WHEW.

Oh.

My.

Gah.


Eli is killing me today.  Here's the deal...he sleeps GENERALLY 2-3 hours at a time, but today, NO.  He woke up at 8:30 AM and did not go down for a nap until THREE THIRTY POST MERIDIAN.  Six hours straight of being awake?  What the.  This wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact he afforded me a mere three hours of sleep the "night" prior.  Now it is 6:45 in the evening and I can honestly say he has only napped for 2 hours up to this point.

MAN.

Eli, you should try sleeping more.  Because you look so cute when you do.

just us

Well, Rob went back to work today.  Now it's just Eli and me.  He has been doing a little better sleeping at for stretches during the night and going down fairly quickly between feedings.  He averages around two, but the other night slept for three hour stretches and it was glorious!  Last night was a little rougher for whatever reason.  When he would wake up hungry, he would eat and then just stay up.  I was getting a little nervous because I was soooo tired I was afraid I'd fall asleep holding him.  I guess the redeeming factor is that he has no problem sleeping for three hour stretches during the day, so I can always nap when he naps.  We just need to get him to flip his days and nights.

Also,  I can't believe how fast he's growing.  It literally makes me sad.  Last week he had his appointment with the pediatrician on Tuesday, where he weighed 8 lbs 5 oz, and then he had a follow up appointment on Friday where he weighed 8 lbs 15 oz!!  Yes, he gained 10 oz in THREE DAYS!  Also the sleeper he wore to the doctor on Tuesday was too short for him Friday night.  He is growing like a WEED.  I also notice he's starting to fill out when some baby fat.  No, I am not saying he's fat.  He is surprisingly un-fat considering how huge Rob and I were as babies.  He's just so long.  He will be tall like his daddy.

our first week

This week has been tiring and stressful, but mostly wonderful and so, so special.  I love my little family.

eli's sixth day.

I am not going to say things have 'changed' per se, but they have become easier.  Rob has been unbelievably supportive and he is a really great dad.  Not that I thought he was going to be a bad father, but it has been really, really awesome to see how good he is with Eli and how supportive he is of me, especially during those first couple of days where I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  I may have had one, who knows.  How do you tell?

Anyway.

Last night Eli slept in his bassinet in 'our' room (aka my old room at my parents') and it went...not as well as the night prior when my mom kept him.  However, I managed to earn myself three entire hours of sleep so I felt pretty good about that.  Eli has also been napping a lot today, which he really wasn't doing that much of up to this point.  It is nice having those breathers.

My Aunt Sev stopped by after a meeting in Eastgate (she normally is over in Western Hills) to see Eli and unfortunately he had juuuuust woken up from a two hour nap on his dad's lap, so he was a wee bit cranky (read: screaming hysterically) by the time he woke up and she would have had a chance to interact with him.

Tomorrow we are headed back to the pediatrician for follow up with the lactation consultant.  By the way, she was AMAZING if I haven't already expressed that.  Her help literally saved my life (read: sanity) and as far as that aspect of this whole ordeal goes, all is well.

After the pediatrician Rob and I are going to go home.  It has been really, really, really helpful staying at my mom's but it is getting time to set up shop at home.  Rob is going back to work on Monday so it will be interesting doing everything with Eli by myself.  I've already asked my mom to come over on my first day alone just to be sure, haha.

And poor Simon the dog.  I don't think he knows what to make of Eli.  He has smelled him a few times but it is pretty obvious he feels shunned.  Sorry, dog.  I love you, but you are not my child.

I want to share some photos of our first week together, but I'll save that for later :)

brief update

For those who care, Rob and I are now staying at my parents' house for the rest of the week.  Nights two and three (two was in the hospital, three was our first night at home) were exceptionally challenging and since being induced on Friday morning I had only got about 5 hours of sleep total in four days. Night two was when they warned me baby would want to "cluster feed", which is apparently where they eat CONSTANTLY to help your milk come in (sorry if that's TMI) but anyway, Eli eats a LOT to begin with so  night two was brutal.  Night three was perhaps even more so because I was exhausted from the night/day/no real differentiation between at this point and at that point my milk HAD come in (sorry, TMI) and I was super super engorged (even more TMI) to the point where I couldn't even feed him anymore because he couldn't latch (TMI).  I was getting really scared and stressed because babies are supposed to eat every 2-3 hours and I couldn't feed him and he was screaming so by 5:30 AM Rob made me call my mom so she came and made Eli a formula bottle (which made me feel like a failure) and watched him while Rob and I got a few hours of sleep.  We then decided it might be a good idea to come out and stay with her so she could keep an eye on Eli at night and bring him in when he needed to eat.  OH!  And I did figure out how to take care of my problem from the lactation consultant at the pediatrician's office, who was AWESOME.  We are going back on Friday for follow up.  When we left the hospital Eli was down from his birth weight of 8 lbs 10 oz to 8 lbs 3 oz which was totally in the zone of normalcy, and he was up to 8 lbs 5 oz at his pediatrician's visit.  Another thing - Eli's pediatrician is the same pediatrician I had when I was a kid!  Which I think is crazy.  He is still the nicest doctor ever so I am glad for that.

