Gracie

Quick version so I don’t forget the big stuff, and i’ve been pretty much up for 25 hours now.

J woke me up at 4:30. She said “I think we’re gonna have the baby today.” I said “Oh, great.” Then I paused for a minute and said, “are you in labor?” She said, “yes, I am.” And I replied, “oh, good.” Another pause. “Did your water break?” “Yep.”

I was kind of up like a lightning bolt at that point.

J was 4 cm when we arrived. Contractions weren’t regular so they did start pitocin, and starting at about 11 am she started contracting regularly. By 2/3 they were coming every 1 to 3 minutes and increasing in strength. By 5:30 she was in the tub and contractions were nuts. She was at 9 by 7:30, but the baby wouldn’t drop more, and when she finally left the tub the baby started not being happy with any position we could get her in. Pitocin was stopped and started twice, internal monitor was screwed into her head, and we watched as baby was pretty much happiest when J was on hands and knees, and pretty much no other way. By 8:30, with no progression and baby starting to get upset again, we made the really hard choice to go forward with a c-section. She’d been in labor for around 18 hours by that point, really hard and painful labor for about 7 hours, and would have pushed this baby out just fine (I’m shocked she didn’t go for the epidural, the pain she was in, at least from her face/sounds seemed fairly unbearable) but…it wasn’t happening.

Gracie was born at 9:19 pm, she had a cord on the short side that was wrapped around her perfect little neck.

She’s beautiful and has a full head of long, dark hair, and so far seems to have blue eyes.

Our friend E is a champ who was with us the whole time, and truly helped make the day manageable.

My wife? Incredible. Strongest woman I have ever met, I can’t believe how amazing she is.

Gracie? I think I may be in love. I’ve memorized her face and can close my eyes and see her and it’s amazing.

On the eve of something…

I can’t believe that we’re one day away from 40 weeks pregnant. Can’t believe it. I’m scared and nervous and excited. I’m still not convinced that all will be ok and we’ll be bringing a baby home in days? A week? Two tops?

I think we’re ready. I mean, I hope we are.

Woah. The biggest dream I’ve ever ever had is about to come true. I can’t even start to explain how I feel about this.

A little help from my friends

On Monday, May 1, J and I will be walking in the March of Dimes March for Babies.  We will be walking with Team Joshua – Joshua is a 7 month old, adorable little boy who was born at 28 weeks. He’s currently doing GREAT but spent the first two months of his life in a NYC NICU dealing with many of the issues that premature babies must overcome.

The March of Dimes helps support NICU’s all over the country, as well as provide support for expectant moms – striving for all babies to have a great start!

The significance of the timing of this march is significant to my family, and my family of choice – J will be 28 weeks pregnant at the walk – the same age Joshua was when he was born.

We hope our little peanut stays inside until she’s full term but we know that if she makes an early appearance, organizations like the March of Dimes will help us get through the early challenges that a premature birth will most certainly present to us.

I’ve never asked for help like this before, but if you can, please consider donating a dollar, 10 dollars, or whatever you can to our team right on my MOD website, and help make a difference for babies across the country!

Thanks so so much –

J

 

It’s only a change of time

It’s been hard for me to write about this pregnancy – I think it has something to do with the huge anxiety mess that I carry around with me every minute of every day. We’re almost at that 24 week place of viability – not that I want her to come early, at all, but the fact is that every day that passes is one more day we’re closer to meeting this little girl, and I’m going to have to recognize that we should probably start preparing for her arrival.

Every day I look into the guest bedroom that will become hers and say to myself, “maybe today.” Maybe today I’ll spend time peeling glow in the dark stars off of the ceiling, spackeling, and re-painting it. Maybe today we’ll go to the store and buy the perfect shade of gray paint to go on her walls. Maybe today we’ll order the vinyl decals that we’d like to adorn the walls with. Maybe today.

But I can’t quite do that yet. Slowly, baby things are making their way into our home. A friend sends some adorable outfits that she loved on her daughter. We buy some second hand diapers. We buy a few new diapers. We research car seats and strollers and decide which ones we like.  We actually register for baby stuff at the big store where until very recently I couldn’t even walk in to without my eyes starting to well up into big wet balls of sadness. I unearth deeply hidden away infant and baby care books. I tell my mother in law that it’s ok if she brings up the nursery furniture she’s graciously giving to us. We move forward.

