2.27.2009

Good morning everyone!!  This is Kyle.Iris is currently getting checked out by the professionals, so we have a little break.  Everyone is still doing well.  Megan says the main thing that hurts is her ribs from where Iris's head was .  Iris has had several compliments on her cuteness and her lungs.  She has gone from periods of peaceful tranquility to some crying bouts, but really enjoys the initial swaddle and then kicking off the covers for freedom.  Everyone has been nice so far.  Emily stayed at the house last night and Kelley stopped by for a brief visit.  Dr. G stopped by this morning and said the Megan will most likely get her staples out on Sunday and we could probably be home shortly thereafter (which Megan is very excited about).  It's been a great experience and we will keep you posted on new developments (aka the continuing story of Iris Luella Kelley).  Megan and I are still kind of in shock that we have a little person with us now.

2.25.2009

BAD Baby

Remember last week when I said that it felt like the baby flipped over & turned breech?  And how I said that Dr. G palpated around and told us everything was fine and that The Whiz was still head-down?  Anyone know where I'm going with this?  

Yeah.  This kid is so grounded.

Ultrasound revealed today that the large round thing wedged under my ribcage is indeed the head and the reason it has felt like I was getting kicked in the bladder for the last two weeks is that I've been getting kicked in the bladder for the last two weeks.  At least now I can say that I officially know exactly what it feels like when a 38-week fetus decides to do a somersault.  

Dr. G explained that although it is sometimes possible to turn a breech baby, the odds are pretty slim that it would work for us.  Apparently The Whiz is measuring in at "well over eight pounds" and the amniotic fluid is looking pretty low.  So it just wouldn't be safe to attempt an external version without putting the baby at risk for some type of cardiac distress or membrane rupture or uterine rupture or placental abruption or something equally unsavory.  Seeing as my main goal here is to have a live, happy baby (not a live, happy vaginally birthed baby), I'm pretty OK with this turn of events.  I am sort of bummed that I won't get to experience labor this time, but it doesn't mean I won't ever experience it, and from what I hear it mainly just hurts and takes a really long time and disfigures your hoo-ha.  I am nothing if not an optimist. :)  

Kyle and I are less freaked-out by the c-section than we are about the fact that we now know the exact time and date that we will become parents.  We spent some time this afternoon commenting to one another how odd it is that they will be letting us leave the hospital with the baby and that they don't expect us to bring it back at any point or ANYTHING.  Upon further reflection we decided that it might be a good idea to go ahead and hide under the furniture and hold each other and maybe cry a little while we were down there.  It felt intuitively like the right thing to do, and parenting is really just one big exercise in trusting your instincts, so I think we're off to a good start. 

Surgery scheduled for tomorrow: February 26th, 2009, 5 pm central time. 

2.24.2009

er. um. woops.

I didn't set out to be intentionally vague on that last post.  I think I was working with the idea that I was maintaining privacy for someone else's baby, but upon further review, I realized there's really no harm in saying that the name in question is August.  The friends who used it actually used Augustus, but the main goal for both of us was to have a kid named Gus, so either way the name is out.  Amos is still in contention, but it rhymes with anus, and I can't decide how much I care about that fact.  Also I don't think Kyle is the biggest fan of it.  He doesn't seem to dislike it, but he doesn't seem to like it, either ya know?  It's the same way I feel about Miles.  It just doesn't really do anything for me...ok maybe it annoys me a little.  Why not name the kid Kilometers?  Are we bound to the English system of measurement?  Just sayin.  

Kyle loves (luuuurves!) the name Guthrie; I can't really move past the "it's not so bad" attitude.  I guess I just can't get over the fact that it already sounds like a nickname without a proper, full name to anchor it.  I like Callum and Calvin, but I would call that child Cal.  I told Kyle that I could see a future in which the two of them are hanging out, I shout one of their names from some other room of the house, and they just stare at each other, trying to figure out if I said Kyle or Cal.  The response would be to blink at one another a couple of times, independently decide that they don't know whose attention I was trying to get, and silently return to whatever it is that they'd been doing before I called out to them, having decided that if I was really serious I'd have shouted louder or something.  Kyle did not disagree with me.  In fact, he might have laughed so hard he turned a little purple while nodding vigorously.  Soooo we're not gonna do that. 

Let's see here - Archer is good but I have this *thing* with names that end in "er."  I actually really like the name Fletcher too, but the "er" thing ruins it for me, which sucks because how cool would it be to have a kid named FLETCH?!?  Answer: very effing cool.  