Sorry if this post is sooo random, I don't have the energy to proofread but I wanted to let those who cared know what was up!  We will probably be here until Friday.

the outcome

So, after TWENTY-SEVEN hours of labor, I have a baby boy!  Eli Thomas Chipman was born on August 18, 2012 at 12:53 PM.  But even after 27 hours of labor, I only had to "labor down" for about 40 minutes and actually have to push for 10 minutes!  He was 22 1/4 inches long (whoa!) and 8 pounds 10 ounces.  He has a head of light brown hair that we are thinking will probably turn blonde.  He is squirmy and when he's awake he's pretty observant, taking in his surroundings.  He looks more like his dad right now which I guess is a good thing!  We have to stay in the hospital until tomorrow morning (I want to go home soooo bad) so I will have to share pictures when we get home and I can be bothered to upload them to my computer.  The worst thing I'm dealing with right now is the massive swelling in my legs.  I had basically tons of IVs and crap hooked up to my bloodstream for many many hours straight and as a result my entire legs and feet are so hideously swollen and uncomfortable.    Even after all of it, obviously it's totally worth it.  Babies are awesome.

From the hospital bed!

Do I have a baby yet?  No!

Have I been at the hospital for 8 hours?  Yes!

Did I almost pass out when they drew blood and inserted my IV?  Yes!  

I didn't get the first dose of Cytotec in until 10 AM, which means the second was scheduled for 4 PM.  However!  The nurse said I am contracting enough right now (every 2-3 minutes) that there is no need for the second dose.  So far in this whole eight hours I have dilated 1 cm, which she said is good, because a lot of times you don't dilate anything, at first.  So woo!  The nurse also said Eli has a really good heartbeat, and he's doing great!  

So...let's get this show on the road?

Also...try and get more than 4 hours of sleep when you go into be induced.  It's a little rough otherwise.  Also also...try and eat something.  I know you are supposed to have an empty stomach for labor so I didn't eat anything since last night.  Needless to say I feel like I'm starving to death.

tomorrow is the day!

So, I pretty much said it yesterday, but I am going ahead and going to be induced tomorrow morning at 8 AM.  My doctor says that Eli won't be here until at least 10 PM.  Hopefully that means by tomorrow night  we will have a baby to hold.  I am not really feeling nervous yet, more like really really ready to be done.  Rob brought me a present in the form of a book to read in the hospital that I already forget the title, which is the sequel to A Discovery of Witches, which is basically Twilight for middle aged women.  Even though I judge Twilight fans so hard, I have no shame in this series.  I hate myself.

i was really freaked out but now i'm only kind of freaked out

So, I was reviewing the admittance paper my doctor gave me for when we head to the hospital for the induction on Friday.  I noticed the reason he marked for my induction was Other - Polyhydramnios.  Since this was not anything I remembered reading about in my pregnancy books, I decided to look it up.  Poor choice.  I proceeded to freak out.  Then, I decided to research cytotec, the drug my doctor said he wants to use for the induction.  Even worse choice.  Oh. My. Gosh.  Nobody has ANYTHING good to say about cytotec on the internet.  It was a pretty emotional morning as I called my doctor's office to try and figure out more about the drug.  I started crying on the phone, which is something that I do not do, and it was both embarrassing and frustrating because the lady they put me on the phone with was super annoying.

"Are you postdate?"
 "Well, yes.  By two days".  
"That's not good."
"Oookay...well I am just trying to learn more about cytotec." 
"Well a risk is that it can lower your fluid"
"Well, I'm having an induction in part because I have too much fluid."
"Oooh..polyhydramnios.  Yep, you do.  That's not good either."
"Oookay, well I just want to talk about cytotec and if there are any other options.  I've just been doing some research and not reading anything good.  I didn't know it wasn't FDA approved for labor induction."
"Hmm...well I will talk to Dr. Thress about your concerns and have him call you back, or I can ask him your questions and call you back."
"Oookay."