But my brain stays two steps behind. It wants to know if J has felt the baby kick today. And how many times? Are they getting stronger? Do you feel ok? Do you think she’s ok? Maybe we could just listen to her (again) with the doppler to make sure she’s ok. Maybe you had too much sugar today. Maybe you should have some ice cream because sugar makes her kick. It’s tragic in a way, and I can feel the idiocity (new word) of it all as it escapes my mouth. I wish I could just be quiet, and let my brain calm, and remember that things are probably ok. But I know of, and know too many who made it to this point and still didn’t take live babies home. And I play games in my head like, if X happened to someone I know, it’s not likely it’ll happen to us. But Y still could. And so could Z, and probably a million other bad things that I know are out there. And I know that once we pass 24 weeks, and then 25, and 26, and so on, that my fears will shift from the actual pregnancy to the actual birth and all the bad things that could happen there. And then I hope it goes away when she is here, and hope I’m not doubting every parenting move that I make from day one to the time she decides she’s ready to go out on her own, and then I’ll worry when I don’t hear from her for a few days.

And I know I sound like a crazy person, like I should probably be medicated (and maybe I should be)  but then, then I take a deep breath. And I let my heart lead the way. Because I am so incredibly in love with this little girl already. And I’m trying to refuse thinking of living a life without her in it.

And then I have hope.

Holy crazy….

We’re having a girl!!!!! Holy crap. A little girl. I can. not. wait!

16 weeks and all is well

I’m still not 100% convinced but it appears that there’s a baby in there. And because I’m crazy and paranoid I got a doppler so we could listen to the baby’s heartbeat. And it’s interesting, at first I thought “great, we can make sure it’s ok every day!” but in the week and a half we’ve had it we’ve only listened 3x, which is kind of surprising to me. And we did hear it at the dr’s yesterday so, I guess that’s 4 but who’s counting?

Also. After all the crap that I/we’ve been through on this journey, my anxiety may be catching up to me. I was kind of…in a really nice way….asked by J to perhaps talk to my therapist about the constant question asking, etc, because um….I think she may be starting to lose her patience with me. And she’s the most patient person I know so that’s saying a lot. So…something to think about.

As for pregnancy, etc, J is battling a sinus thing that won’t go away. Neti pot, humidifier, and trying to keep balanced and healthy meals in her are helping, but I hate watching her feeling so icky all the time.

And…that’s where we are. More soon.

If you saw it on FB, it must be true

I thought it was too early to announce, but that’s because I’m a zillion times bitten twice shy type of person right now. But. My wife made it official yesterday, so here we go again – We are expecting a little lion!

I am scared shitless about something bad happening, even though this is the first time I/we’ve ever made it past 13 weeks.

 

And so it goes.

that joke isn’t funny anymore

Game over at 11weeks, 4 days. Sad, tired, hurt that J has to experience this.

and things keep moving

UO is well over 8 weeks pregnant now. Our first OB intake is next Wednesday. I’m nervous. I’m sure everything is fine. She feels like shit. Nausea all the time. Headachy. Heartburn. Cramping. She’s irritated with everyone and everything but still (mostly) likes me.

The fact that every day that passes this becomes more and more real is crazytalk. We talk about names. We pray together every night.  We’re so scared/hopeful/amazed. Probably will be…forever.

Thinking about where we want to be. We looked at a house in our budget that needed way more work than we could ever afford to do in the time we needed to do it in in order to be settled by the time the babe is here.

So we’re gonna stay here for a while and keep our dreams of state south of here been put on the backburner. But as much as I love our apt – we don’t have a washer and dryer. We don’t have a yard. We don’t have a lot of things that having a house would afford. So. Yeah. Married. Baby. New house – all within months of each other.

Ambition.

most incredible thing I’ve ever seen

So…we have a friend…who’s a doc….who got us in to her facility 2 weeks earlier than our OB intake….and um. Yeah. 6W5D…and we saw a heartbeat. I’m floored.