Quentin's day through Daddy's Eyes

By now you have all heard the story of the false alarm and the basic about Quentin's birth. We thought it might be fun to hear the story through my eyes. Okay, here goes. On Tuesday night, the night after the false alarm, I took my prescription pad and wrote Roo a Rx for "Stay Put Pills." Roo was told to take these until Daddy got home. Anywho, got up wicked early to get the train to Boston. About a 1/2 hour into the trip, Keira texts me. For the last few weeks, everytime I get a text (keep in mind 98% are from Keira) my heart rates jumps because I'm worried that she's going into labor or something has happened while I'm not at home. So I get the text, freak out mildly before reading it, then read it. She thinks she is having some contractions. I call her back right away to assess the situation. They did not seem regular and I was hoping it was gas (we had Chinese the night before). I told her I'd call her back from the airport to re-assess. I figured, I'm where she would be coming anyhow if we had to make a change in the plans. I called her and the contractions were going away. With 10 minutes to go before boardings, we decided I should get on the plane. I make it to Richmond, check out the house and start working on spackling the holes and loading the truck. Around 7PM I check my phone and see a text message from Keira, obligatory tachycardia ensues, and I then read the text: "No big deal, give me a call when you have the chance." Okay, so I immediately call BS on the casual nature of the text and call her back. She is having the dreaded very painful contractions associated with legit labor. I tell her to call MGH and see what they think she should do. At this point I am a nervous wreck. Each minute feels like an hour. I was expecting to hear a responce in about 10 minutes. Keira does not call for about 30 more minutes with the news that they think she should go to a local hospital for triage. If it's labor, go to MGH. I am even more nervous than before but forge on with what needs to be done at the house. The update from triage: negative signs of water being broken but 2 cm dilated. She said they would follow her for an hour or so and see what happens. My nervous wreck proceeded to near full out breakdown at this point. Do I stay or go or what?!!!! I decide to see what the verdict is after an hour. To pass the time and preparge, I run to walmart to get some painting supplies. As I am driving back, I get the news: 4cm dilated, Roo is coming, and will be born in Springfield, not MGH. At that point, I make the call to drive back to Massachusetts. Seeing as we dropped 500 quid on the truck I need to finish loading it. I had had plans of mowing the lawn so left a spot in the truck for the mower and a bunch of other crap that would go on top of it. It was now 1030PM. It took awhile to load everything and clean up the house in case someone wanted to see it, even if it was still covered with spackle. By 1230AM I was on the road. At this point I had been up 19 hours. The trip went well for the first few hours. The only problem being that i was driving a truck and felt like I was moving on molasses. I was trying with all my power to get there on time but at times felt like I was about to fall asleep at the wheel. While I wanted to be at the birth more than anything, I also didn't want to be dead. I tried to stop more frequently than I usually do and drink sugar and caffeine. THis strategy worked pretty well except that not only was I getting really tired behind the wheel, I had to pee alot. As I side note, I will never forget the tone in Keira's voice pre- and post-epidural. Words cannot capture the change, it was very sweet. I keep getting updates on the labor: 5cm, still 5 cm, still 5cm. At this point I think I've got a chance, she's stalled. I was torn because stalling gave me a better chance to make it, but severe stalling could lead to C-section which Keira really did not want. Anywho, I though my odds were improving. Then, she tells me they are going to try to help things along with pitocin. Damn biomedical science! Damn you to hell! I am now in New Jersey. Our usual route takes us through the Garden state parkway. I could not for the life of me remember if commercial trucks we allowed. It was also starting to get to be rush hour so I opted for the 287 which is a much longer way around New York. It was now 7AM and right when I thought I had beaten the fatigue, I would need to take a quick break. I took one break and thought it would be a quick on and off. It was not, I was soooo pissed than I didn't feel the need to stop anymore and forged on. I got an update, 7cm. At this point I was about 3 hours away. I was praying that she would be a below average woman and finish dilating at less than 1 cm per hour. I was clinging to that, it was all I had left. Then 20 minutes later, 10cm the baby is coming. I was advised to pull over so that I could experience the miracle of birth via speakerphone. So here I am in what I think was Bloomingdale, New Jersey, sitting in a truck telling my wife how pround I am of her while she delivers our son. While I wasn't able to be there, it was one of the greatest and most exciting moments of my life! I was really happy to be a daddy and happy that Quentin and Keira were okay. That was all that really mattered to me. THe rest of the trip seemed like an eternity. I powered through on pure joy for about 2 hours until I had to make a fatigue stop. I mis-read the sign back to the interstate and went on a goose chase for 20 minutes before making it back on the road. I was so pissed because all I wanted was to see my new son and my wife. My frustration got me the rest of the way. I got to the hospital and, well I had a huge smile and I picked up my son for the first time. It was special and it made the trauma for the previous 36 hours worth it just to see him!

