Snowbound Herpetologist

I'm working on some real blog posts (one on the physical nature of post-parturition life, one on how my awesome in-laws fully brought Christmas to our house, and of course the scary birth story post) but they're not quite ready yet - so you get more photos of little Maya Moo instead! We are completely, hopelessly in love with her :)

All movement in the right directions!  Just wanted to let all of Maya's fans know that things are looking up :) I feel so much better! And I love showing off how much hair I have!

I just have a quick second to update while the baby sleeps...in her swing (a rarity)...before the next feeding.  Yes, she's pretty jaundiced, but we think we've passed the peak of the bilirubin accumulation curve - and we've avoided more hospital time so far.  However, "treatment" requires that I be absolutely perfect about getting her on the breast every two hours, sometimes for an hour each time, to try to flush the excess bilirubin from her system.  This hour on, hour off routine (24 hours a day) has left me tired after three days.  But she's doing better! I promise I won't post a bunch of photos of my boobs all the time on this blog, but here's what we did today.  In addition to massive quantities of breastfeeding, another treatment for neonatal jaundice is phototherapy, which they do with big, impressive lights in the hospital.  You can also do it with sunlight though, so we gave it the good ol' college try today since it's Christmas and

Wish us luck for a low bilirubin count at the pediatrician's office today!

Look how they shine fooooor yooooou.... We are having some problems with jaundice. Not to make light of things too much, but the worst outcome of this so far is that annoying Coldplay songs run loops in my head whenever I look at her :) They were all yellow...argh, turn it off!!! I am having a pretty rough recovery myself and still have not fully processed by birth experience as things continue to go wrong, so I'm going to hold off on writing my birth story post until I can be more balanced about my perspective. Until then, just wish me luck with the spinal headache (yeah, the epidural failed so I had to get BOTH an epidural and [TWO attempts at] a spinal). Lame. I'll post some more cute photos of the baby tomorrow since those are always fun :) Here's one to tide you over!

Born via c-section at 7:10pm on December 19th , 2013. Somewhat traumatic birth story to follow soon, but everyone is healthy and alive and kicking!! Hugs to all :)

Mean contraction frequency = 0.35 / min Dilation (estimated) = 8.5 cm 100% effaced and "super stretchy"

We are in labor (no induction!), in the hospital, and at 8cm. Update - hopefully with a baby - soon!

My family all left this morning to head back to sunny California (we have like 7 inches of snow on the ground here right now, but it's in the 70's there today).  Thus, husband and I are now officially back on our own - albeit with a lot more food in both the fridge and freezer - to conquer the impending arrival of the quite stubborn baby.  I feel more disappointed for my family than myself, especially for my mom, that they didn't get to meet the newborn that they so wanted to see. The other thing that saddens me about their departure is that I was very much looking forward to having my mom around while I am learning how to breastfeed - now I literally have no nursing veterans here to whom I'm close enough that they would feel comfortable coming over and helping me repeatedly shove my baby on my boob to get the latch right if we have issues.  My mom was a championship breastfeeder, and I was very much looking forward to her expertise.  Of course there are lactation con

Baby is doing great! NST was perfect, and I even had one contraction while hooked up to the monitors (see below!). Fluid is at an 18 (higher side of normal), so no concerns there. I'm still at 1cm, but my real midwife (saw someone else on Thursday) said that the 40% effacement call had been "generous" at best, so I got downgraded. She *really* got up in there and stripped with gusto though (and stretched me to a 2), so here's to hoping. She said that the baby's engaged and she could totally touch her head (um, surreal, yes?!?) while stripping, so that was good news too. Also, I'm so overdue that they made me retake my beta strep test, but the redo confirmed that I am fortunately still negative. And that concludes the good news! Not exactly earth shattering, but we'll take what we can get :) I will continue to post if there is any progress - mild, wiiiiiiidely spaced contractions for the moment - but otherwise, I'll be back again for another NST

A place where no woman should ever have to go!  No, there is no baby yet. We're off to see the midwife again now for more membrane stripping/non-stress test - I'll try to update afterwards. Here are some photos from this weekend: One of the many (fat) squirrels that inspired the cookies Friday's "Ugly Sweater Party" - husband won, actually! We got some snow this weekend, offering the opportunity to try to induce labor with.... ....snow shoveling!  I did our house (front and back) and all of our neighbors' houses too.  Clearly didn't work, but was fun anyway. Best part of the weekend - husband's parents came to visit, YAY!!  It was so great to see them :)  

No Friday the 13th baby, unless she comes really fast.  Moreover, she is now officially late by ALL known metrics (early ultrasound - Dec 5, LMP - Dec 9, ghetto-acquired ovulation date - Dec 12). Membrane stripping wasn't as awful as I anticipated, and it did give me some contractions both yesterday and last night (with a break in between).  BUT...I'm only dilated to 1cm and 40% effaced, so there was only so much the poor midwife could do for me.  Guess that we try again Monday! I suppose that there's always a chance that I'll go on my own before Monday, and if so, I promise to post an update.  Otherwise, no news is actually...no news! In the meantime, enjoy your super Friday!  Maybe do something a little bit spooky tonight, just for me :) ETA: here's one of my squirrel Christmas cookies from yesterday - we have had a LOT of squirrels at our feeder this fall :)

