THE NEWS WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

Didn't make it to the doctor today. I made it to the hospital...not to the doctor...long story short, Ava Catherine has finally made her appearance! She's 21 inches long, and weighed in at a massive 8 lbs. 13 oz....I'll save the details of *that* experience for another post! 17 hours of labor, 1.5 hours of heavy pushing, and her official birthday is January 8, 2008, 8:49pm. The kid is apparently fond of the number "8." Why not...

Baby Ava! She's a little lumpy-looking now but I'm sure her head and face will go back to a normal shape after a few days. ;o)

more of the same

Lots of painful cramps last night but when I tried to time them, there was no real pattern. Of course, this kept me up until nearly 4am, which was pretty crappy, but whatever. Tomorrow I go back to work, to the doctor on Tuesday, and I'm crossing my fingers for the baby to arrive on Wednesday. We shall see. Until then I'm just driving myself (and likely everyone else) completely nuts, and I've decided that the frustration of the past few weeks is simply God's way of distracting me from actually being scared of what is yet to come...that's fine by me! I'll take being annoyed over anxiety any day! :o)

One week!

So, regardless of whether or not she chooses to come on her own or waits until she's evicted...by this time next week we will have our baby! :o) It was actually nice being able to have today baby-free (thus far)...I went in to work and served my time for the workday (it would've been a shame to waste a maternity day or sick day on it, since it's such a breeze), and found that one of the benefits of working with an almost all-female staff is that they know way more than I do about the baby stuff. They all agree that the first doctor should NOT have put me on labor watch without telling me that lots of women walk around dilated for weeks before giving birth, and a few of them checked out the belly and have confirmed that the baby has dropped. I also got to share my misery with other people who understand, which is always good! ;o)

Anyhow, Craig and I also worked in a nice dinner at Bella Monica and I was able to test the dropped-baby theory by seeing exactly how much food I could stuff in my stomach, and it turned out to be a considerable amount: iced tea, fresh mozzarella, bread, po crostini (like a bruschetta with cannelloni beans and asiago instead of tomatoes), a chopped salad, and olive oil gelato for dessert. Wish I could've had a nice glass of wine with it but that's okay!

My parents arrive early tomorrow evening...I'd like to think that perhaps Ava was waiting for her grandparents before arriving, but I doubt it. They'll get here and nothing will happen, except I'll swear that I can hear her laughing at me. :-P She must know how many people are anticipating her arrival, so she's dragging out the suspense as long as possible. Again--I don't do suspense or surprises--so this is something she must be getting from Craig.

Anyhow, that's it, I'm going to go about my evening routine of making sure the house is clean, doing a small load of laundry, and then showering and drying my hair before bed...all the little things I'd want done if we suddenly had to up and leave in the middle of the night. Jack is sitting here on my computer desk looking for attention, so I guess I should give him some. If you can actually call a cat "clingy" that's exactly what he's been for about a week now...he follows me EVERYWHERE and is always looking for some attention, even if it's just to be picked up and carried around, which isn't normal for him, at least not this much. I'm pretty sure he knows something is up.

update.

And not much of one. I'm still at 3 cm...it's now been at least two weeks. (On the upside, I only gained half a pound since last week!) The doctor considered scheduling me to be induced but decided to just have me come in for one more appointment next week (in five days instead of an entire week, I'll go in on Tuesday) and if nothing's happened by then we can schedule so that I will still deliver as close to my due date as possible. I don't think they'd consider it if she wasn't already ahead of development. This is getting completely ridiculous...this is definitely Craig's kid, not mine...if she were mine, she'd have gotten impatient and jumped ship already. When we have to go somewhere, I say, "Let's go!" and we go. If Craig says, "Let's go," what he really means is, "We'll go eventually. After I spend five more minutes on the computer, then put on a shirt without holes in it, put my shoes on at the front door, then decide I have to go to the bathroom, then grab a snack out of the pantry...."

Yep...it's his kid.

CALLING ALL MOMS....HELP!

Okay, so how exactly am I going to know I'm in real labor? This is bothering me big-time. I have had a lot of cramping lately. I've been told that labor is like really bad period cramps, but what exactly is "really bad?" I've had some pretty awful ones since the age of 13 so I'm worried that my idea of "really bad" is not the same as it would be for other people and I won't know right away. So, if you've had a baby--how did you finally know it was the real thing as opposed to just cramping? For about the past two days I've been in almost constant (but usually very mild) pain, some moments worse than others, but nothing seems to be happening and there hasn't been any pattern to the "worse" moments. Hopefully when I go to the doctor today they can tell me something, but the last time I asked the doctor how I'd know I was in labor, he just said that "I'll know" the difference. Thanks, but...HOW???? What exactly is the pain like? Will I definitely have spotting? What's the story?

Any input would be much appreciated! Leave an anonymous comment if you want, I don't care, anything! I'm dying for some firsthand info. here! :o)

One last chance.

Okay, Ava...this is it. You have one last chance to be born on a good date: tomorrow, January 3rd. That's J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday, and that would be cool. Otherwise, whatever.

Last night was rough: lots of cramps, lots of bathroom breaks ("Hey mom! I'm gonna punch you in the bladder again, woohoo!"), lots of anxiety...but, today I got a haircut and trained my maternity sub, so all is well. If the baby doesn't show up tomorrow then it's back to work for me on Friday, and I'll probably start feeling like crap once I'm getting up early and back on my feet, but that's okay...I've lost all energy to care about that anymore! I go to the doctor at 11am so hopefully he'll be able to give me an update on how things are progressing (or not progressing...).

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, we rang in the new year sitting in front of the fireplace in our pajamas, with hot beverages and Ava still in utero. I wanted her to arrive in '07 but it definitely gives us something to look forward to in the first week or so of '08! Check out the ticker...ten days until she's due...that's 24o hours! (14,400 minutes. Not that I'm counting.)

Speaking of numbers, they've found a new person to cover my maternity leave. Whew! Going to try to meet with her this week, but I've come to the conclusion at this point that one way or another the kids are bound to learn while I'm away and if the person covering my leave totally does her own thing, so be it. We'll all live. ;o) I've done my best and then some to prepare for this, and it's time for me to stop worrying about it. The end.