quentin's first photos

obligatory naked baby pics included!

cheesy hospital photos

can be viewed here working on getting some more up and taking lots of new ones!

the story (and boy is it one for the ages)

home from the hospital so i can finally relay the whole crazy story. little quentin certainly has a flair for the dramatic. at 5:00 a.m. jeremy and my mom leave my parents' house in western mass to drive jeremy to the train station in worcester so that he can catch the 7:07 train to boston and be at logan airport by 10:30 for his flight to richmond. after tuesday's crazy false alarm, i woke up wednesday around 7 a.m. with mild contractions every 15-20 minutes. convinced that it was just roo playing with me again i ignored them and waited for them to just go away. and they did. by 11 a.m. i was contraction-free. i figured there was no reason to alarm jeremy - i wanted to make sure he got on the plane to close out things in richmond once and for all. i kept on working, reviewing some documents for work and doing email just like any other day. but then around 6 p.m. the contractions returned with a vengeance. figuring they'd be gone in an hour or two just like the morning edition i tried my best to ignore them despite the ever increasing pain. but by 8:30 p.m. they had not gone away. i decided to nonchalantly text message jeremy to have him call me. i didn't want to alarm him and send him into a frantic drive home with a half-packed rental moving truck. i was CONVINCED it was just another roo prank, though a little worried because these contractions were the worst pain i had ever experienced in my life. we decided i should call the 24-hour on-call hotline for my boston doctor and see what they thought i should do. i called and spoke to the on-call physician. she said it could be early labor, but likely it was another false alarm. either way she wanted me to get checked out, but agreed that is was silly to drive all the way back to boston only to have it be another false alarm. she encouraged me to go to a hospital here to find out. that way if it was another roo joke we could be back home in 20 minutes. or if it was the real deal early labor, we could pack up and head for boston since labor usually takes a while for 1st time mommies. seemed like a pretty solid plan. the bag was still packed from the day before, though i hadn't had time to update its contents, pack up the finally correct "roo" bag, or do any of the other things i wanted to quickly check off my list. i didn't think it mattered anyway, i was sure i'd be coming right back home anyway. i got up to go grab my stuff and my mom and whoooooooosh. there it was. the big rush of water. guess my water finally broke. maybe it was time afterall. mom and i drove to mercy hospital in springfield, which ironically some random lady in babies r us told us was way better than the other hospitals in the area should roo want out in western mass. guess we needed that advice after all. after explaining the whole richmond/boston move and explaining why i was in springfield instead of either richmond or boston to like 6 different people, we got on with the same routine as the day before. nitrozine test, looking for ferning, etc. first test on wednesday - both negative. no explanation for the continued watery mucus. we'd repeat the test again in an hour. been down this road before! they did look to see how far dilated i was - 2 centimeters. but i could have been that way for days and not known it since mass general hadn't checked on tuesday. contractions continued this whole time, so i spent the hour staring at the water spots on the hospital triage room ceiling. an hour later, they ran both tests again. again both tests negative. the nurse had the on-call midwife come in to check me out. i was suddenly 4+ centimeters and in active labor. well how bout that. i have no clue when my water actually broke, or why it never showed on any of the tests they ran. i continue to be an enigma. there was probably not enough time to get me to boston so they got me admitted to the hospital there. i called jeremy and we tried to figure out what to do. at that point (11 p.m.) he was in richmond, in a half-packed house, with only a half-packed moving truck to drive. he had been up since 4 something in the morning and it would be an 8 hour drive at a minimum. even if he left immediately there was a high likelihood he wouldn't make it back in time. but we decided, this was roo, our first born. he had to at least try. he finished up a couple of quick things and got on the road by 12:30. i got set up in my room while he got on the road. i had already progressed to 5 centimeters so it was epidural time. life was damn good after that. i couldn't feel a thing. the next time they checked me, about 2 hours later i was still 5 centimeters. seems i had stalled after more speedy beginning. bad for labor, but good for jeremy's chances of getting there in time. unfortunately for jer, they started me on the pitocin to get me moving forward again. also unfortunately for him, he was exceedingly tired due to tuesday stress and wednesday's early start and moving activities. he had to stop often to prevent himself from falling asleep behind the wheel of a big yellow moving truck. i was 7 centimeters the next time they checked me and jeremy was in new jersey. he still had an outside shot. but they checked me again less than an hour later and i was 10 centimeters. it was go time. all hope was lost - daddy would not be present for roo's birth. the nurses had him pull of the road and had him on speaker phone in the delivery room so he could hear what was going on and could talk to me. it did not go as fast as we had hoped from there. unfortunately for me this time, my epidural had completely worn off and roo had a massive head to push through. i pushed for two hours before roo finally made it all the way out. (this is where it gets a bit graphic.) fun for me - one of the midwives took lots of excessively graphic photos of this for jeremy. when i finally got roo's massive noggin through, the cord was wrapped around his neck so they snipped it before he was completely out, splattering blood everywhere. quentin joseph rupon was born at 9:20 a.m. weighing in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces and measuring 20 1/4 inches. because of the cord thing, he didn't get to stay in the room with me for too long. they did the apgar tests (poor kid only got a 3 the first time due to the cord issue) and let me see him for about a minute before he was whisked away to the nursery to get started on IV fluids. i had a rough time pushing through the placenta, apparently because i had an extra fun 3-lobed one. the nurses were quite fascinated. i then got stitched from my awesome 2nd degree tears and thought maybe now i could get some rest. nope. that's when the endless parade a nurses, midwives, pediatricians, visitors, etc. started coming through. jeremy finally made it there around 2:30 and got to meet his son for the first time. yeah! more than 60 hours later i have yet to get more than 1 consecutive hour of sleep. there's more to type - adventures in breastfeeding, dangerously low hemoglobin levels for mommy, jeremy bullying a midwife... but i am way too tired to type any more. those can wait til tomorrow. i will also get my mom to email me some pics so i can get them up here asap! even after all of this, i heart roo.