Finnegan was the first name we ever fell in love with.  The baby name conversation has been ongoing since about five minutes after we started dating, so we've loved that name for a long, long time.  The problem with this now is that there are a large number of kids between the ages of birth and 4 yrs. cropping up with the name Finn.  From what I hear, most of them are named Finley or Finneas (Phinnaeus?), but they're all Finn by the time they're getting involved in social situations and introducing themselves and such.  I think all the Jennifers and Daniels of the world know where I'm going with this.  Even my own name, which was unique when it was given to me, became so popular by the time I was in grade school that I always had to have a modifier in order to be identified.  I was Other Megan, Tall Megan, Weird Megan (for a while, actually...) and Big Megan until I finally just became Muggin, thanks to a set of 3 yr. old twins with interesting speech impediments.  

The only other boy name we're seriously considering is Vincent.  It was my Grandpa's middle name, it's a normal name but it's less common/trendy without being too out there, and its nicknames don't completely repulse me (though please - if we go with this name, no Vince, ok? I hate that name).  So most of its nicknames don't repulse me.  Meh.  

The reason I'm not even bothering with girl names here is that they are just so much easier to come up with.  So far we have discussed Clara, Beatrice, Iris, Elsa, Wren, Nora, Helen, Virginia, ETC!  The list goes on for quite a while and we both like them all.  Kyle's favorites are Iris and Nora and I pretty much like them all equally.  In much the same way that Superman moves so quickly you can't actually see him run, the girl name conversation is so easy to have that we don't even have to have it.  


2.22.2009

And then there was one.

Apparently there is truth to the saying that all things come in threes (or is that all good things come in threes? Or people die in threes? Whatever). Anyway, we know two other couples who were expecting babies either on or a few days before The Whiz's due date. As of Friday, both of those other couples have had their babies, and both babies are boys. Curiously, both of those boys were given names that begin with the letter "A". I don't think that we will end up using an "A" name (since one of those other couples TOTALLY STOLE our boy-flavored "A" name - on accident, mind you, but stole it all the same). Suggestions welcome, people. It doesn't even have to begin with the letter "A".

I think I had a couple of contraction-ey things last night. Maybe? Again, it's still hard to tell at this point. We are heading off to lunch at Murry's to try their labor-inducing wing sauce (it's worth a shot), and then perhaps walk the dogs if the temp. ever rises above freezing. Peace out.

2.18.2009

A Fingertip

Wednesday checkup today - I am a "fingertip" dilated and I heard no mention of effacement.  I did learn that we'll have to talk about induction if labor continues to elude me beyond 41 weeks, but Dr. G doesn't think that will be necessary (almost 39 weeks now).  Not sure what he's basing that opinion on, but it's nice to hear anyway.  I was nervous that the baby had turned to a breech position after some extremely pointy antics a couple of days ago, but The Whiz is still safely vertex and wiggly as ever.  

Let's all be excited that I LOST a pound this week!  Mom says that means labor is imminent, but Kyle and I also noticed that I haven't been nearly as swollen in the last few days and I wouldn't be surprised if I lost a pound of water weight just in my ankles.  Either way, I'm not complaining.  

Single digit countdown begins tomorrow - yay!

2.16.2009

The Wifey Zone!

Isn't that neat?  For as long as I remain pregnant I can say that I am a stay at home WIFE (SAHW)!  Then of course, I'll have the baby, become a very short-lived stay at home Mom (SAHM), and then go back to work & become a regular schlep with a job and a kid and no nifty abbreviate-able title.  As a few of you may know, being a SAHW is my all time dream job, so I plan to enjoy it as much as I can while it lasts. I mean, seriously?  You stay at home, make your house cute, cook fun things, garden to your heart's content, get dressed whenever you feel like it, and basically do whatever you want all day.  Sooo taxing...

(Quick aside about the Wifey Zone--Kyle and I were in the Chicago airport once and passed under an enormous sign that said "YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE WIFI ZONE."  As we had just been married about a month prior to this trip, terms like "wife" and "husband" were still pretty novel to us, thereby allowing us to titter like schoolchildren whenever the opportunity arose to use them.  I think we may have been in the midst of some awful 6-hour layover or had just been rudely harassed by security or something equally mood-dampening when Kyle noticed the sign, looked at me and said "Hey--we're entering the Wifey zone.  They give you your own whole wing in this airport!"  It doesn't sound all that funny now, but at the time it was impressive enough to completely turn our mood around.  Now of course, whenever I do something that I deem to be domestically impressive, I have been known to do a little ninja kick and shout "Coming 'atcha from the Wifey Zonnnnne!"  Because I am mature.)