Well, that phone call was incredibly frustrating.  She obviously didn't know anything about me and wasn't doing anything to help me out or prevent me from freaking out.  I am thinking the polyhydramnios my doctor diagnosed me with was mostly for a reason to get induced.  I am assuming if he thought it was serious he would have made me be induced, and not asked me "what I wanted to do".  Also I read that about 2/3 of cases don't have a determinable reason for a woman has too much amniotic fluid but for the reasons they do know it is...not good, to put it that way.  If my doctor thought I was in the 1/3, he would have ordered more testing, right?  I really am not worried about the polyhydramnios.

Anyway, my doctor (thankfully) called me back a little later and I asked him to explain how cytotec worked.  I mean, he told us yesterday it was a pill that is administered vaginally, in up to 4 doses.  If it doesn't work after that, they would use pitocin.  Anyway, the 4 doses are from one pill that is divided into 4 parts.  They are administered every 6 hours, and he told me labor usually takes 12-18 hours.  Obviously, if I am having contractions they will not use it.  He personally has been using it for 10 years and has never had any problems.  He also said it was much more effective than cervidil, which he said was a "waste of time".  So, despite my earlier freak out and allllll the negative things people have written (granted, most of the people didn't have actual experience with cytotec, they were just writing about something they had read or seen in a documentary, which in my opinion, is annoying and I don't care).  Anyway, that's what I got on cytotec.  I decided I'm not so scared of it anymore and I am going to go ahead with it.  I trust my doctor.

So...phew.  Had to get that out of my system, haha.

ultrasound

This is Eli's ultrasound from today.  I just think it's hilarious how bad he photographs already.  I've never seen blurrier, less decipher-able ultrasound shots than my own.  

one day over

Well Eli made it pretty obvious he wasn't interested in arriving on his due date.  I actually read an article this morning for late babies and the actual statistic is only FIVE percent of women have their babies on their due date, not fifteen.  Sheesh.

Last night my mom made the Scalini's eggplant parmigiana, as per recommended.  It was really, really good! I would definitely recommend it even if you aren't trying to give birth!  Much, much different than Olive Garden (haha).  After that, Rob, my mom, and I went on an approximately 3 mile walk around Batavia High School and my parents' neighborhood.  Well, Rob walked part of it then went inside because that poor kid has about a zillion bug bites on his legs.

My appointment today is at 12:30 and that's where we will have the biophysical exam and whatnot.  I am also going to ask them about induction, because honestly, I am starting to freak out.  If they are telling me this kid is around 9 lbs, I don't want to let him cook for another week, he's going to be enormous!!  The midwife told me they don't induce for convenience (before 41 weeks 3 days), but I feel if I'm past my due date and they have no problem telling me he's going to be that big, maybe I can reason with them.  WE'LL SEE.

I will update after the appointment.


NOW FOR THE UPDATE.

The biophysical ultrasound went well as far as looking like he's doing fine in there.  The tech had to spend a lot of time poking and prodding my stomach, and using this little contraption to try and get him to wake up to check his diaphragm.  He was zonked!  But after maybe 20 minutes he roused enough that she could indeed be sure his diaphragm was functioning (which we kind of knew was the case considering the number of times this kid has hiccups).

However, when I went back to meet my doctor, he said that fluid levels were high.  But also that it wasn't something I needed to be concerned about.  I guess according to him normally when women have high fluid levels they tend to go into premature labor, but I'm at the same place I was last week and at this point I am obviously past premature labor.  He also said my high fluid levels are part of why I look so big (thanks for that).  SO.  Per my request, we have scheduled an induction, and he made it for Friday at 8 AM!  So Eli, if you want to come naturally, best to get on it.  Mostly I wanted to be induced ASAP because Eli is still clocking in at an estimated larger than average size (which doesn't surprise) and I do not want to wait two more weeks, letting him pack it on, and then end up having to be induced anyway.  Just a fear I have.

So.  yes!  Induction scheduled for Friday.  We will most definitely be holding our baby by the end of the week.  Crazy!

DUE DATE

Well, the fact that I am here updating in itself suggests that I have not gone into labor.  Last night I had the mother of all false contractions and I got real excited for a minute (or several...it lasted a long time) thinking that maybe this was the start.  But...no.

