing. It was only a few weeks ago that my winter coat went from being able to zip up but being snug to basically not being able to zip it up. Today one of the pre-pregnancy shirts that I'd still been able to wear has gotten snug across the belly. I've put on a bit more weight. And amusingly enough, I seem to have gone basically overnight from having no stretch marks to having the southern hemisphere of the belly look kind of like I'm wearing a spiderman suit or something! Granted, it's the southern hemisphere, which means I can't actually see it without the aid of a mirror, so it might not have happened overnight. (Even seeing my belly button requires me to kind of slouch over these days - if I just look down, it's below the curve of the horizon of the tummy. ;)) But given how pronounced they were when I got out of the shower and glanced in the mirror this morning I'm pretty sure I would have noticed them before now if they were that bad earlier this week. And I'm sure they weren't there this weekend since my husband had commented on the fact that I only had one in a kind of odd location. So apparently my belly has finally reached the limits of its elasticity, but the little one is still growing. :)

I'm relieved that I made it through the one day this week when going into labor would have been a logistic difficulty. This is a busy week for James - test Monday, test Thurdsay, and lots of meetings this week. (Personally I'm rooting for labor starting Friday - it's a Friday off for him, so I wouldn't have to worry about being able to reach him at work, and we'd have the weekend before he'd have to start using vacation time.) But yesterday was the day when he had a bunch of meetings with people from out of town. People who had gotten together at his location instead of one of the others since he couldn't travel, so that was the only way to include him face to face. So I was really hoping that the little one would arrive either before or after that meeting day, not during. :)

Another appointment

Just got back from me weekly doctors check in. All looks well. I have my appointment set up for a week from today if the baby doesn't come between now and then - at that point they'd do a non stress test just to make sure everything is still looking good.

Planning to take it easy today and enjoy watching the sun through the windows. Too cold to actually want to go outside, but it *looks* nice and warm.

Nifty

Cool, my pregnancy counter does do negative numbers! I was wondering what would happen when I went past the due date. :)

Getting a little bit of snow here today, but it's not supposed to be much. A whole lot more along the coast I believe though.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today is the official due date, but I believe the bun needs a little while longer in the oven before it's done. :)

It's kind of amusing - pretty much everyone I talk to when I mention the due date in the past few days has made a comment along the lines of "you must be so anxious for him to come" or something of the sort. My answer - "Not really". I mean, I'm curious to meet the little person who has been inside of me for the past 9 months, but I'm also enjoying being pregnant. I feel fine. I've talked to many pregnant women who are not even this far along and can't wait for the baby to be born just because of the physical strain of being pregnant, but the third trimester has agreed with me fairly well. So I'm fine with the little one taking his time if he wants to.