Quentin Joseph Rupon

Roo made his debut today at 9:20AM weighing in at 7 lb 10 oz. Pictures and stories will be forthcoming :) Mommy and baby are both doing very well!

oh roo

so roo got us all worked up for nothing. what a little practical joker since last night jer and i told it like 100 times that it needed to stay put until daddy gets back from richmond. keira's recap of the past twelve hours (not for the weak of stomach!): i woke up at 3 a.m. feeling like i had to pee, not uncommon at all these days. but as soon as i stood up out of bed it was like a faucet flowing, like i was peeing in my pants with no control over it. at first i didn't think much of it really because roo has been camped out on my bladder for the past few days (gross, i know, but i'm prego - it happens!), but then i thought maybe my water had broken. i went to the bathroom, cleaned up, sniffed it (again gross, but all the books and the nurses said that you could tell the difference between pee and amniotic fluid by the smell.) i certainly couldn't tell what it was - didn't smell like pee but also didn't smell like clorox or bleach like they say amniotic fluid smells. they also say you can tell by color - pee is yellow and amniotic fluid is clear, but between pink underwear, black shorts, and a hot blue 1970's toilet i have no idea what color this stuff was. so i decided i was just incontinent and went back to bed. but then at 3:30, the whole thing happened again. felt like i had to pee, stood up, whoosh, fluid flowing. this time after cleaning myself up and repeating the completely inconclusive sniff test, i decided to get on the computer and see what "water breaking" is supposed to be like. i read a bunch of articles all saying essentially the same thing - it's not always the massive rush of fluid like on tv, sometimes it is just a regular dribble. that could be me. they described an experiment where you put on a maxi pad, lay on your side for 30 minutes, and then stand up and see if you get wet (sounds kinda like what i already did on my own, but i decided to give it a try.) this is about when i got jer up (4 a.m.) because i had to turn on the bedroom light to find another dry pair of underwear. he was sleepy but stayed awake with me for the 30 minutes. not surprisingly when i stood up 30 minutes later, another whoosh. and this time it was sort of pinkish in color. we then repeated it again just to be sure. jer decided it was time to call the 24-hour baby hotline at the hospital. i didn't want to because i didn't want to admit that it might be time, but he totally made the right decision. he called while i got cleaned up again. this second time i noticed that the fluid still had a pinkish tinge to it and there was some bloody mucusy stuff in there. i was now on board with the plan - this could be the ol' bloody show. while i quickly showered and packed a hospital bag, jeremy started to rebook his flight and the uhaul type truck we had rented for tomorrow. (remember there's still stuff in our house in richmond, so the plan was for jer to fly down during his vacation, load up a truck, and drive it back up here.) he easily got the flight rebooked online but had to wait a bit for the truck since they were not open at 5 a.m. jer called them from the road a little while later and switched the truck to next week as well. we also realized what a mess we are - we have a lot on our to-do lists like pack hospital bag, wash baby clothes, make sure there's gas in the car, etc. - none of it done! but by 6:30 we were on the road to boston. that's around the same time i started having little tiny contractions. not too painful - felt like a cramp or gas pain - that would last about 30-60 seconds each, but they continued like clockwork, every 15 minutes until we got to the hospital at 9. we thought for sure this was