Thirteen hours since her water

Thirteen hours since her water broke and she's still slowly progressing through labor. 5 cm now. Looks like a 7 / 4 baby for us.

Epidural! Sandy's happy about that.

Epidural! Sandy's happy about that.

Sandy has begun to have

Sandy has begun to have some good contractions, but now they are starting her on Pitocin to speed up her labor.

Sandy's water broke at 6:21

Sandy's water broke at 6:21 this morning. We won't go home without a baby again.

Second Try

In a couple of hours we'll take Sandy back to the hospital. It's called "Mountain View," but from the L & D rooms we mainly get a nice view of the air-conditioning equipment, and an occasional nurse taking a smoke break on the roof. Induction procedures will start again tonight. We've been monitoring her blood pressue very closely at home, and it's definitely trending upward, so my uneducated guess is that once we start trying to have this baby, the doctors won't want to stop until she's delivered, even if that means a C-section. That worked out okay for Julius, though, so I guess it wouldn't be a bad way for Aletheia to enter the world.

There's a fair chance that she'll be born on the 4th of July, which we would rather avoid, just because we are already tired of the comments about having a patriotic baby, but ending her party with a huge fireworks celebration every year could be incredibly cost effective for us, although it might make her future siblings jealous.

Hurry Up and Wait

Sandy has been experiencing some gestational hypertension (pregnancy-related high blood-pressure)--high enough that after her Monday check-in the doctor told her to go straight to the hospital, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. But, on your way out, take a sec to drop $200 off. After a day of observation, they decided she didn't quite have pre-eclampsia, but was heading down that path--something like pre-pre-eclampsia. She talked them into letting her go home provided she continued to monitor her blood pressure. We were home for about 2 1/2 hours before we had two readings in the danger zone, and had to go right back to the hospital. Best cure for gestational problems is to give birth, so they started the induction process Wednesday.

Short version: Sandy's body wasn't interested in having this baby yet. She experienced some very delightful contractions, but other than that, zero. We didn't want push on toward an almost certain C-section, and her BP readings were generally okay, so they sent her home Thursday with orders to do nothing but rest, and to check her blood pressue at least three times a day. We are scheduled to go back in Sunday night to try induction again.

So...woo hoo! Three hospital trips in a week! Not exactly what we had pictured. But we're grateful that her problems are minor enough to allow us more time to wait for labor to progress on its own. If we could avoid a C-section, that would be swell. That's how things stand now. More updates as the situation develops.

Ladybugs on Parade

This is one thing that a lot of soon-to-be dads are blissfully unaware of, but apparently one of the early decisions all new parents must make for their baby is what the "theme" of the baby's room will be. I didn't have any strong opinions about it, except for insisting that we avoid the popular Noah's Ark decor, since I'm fairly certain--and I say this as a trained theologian--that an ancient story about the time God drowned virtually all the world's mommies and daddies and little babies, not to mention the puppies and the kittens, wasn't originally intended to calm infants. Maybe parents tell that story hoping that Junior will be so distracted by all the cute animals lining up two by two (or seven by seven--go back and read Genesis 6 carefully) that they won't think to ask about the bigger picture. It's not a chance I'm willing to take, though.

So, having ruled that one out, Aletheia's mommy decided to go with ladybugs and primary colors. We had been given a nice chest of drawers by a couple at our church whose son had outgrown it, and it fell to me to properly redecorate it. $13 worth of paint later, I was pretty pleased with the results, considering I made consistent B's in my elementary art classes. This is only the beginning, I'm told, of all manner of girlishness I will be participating in over the next 18+ years.

Before:After:


Thanks to Alan and Stanna for donating the dresser!