Also I have killed [what I believe to be] THREE brown recluse spiders in our house in the past week.  Two in the basement, which makes sense, since it's dank, dark, and basically abandoned.  However, the third was  IN ELI'S ROOM.  ON HIS TOYS!  Not cool at all.  I was freaking out about it all last night.  In fact, I barely slept because I kept thinking brown recluse spiders were crawling all over me.  I am currently washing all of our bedding.

In the way of attempting to naturally induce labor, Rob and I went to eat Chinese for lunch.  I had him look up somewhere on Yelp because we tend to have bad luck with just arbitrarily selecting Chinese places to eat.  We ended up at Kung Food (hilarious) in Covington, and it was really good!  I even stepped up the spicy level a notch, haha.  Anyway, the restaurant is tiny, and we had to wait for a seat, but the people who work there were really nice and it has a cool atmosphere (there are Chinese or China-based movie posters hanging up everywhere and they constantly screen Kung Fu movies).  We will definitely go back there.

Tonight we're going to my mom's to have eggplant parmigiana.  Thankfully she went and bought all the stuff to make it because guess what I don't feel like doing.  I'm going to go on a long walk tonight and if labor hasn't started, I will proceed to go on long walks every day until it decides to begin.

Umm..what else can I say?  Eli's crib skirt came in the mail today.  That is probably the last thing I'm going to buy for his nursery for awhile, until I come across the perfect bookcase.

Well I guess I am going to go continue to clean and vacuum everything (scanning the house for spiderwebs, no more spiders pleeeease) and finish up the laundry and hope baby boy comes soon!!!

1 day?

Welp, tomorrow is my due date.  I haven't been having any real contractions so I don't know if we're quite on the path for a right-on-schedule birth.  But I'm pretty sure I read that only like 15% of women or something like that have their babies on their due date.  So there's that.

Today Rob and I went to our church's picnic and hung out for a bit, before returning home.  We then proceeded to nap until 7:15.  Gross.  I hate waking up when the sun is setting and the groggy feeling that accompanies it.  

That said, I don't really have anything else to say.  Other than I'm wayyyy past done with being pregnant, and I want to be holding a baby in my arms rather than wearing him like a belt.  Just saying.

2 days?

Today I thought I would share bits of Eli's nursery, which is sill unfinished by the way, but is likely to remain this way for the first few months of his life.

This is his crib (duh).  I ordered a crib skirt today; originally I was going to pass on that but it looks a little too unfinished, I guess.  Also we decided to hang a map over his bed, as you can obviously see.

My sweet cousin Hannah just returned from an internship in Cambodia, where she worked with women and girls to keep them out of the sex industry.  She brought back these two balls for Eli, handmade in a store set up by her organization that employs these women.

This is appropriate to share because it is the only thing Rob has selected for our child.

And there's those horse prints finally framed and hanging.  As you can see, I did in fact not paint the walls to accommodate.  Work is too much work.

Eli gets to have his dad's baby quilt.  It hangs on his bed and conveniently matches the colors in the room.

And here is his closet, already packed full and still without a door.  We're working on it.

He already has lots of toys!  I was unwrapping a lot of the rattles and noisy baby toys (which are underneath the stuffed animals) and Simon was baffled as to why all this rattly, squeaky things were NOT for him.  I have a feeling Eli and Simon are going to share a lot of toys, much to my dismay.

I also bequeathed to Eli my books from my children's lit class in college.  HTML for Babies and Oh, the Thinks You Can Think were not part of the course.  Those were in Rob's "dad gifts" I gave him a month back.  Next on the list: bookshelf.

I decided to take a picture of the new boppy cover because I think it's reeeal cute.

Here is his wardrobe.  It's actually really ancient, my mom did a lot of work trying to restore it.  Previously it lived in the upstairs of my grandparents' house.  My grandpa has been a huge collector of antiques (especially furniture and dishes, but not limited to anything) over the years and they have SOMUCHSTUFF and he and my grandma have recently been trying to disperse it through the family so that is why Eli has so much stuff from his great grandparents :)

Here's the current view when you look into his room from the door.  Underneath that window is where I want to put a bookcase.

Here is the view from Rob's side of the room. That lamp will be gone when we have somewhere else to put it, like Rob's pending office in the basement.

And here's to prove Rob hasn't moved out yet.  He's just compacting :)  The rocking chair will be in this general area when it's cleared out.

