Welcoming Ainsley

I want to introduce you to Ainsley Hope, born on Sunday December 27 at 2:21pm, weighing 7lb, 7oz.  She's here, she's healthy and we are all doing really well.  Her arrival didn't exactly go as planned, but that's okay now.  I went into the hospital the morning of Dec. 26 to get the induction started.  We expected to go home after getting the medication I needed to get my body ready for labour, and come back the next morning for the real induction.  Before leaving the hospital, though, I was told my fluid levels had dropped a bit, and the doctor wanted to keep me in hospital and on fairly continuous monitoring.  We settled in for what we expected to be a boring day & night of waiting around, strapped to a monitor.  Around 2pm I started to notice what I now realize were early contractions, and they kept coming stronger & stronger.  By evening they were coming every 2-3 minutes.  11pm is when they checked my progress, and we were surprised to hear that I wasn't even at 1cm yet, despite hours of regular & frequent contractions (it was the result of the medication, and it was indeed working to get me ready for labour).  I had planned to avoid morphine completely, but changed my mind at this point.  After hours of such contractions, I realized I needed to be able to get a bit of rest before doing labour for real the next morning.  While I was now able to have some rest in between contractions, the morphine didn't seem to ease the pain much at all.  This surprised the nurses, so I was checked again and had made it to 2cm in less than 2 hours.  Things were going to happen a little sooner than we thought!

Clem was by my side the whole time of course, and did a fantastic job helping me through it.  We stayed for a few more hours in the antepartum unit as labour progressed.  Being on monitors was certainly not what I wanted, but we made the best of it and tried to move around as much as possible.  Somewhere around 5am-ish (it's a little fuzzy at this point) we moved to labour & delivery, and things were certainly progressing well.  I decided to go for the epidural, particularly because I would be pretty much confined to bed from this point on due to the continuous monitoring.  By 7am Clem & I were both able to get a little rest thanks to the epidural, though neither of us were really able to get much sleep!  The epidural worked for a few hours, and then seemed to stop working for the last few hours.  Soon enough we were ready to push, and an hour & five minutes later Ainsley was here.  Here are couple of pictures from her first few minutes:

Ainsley & I had a good first night in hospital, and the next afternoon we were set to go home and all dressed up for the big event:

However, just as we were ready to leave, hospital discharge papers in hand, we found out that she had borderline jaundice and needed a blood test to see how bad it was.  So we waited for those results, and while she wasn't severe at all, we had to stay one more night while Ainsley goes under the lights for treatment.  This is her getting ready with her protective glasses, and then under the lights:

It was a LONG night.  Newborns want to be held, or at least wrapped up in blanket to feel secure.  When under the lights, Ainsley had to be in there, wearing nothing but a diaper, for the whole night (except for 30 minutes every 3 hours for feeding).  She doesn't cry that often, but in this situation with none of her usual comforts, she was pretty upset and I spent hours standing over her bed, reaching in and doing what little I could.  Thankfully, the light treatment worked and the next day we were able to bring her home for real.

 

We've had some good days at home now, and the three of us are all doing really well.  Lots of firsts, of course ... her first time meeting her Calgary grandparents and one of her uncles, first time with hiccups outside my belly (check out the video below) and her first poop outside a diaper (on her brand new hooded towel, exactly two seconds after her first bath at home).  We're really happy to sit & hold her and not do much else (including tonight, 2 hours before midnight on New Years Eve!), and just feel so thankful that she's here safely.

No News Is...

Unfortunately this time, no news isn't good news!  We would loved to have been able to show you some baby pictures by now, but this one has her own agenda.  I don't think she realizes how close she is to having a Dec. 25 birthday!

So far though, the baby is perfectly healthy as confirmed by doctor's appointments and an ultrasound this week (they always do extra monitoring once you're past your due date just to make sure).  The ultrasound showed the fluid levels were still good (this is a concern once you're overdue) and she's estimated to weigh 8 lb even right now.  She was even practising her breathing a bit, which is a good sign too.  Very happy with all of that!

Next step is a non-stress test sometime tomorrow, Dec. 24, at the hospital.  They'll hook up my belly to monitors for awhile just to make sure again that she's okay.  Then on Dec. 26 at 10:00am I'm scheduled to go into the hospital to get the induction started slowly (with cervidil) and then go ahead with a full induction (with pitocin) sometime on the 27th.  It's not what we would have chosen of course, and I'm not happy to be facing an induction but am trying to get my head around it and be as prepared as I can be.

In the middle of all those dates & appointments, of course, is Christmas!  We haven't planned much for the holidays, expecting to have a newborn and all, but in the last couple days Clem and I have started talking about what we can do for Christmas morning when it's just us at home (the rest of Christmas will be at my parents').  It gives us something to focus on other than waiting to be induced, even if it's not what we had been hoping Christmas will look like (and who knows, there is still the possibility of being in hospital having a baby on the 25th, right?!).

Have a wonderful Christmas and we will update as we can when there is baby news - it'll be within a week now!

Just Haven't Met You Yet

I realize that this Michael Buble song was not at all written about an unborn baby, but I can't help but think it fits really well.  Not quite the every line of course, but I feel a lot of it speaks to the past several years as well as the past little while of being pregnant.  I've been listening to it a lot lately, usually loud enough so the baby can hear too :)  Here's what the song says:

I'm not surprised
Not everything lasts
I've broken my heart so many times I stopped keeping track
Talk myself in
I talk myself out
I get all worked up
Then I let myself down
I tried so very hard not to loose it
I came up with a million excuses
I thought I thought of every possibility
And I know some day that it’ll all turn out
You'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And I promise you kid that I give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet.