Yesterday, my mom called me a "ticking time bomb."  I'm pretty sure she meant that positively, but still :) The last few days have been pretty quiet, and I'm trying to stay mellow.  The baby is still way too high - why won't she DROP, for heaven's sake?!? - and everything else is sort of...inert. Tomorrow, we kick things up a notch.  I get my membranes stripped at 10am, which will result in one of two outcomes: 1) I have a very bad day but then the baby is born (YAY!!), or 2) I have a very bad day but things fizzle out after 6-8 hours and we get to repeat the fun on Monday.  In the latter outcome, Monday would also include a non-stress test (and a quick ultrasound to estimate fluid levels), so I guess that's a bonus? One other positive of the baby being late is that husband finished writing, and giving, all the lectures for his class yesterday - he wrote 27 of them, and we are so proud of his work!  Now all he has to do is write, proctor, and

To combat my impatience, I've decided to go to work tomorrow after my appointment with my midwife.  Really, it's probably for the best that I just continue working.  During this last week that I've been off of work, I've already made 8 HUGE freezer meals, baked muffins and banana bread and Christmas cookies (well, the latter two are happening today), and rearranged all the baby stuff about 10 times - I have nothing left to do except be neurotic.  I think I'll just work on some analyses for a paper tomorrow instead. So in case I don't get to post the promised photos on the actual day tomorrow, here are a few photos from last night that we will consider the "40 week" bump photos.  Unfortunately, husband has not been available for co-posing at the exact moment the camera has been out recently, but I will try to remedy that shortly - in the meantime, enjoy! :) With the Christmas stocking my aunt made for her. Yep, I *really* look 40 weeks pregna

For those of you joining us on The Great Baby Watch of December 2013, I am very much still pregnant at 39w5d.  According to spacefem’s data , 42.07% of babies with the same December 9th due date as mine have already been born by today.  That's a lot of babies. I will post another belly photo on Monday at 40 weeks, just for posterity. I’ve had this post collated/written for a while now, but I was really undecided about whether to actually post it since it might be considered in poor taste.  But because I’m desperately in need of some *humor* to keep my mind off of not having a baby yet, I’ve decided to go for it - but you are forewarned, this post is not safe for the squeamish (and DEFINITELY not for work)!  Perhaps I will regret this post later, because it probably is in poor taste.  But it's also pretty damn funny :) I’m pretty sure that the labor/birth books all tell you the same (nuanced) lies and spin that you get in the pregnancy books, using phrases like “pres

I’ve definitely spent the end of this pregnancy feeling very introspective.  I wake up (from my vivid dreams, a surprising symptom now added to the “pregnancy in review” list) every morning super thoughtful and pondering, which I suppose is a nice respite from the fatigue-induced fogginess that descends shortly thereafter.  Sometimes I even have to take a nap as soon as I finish breakfast because I’m already too tired to think :)  (This happened today, in fact!) Anyway, I’m about to totally nerd out on you guys right now.  My musing for the day is that I’ve decided that metaphorically, labor kind of works like an action potential in a neuron.  For those of you who have not thought about high school biology since, well, high school, here’s a little reminder (over simplified) of how neurons fire. Neurons mainly collect information from their environment in the form of either electrical or chemical signals.  Through boring mechanisms that I won’t rehash here, neurons translate th

This is just a very quick update after my appointment this morning with my midwife. I have a couple of really fun blog posts started, but not yet finished, and I have to actually work today (potentially my last day?), so you're getting the "hi, I'm alive, and I'm still pregnant" update instead. As we are now at 39 weeks, we have entered the "window" where the baby could come at any time over the next two weeks.  I am ready (especially after I finish the things on my to do list today!).  However, I am continuing to feel not very labor-y, so I personally think that it's still going to be a while.  Baby's heart rate is strong and even, my belly size is measuring on schedule, and all appears to be going well, so there's no real rush.  However, the one thing of note that I did do this morning was schedule an induction for the night of December 19th (41w3d), although my midwife would like me to push that off until the night of December 23rd (42w0

Since I’m getting pretty close to the end here, I decided to make a list of the things that surprised me (and those that didn’t) during my pregnancy because I’ll never remember them all later.  I read approximately 7000 pages of pregnancy books before getting pregnant, so I thought that I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting myself into - I was right and I was wrong.  This list might evolve over the next week if I think of more things to add.... Things that were far worse than I expected: Oh, the drool!  Copious amounts, coating my hair, face, pillow, and clothing any and every time I lost consciousness.  Pretty disgusting, and definitely not normal. Back pain - I did nothing with my life but ice my broken lower back, twice a day at least, for the last four months of pregnancy.   Yup, four months .  Primates are not optimally designed to be both bipedal and pregnant. Nasal “congestion” - not real congestion, as there was nothing in there!  But my nasal passages were sup

Just a few photos from the big day :) Abby got some turkey, too! White Thanksgiving - just a dusting Making stuffing, my favorite :) Dad chopping veggies My mama and me Way too preggers for my own good If you don't stir the gravy, you get lumps - oh, the horror! Hope you all had a fantastic day, too!