So.  Here I sit in the official Wifey Zone. I am wearing an outfit comprised entirely of stretchy cotton-lycra blend and a bathrobe.  And it's MONDAY!  At 9am!  This is so awesome.  Later I am going to sew some curtains and perhaps wash some baby clothes, but maybe not.  I can do it whenever I want because I have all day!  I know this little stream of things I could or could not do must be boring to most of you reading this, so I apologize for that, but the novelty of the situation is still just overwhelmingly exciting for me.  Happy happy.

I don't really have anything exciting to tell you about baby stuff.  Clearly, I am still very pregnant.  I have started having teensy little contractions here and there, I think, although I'm still unclear as to when a cramp stops being a cramp and starts being a contraction.  I hear that you "just know," so I guess I might have to continue calling them cramps for now.  The Whiz has now grown to a size that significantly limits movement.  I still feel the little wiggles here and there, but all of the rolling back and forth of the preceding weeks has pretty much stopped.  There just isn't enough room for that, although yesterday I got three enormous kicks to the ribs right in a row, and by enormous I mean that my entire upper body was actually thrown a little to the left with each kick (okay Reinhards, this kid might be a soccer player).   

I'm not dilated at all as of last Wednesday and I seriously doubt Dr. G will check again this week, but I have seen some minor evidence of cervical activity, I guess you could say.  Something must be happening, right?  I mean, no one stays pregnant forever...although that would significantly extend my stay in the wifey zone...heh.  

2.09.2009

Monday Evening Random

Not much to report here, actually. I spent all day at work thinking of the great post I was going to write about the stupid things people say to pregnant women but I decided that for now, I'll let it go. I found some catharsis in simply Googling "stupid things people say to pregnant women." Turns out they say lots of stupid things and I have heard almost all of them. It's annoying. Moving on...

...Because I only have three more weeks of being pregnant so it doesn't matter what those jerkfaces say! Bring it, jerkfaces!* Anyone who tries to tell me I may go past my due date is totally wrong, so don't try it. I have my bag packed, I have a car seat. Hell, I even have a detailed checklist of the contents of the bag so that I know which last-minute items still need to be thrown in before we go. I have boy clothes, girl clothes and green clothes, and I have nipple shields. This is because I am organized! and prepared! and ready! to! go! OKAY? Now somebody go invent a machine that sends memos to fetuses.**

The Whiz has dropped down even farther into my pelvis, alleviating most of the heartburn I'd been having and doing an even better impression of a bowling ball in my shirt. This has made my time spent not-peeing almost equivalent to my time spent peeing and also it inspired most of the commentary from the Stupids (see above, re: jerkfaces). Nonetheless, it is exciting in its own way, and I trust that it won't be long before other labor-ey things start happening. If they don't I am still taking great consolation in the fact that I only have four more days of work to go, which is wonderful enough in its own right. The wonderfulness of that fact alone might give me the stamina to actually enjoy my last couple of weeks of pregnancy! That would be neat.

Anyhoo--next appointment with Dr. G on Wednesday! I hear they might do an exam to see about dilation and effacement and all that, but no one was particularly clear on whether it was happening for sure. We'll see, I guess - oh, and in case anyone was wondering, the Strep B test came back negative.

*Totally having fun with basic HTML today. Yes, I feel very smart indeed.

**I have heard traditional belly-button rings likened to "fetophones." It is of note here that I did, at one time, posess such a ring, and I happen to still have the hole into which it fits. I'm not going to do it, I'm just saying I could.

2.04.2009

Why hello everybody.  Got back from second weekly checkup today.  Everything is a-ok.  I didn't even have to distract anybody while Megan shimmied down hospital hallways in short hospital gowns.  So maybe not as exciting as last week, but that's alright.  We're trying to organize and sort out all the excellent gifts we've received over the past month (and even before that).  My workmates had a shower for us last Friday and we got several excellent books, bath supplies, toys, and, yes, the "diaper dude" bag with skull and crossbones.  Very exciting.  We still do need to pack the bag and come up with some nice mix CDs to bring the whiz into the world.  I think Megan and I have agreed there needs to be lots of Bachman Turner Overdrive.  I have to say also that I really enjoy the picture of Mug's socks.