AND THAT'S THE GRAND TOUR.

Rob did take me on a date last night for eggplant parmigiana.  We went to Olive Garden, haha.  I'm not saying it was the food, but I never had so many Braxton-Hicks as I did yesterday after eating that.  I've decided to wait until his due date to make the recipe that was given to me since I really don't feel like eating it  again today.  Also, out of curiosity I looked up a due date calculator based on my cycle length (TMI, probably) and it is guessing my due date to be August 19.  So let's see who's right, my doctors or the internet.

On the to-do list today is laundry and some general tidying up around the house while Rob is having band practice with his friend Ethan from church.

3 days?

This morning when I woke up Rob said, "We're having date night and you're eating eggplant parmigiana."  Maybe he is ready for the baby to be here, too? :)

So far today I have just ran some minor errands, to Kroger and Target, but that was mainly just to have something to do outside of the house.  I've also kind of rearranged some things in his room, hoping to make the most of the space we have available.

All I feel like doing today, though, is eating donuts and listening to Regina Spektor.  It's probably a really good thing we don't have any donuts, and my brain forgot them when I went to Kroger.  However, I am listening to Regina Spektor station on Pandora while I try and finish up these thank-you cards.  I only have six left, which is a great thing considering as of two days ago I needed to write thirty-three.  Basically Eli has received a crap ton of stuff.  Which is awesome, except writing thank-you cards stresses me out because I want to sound sincere, since I am and everything, but after writing that many notes you can't help but sound redundant, which makes me feel insincere.

My mom also called me today to tell me she ordered us a rocking chair.  It's Amish made and very rustic looking, which I love.  She is also letting me have this retro mustard-colored (my favorrrrite) ottoman to use with it since dad doesn't want it in their living room because he thinks it's ugly.  Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

ALSO - still waiting to hear results from round three of Rob's interview process.  Honestly, I don't have a great feeling about it (the recruiters only feedback from the guy was that Rob was too casual in the interview), but Rob is still hopeful.  It's okay though, because he has been working full time for Entermedia since he got moved to part time?  What I'm saying, I guess, is that we will be fine but are still hoping he will find stable full-time employment sooner rather than later!

4 days?

Sooo...I am ready to have this baby.

My daily walks have definitely slowed down, as I just don't have the energy.  And yes, I know that if I actually went walking, it would give me energy, but I still can't drag myself to the gym to do it.  Because it's way too hot to walk outside.

I have been passing the time today by working on Eli's baby book, writing thank-you cards, and going to the chiropractor.  I hope to have all my thank-you cards written before he is born, which will please please please be by Monday.  I'm hopeful :)

It's my goal to do daily posts until he is here, but don't expect anything exciting because there's not too much you can really do when you're 39 weeks pregnant, except have a kid.

Also, I may have mentioned this before, but Eli has hiccups like CRAZY.  I remember reading about fetal hiccups and thinking, "That's just weird."  But my baby has them seriously every. single. day.  Definitely in the evening and usually once or twice throughout the day.  It's nuts.  This has been going on for months, too.  I wonder if he'll hiccup a lot once he's out?

1 week?

Okay, Rob and I just got back from *hopefully* my last prenatal visit.  However, I wouldn't hold my breath.    Although I actually made some progress this week!!  I am currently a "loose" 1 centimeter dilated and about 50 percent effaced.  Woohoo!  That is much more welcome news than my doctors saying things like, "Well, your cervix is hard as a rock".  Now I just need some contractions!  My midwife told me that she doesn't like to induce before 41 weeks and 3 days because statistically speaking, most women give birth by then.  So, if baby Eli hasn't come by Monday, on Tuesday I will go back in and have a biophysical ultrasound or whatever to check in on the little guy and make sure he's doing alright. After that, I will go in on Friday (assuming he still hasn't come) and then repeat that schedule for the next week. Also, I was told that Eli is going to be a very long baby (thanks for the genes, Rob) so he will probably be much more closer to 9 pounds rather than 8 pounds.   Let's just hope he doesn't come home all bruised and battered from being cramped in the womb like his pop.


ALSO.

I totally meant to write this yesterday but I was having some problems with uploading photos on blogger.  I had two showers this weekend.  A family/friends shower on Saturday was followed by a shower at church on Sunday morning.  Let me tell you, Eli really cleaned up.  I seriously have nowhere to put some of the stuff that was given to him.  We feel really loved and blessed to have been taken care of like this.