Today's bird walk = pregtastic! P.S. This is my first attempt at a mobile blog post!

In case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow after my midwife appointment (parents are arriving, so excited!!!), this is the 38 week update. Yep, still pregnant!  Nope, labor is not imminent! And...that’s about it. After an absolutely abysmal Wednesday (including the worst yoga class of my life) during which the baby was so low that I felt like she was going to fall out of my vagina, baby shifted.  Upwards.  Which is the wrong direction.  Now I’m walking more comfortably than I have in weeks , but my entire upper right belly underneath my ribs - which is where her butt is sitting, as she has rolled to ROT - is now incredibly bruised and unhappy due to the increased pressure.  Sometimes I just lean way over to the left to give her some extra room there and walk around pitifully sideways...well, if no one’s looking. Another sad note - the Epi-No training is sssssslllllloooooowwwww.  I had thought that I’d be a total champ at this, and the early days of training had me runni

Probably because I will hit 37 weeks tomorrow, I woke up this morning thinking about cutoffs.  On this side of some arbitrarily imposed line, you’re in Box #1.  On the other, Box #2.  And in pregnancy as in life, it can often be incredibly hard to transfer out of a box once you’re there. If I had the baby today (I won’t, full moon last night notwithstanding), she would officially be premature and my medical record would be flagged forever as having had a “preterm birth.”  This designation would immediately (in the US, at least) send me down a different path of management options for any subsequent pregnancy, since I would have fallen into a “higher risk” category.  But if I had the baby tomorrow, no mention would ever be made of this “normal” pregnancy and “term delivery” and I would be offered a different, “standard” set of management options.  The biological difference between the two?  A few hours. I faced this same sort of dilemma with my age when I first got pregnant.  O

Very quick post - yesterday’s palpation-based fetal weight estimate from the midwife got me thinking.  I pulled this equation from somewhere at some point, but this is the original citation: Nahum, G. G., & Stanislaw, H. 2002. Validation of a birth weight prediction equation based on maternal characteristics. The Journal of Reproductive Medicine 47(9): 752-760. General caveats This equation is only meant to work for: Caucasians (or Hispanics, Nahum et al . 2004) singleton pregnancies no complications (gestational diabetes, blood pressure issues, etc.) babies delivered after 37 weeks no fetal abnormalities ( e.g. , chromosomal) non-smokers women with accurately dated pregnancies Equation birth weight (g) = gestational age (days)  × [9.38 + (0.264 x fetal gender) + (0.000233 × maternal height (cm) × maternal weight @ 26 weeks (kg)) + (4.62 × 3rd trimester maternal weight gain rate (kg/day) × {parity +1})] where fetal gender = +1 for m

I was right - the countdown from 36 weeks is going to rock!  Finally, interesting things are happening. This morning’s appointment was awesome (reiterating for the millionth time how amazing my midwife is).  She helped me palp myself to better identify all baby body parts (which can be confusing!) and orientation - baby is solidly left occiput transverse (LOT) and while not quite engaged, is apparently “dipping” in and out of my pelvis.  She says 1) keep walking (lots!!) and 2) do some squats to help the baby engage.  She says not to worry too much about the fact that I lean back a lot on my futon while working in my office - I’ve never been a good chair sitter, but now it’s just torture - causing the baby to spin posterior.  Just keep walking as best as I can.  She also thinks that there’s now very, very little chance that the baby will flip back to breech before birth - yay! I also asked for a fetal weight estimate, which with experienced midwives, is pretty much as accurat

Two weeks left to go until ( early ) term! Today I am exactly 35 weeks, which means that there are exactly 35 days remaining until my due date - the famous 35/35.  It's like a golden birthday or something, a unique occurrence.  Still nothing of interest to report - I am approximately the size of a whale, tired, unable to concentrate on anything , sore, and crampy (which is a new one).  And in all likelihood, I have - at the very least - 5 more weeks to become more of all of the above.  I fervently wish that I had been more productive with work this fall, as I didn’t meet any of my goals at all (honestly!) and feel that I’m only barely holding on to the most important of my professional responsibilities.  Guilt abounds. Can you tell that I CANNOT WAIT to get back to feeling like myself again? :) On a more positive note, I have managed to get pretty much all of the initial “can’t-live-without-it” baby stuff ready.  Clothes, wipes, and diapers are washed (I even washed th