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 ...

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 ph...

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 reha...

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...