I might have to wait
I’ll never give up
I guess it's half timing, and the other half's luck
Wherever you are
Whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life.
And I know that we can be so amazing
And baby your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility.
Somehow I know that it’ll all turn out
You'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And promise you kid, I'll give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AJmKkU5POA if you want to hear it & see the video)

We're obviously waiting and are excited to meet little girl, but I'm not feeling at all impatient (though Clem may feel differently on this!).  It's been a challenging pregnancy in many ways, and there was never a point where I felt fantastic - there's always been something making my body complain, some days much worse than others.  But at the same time I've loved every minute of being pregnant, and at worst said I was happily miserable.  It was getting difficult to cope with full-time work, and I am so thankful that this past week I could rest when I needed to.  I'm still not getting much sleep during the day or night, but it's such a gift to be able to at least rest during the day, and I know my body has been crashing this week. 

All this resting & letting my body crash to hopefully recover a bit before having the baby means that we're still totally not done the to-do list at home, but we're closer.  Here's a new  picture of one corner of the nursery - you can see the fantastic paint job Mike & Krystal did for us (thank you again!!!).  The baby stuff is now in a different pile in the office, waiting for furniture in the nursery so it can be organized.  (The green is sort of a bright-ish sage that will go with the espresso furniture that's on its way, and works well with the bedding we picked too.)

And a couple belly shots - I thought I felt like the baby might have dropped a couple weeks ago, and I think these pictures prove it!

November 18, 36 weeks:

November 29, 37 1/2 weeks:

Getting Ready ... kind of

People ask me all the time if I'm ready for the baby.  I realize there are at least a couple ways of interpreting that question, and usually I choose to answer an enthusiastic 'yes!'  Because we are ready, so ready to meet this little girl and have our lives totally change and be focused on her.  We've been ready for it to be about someone else for a long time.  So yes, we are ready and do not feel anxious when some people say "oh everything is going to change, life will never be the same again!" like that's a bad thing. 

But in another sense of readiness, the more tangible sense, we are not *quite* there.  You can see what the nursery looks like as of tonight, at 35 weeks and 5 days pregnant.  I'd like to say that these are the before pictures.  I know of a couple who waited and struggled several years to become pregnant, and their nursery for their long-awaited baby was beautiful, you could see the excitement they had transformed into hours of loving work.  I think I've gone in the opposite direction.  For the first 3-4 months, I didn't quite believe that this was really going to happen and work out, that I was actually going to have a baby and things were suddenly just going to be okay after so long.  I didn't buy anything for the baby.  Maybe I didn't want to jinx it, maybe I was just in denial (despite all the sickness & crazy pregnancy symptoms).  Then we went away for a month in the summer, then we came home and life & work got crazy busy and I started sleeping even worse than before, which increased stress and totally decreased any productivity.  And here we are, a month exactly away from the due date, and you can see what the nursery looks like.

We'll get there.  I don't feel the nursery needs to be perfect when the baby arrives; she'll be sleeping in our room in the bassinet for awhile anyway.  We're hoping to paint the room next weekend and go from there.  Oh, and we did finally decide on and order a crib a couple days ago, so it's coming ... slowly ...

Day 4 of Quarantine

This is what life consists of this week.  Clem and I have both been sick, him since Monday late afternoon and me since Tuesday.  It's definitely the longest amount of time we've been confined to the same place without any other human interaction (except my very generous parents who have dropped some needed supplies at the door!).  I am happy to say that so far we have not been driving each other crazy!  Not much cabin fever either, but that's also because we're too weak & sick to want to do anything else.

It's all much less frightening than earlier this week.  When Clem went from more or less feeling fine to having a high fever and serious cough within a couple hours on Monday, it was scary.  It was especially scary because of how similar it sounded to a couple friends we know who have had H1N1, and because of all the stories about otherwise healthy women in the third trimester landing in ICU with flu complications.  I did start feeling sick the next day, and my OB put me on tamiflu immediately.  It's scary to take anything while pregnant, but thankfully the tamiflu has kept me from getting seriously sick, and Clem is certainly suffering more than I am (he can't get the medicine because he's not at high risk for complications).  Neither of us can eat much, his fever is still high (mine thankfully never got up there), and we're both just really weak and worn out.  I can't believe that he's had this since late Monday and still isn't even starting to feel better!!

For the record, we don't know and will never know whether it's H1N1 or another flu, but it does seem unlike other bugs we've had in the past.  I am just thankful that we're able to stay home and get better rather than facing any scary complications.  Soon enough life will resume again and we will resurface!

welcome!

I've been keenly aware of how infrequently we're keeping up with friends and family these days, and I thought this might be a good way to share pictures and news about our quickly expanding family, particularly for relatives & friends living out of town. Feel free to bookmark this page and check in to see what we've been up to.

In recent baby news, we did have another ultrasound last week. There had been a concern about the placenta being too low, and if it didn't change, I would need a mandatory c-section. Last week we returned to have it checked, and we are happy to say that everything looks perfect! We also saw that we are most definitely having a little girl, and they are estimating her weight to already be 4lb 10oz, which puts her at the 60th percentile for weight. I was told it means I'm looking at more of a 8ish lb baby rather than a 6lb one - I am thrilled she's growing at a healthy rate and hoping she keeps it under 9lb!