it. we got checked in at the triage part of labor and delivery. they hooked me up to monitors to measure roo's heartbeat and my contractions. roo was chugging right along and i had a couple more small contractions but they basically stopped as soon as we got there. they did the tests jeremy described and didn't quite know what to make of me since they could see the copious amounts of watery mucusy stuff coming out but no evidence that it was amniotic fluid. as the midwife said, i'm an enigma. :) once the ultrasound proved that my water did not break, the doctor ok-ed us to go home and said that the leakage is probably the mucus plug breaking down. it's just really watery for some weird reason. enigma :) so no roo today, but i bet soon. it was good to have a dry run because now i am definitely motivated to check all those things off the to-do list. and next time hopefully we'll remember to bring the camera! so we're now back in western mass. i'm taking it super easy. jeremy switched his flight and the truck back to tomorrow, so seriously roo... STAY PUT!

False Alarm! Roo = Enigma

Well, we are heading home. Our situation was called an enigma by the midwife because the nitrazine test was negative but she did show some ferning. For those who don't know, ferning is a test where they put the fluid on a slide, let it dry, and due to the chemical nature of amniotic fluid it looks like a fern under the microscope. The nitrazine test is basically pH paper, if it turns blue its amniotic fluid. They did both twice: nitrazine negative twice, ferning was less than convincing hence the enigma. They did an ultrasound which showed plenty of fluid. So that's a wrap from MGH today.

Update: 10:30AM

Well, it seems as if our child may be a prankster. The fluid does not appear to be amniotic in nature and they don't seem to think she is actively contracting. Anywho, we were told to go for a walk and check back in an hour or so. We'll keep you updated!

Breaking News

Well, it looks like Roo is really excited to meet everyone. It appears as if Keira's membranes are rupturing. We are currently packing up and head to Mass General. We will keep everyone posted!!!

Offer Accepted!!

We received our first piece of good news today, our offer was accepted! Our offer was apparently less than the other offer but they felt more comfortable with our offer and realtor. So we have a place to live!!! Here is the link. It's a cape house so it's actually bigger than it looks but its on a nice piece of land. We finally have a place to take the baby home to :)

our house!

We Made an Offer!

Well, we went back to the Hanson house today and still liked it. Our realtor and Keira's Aunt Lois both thought it was a good house. We were all planned to go ahead with an offer this week when our realtor called and told us there was a verbal offer that had been accepted by the seller pending a written offer today. For reasons I am not sure of, our realtor called to tell us that they would present both offfers to the seller tomorrow. So, we made our offer and just faxed it to the realtor. Keep your fingers crossed! We'll let everyone know how it goes tomorrow!

kiwi addendum

jeremy captured peg pretty good but neglected to tell you all about the best part of last sunday's real estate search... with our new price range in hand, we started looking for suitable houses that we could afford. we compiled a list and discovered that one of the early faves was having an open house on saturday. i was in western mass at my parents' house, but jeremy was down near boston still. so he went to check it out with my aunt. it's a huge house, with a decent yard, and in our price range. it's also a giant sty. you see, the people who live there have 6 kids, well, 7 if you count their japanese foreign exchange student ranging in age from 12 to 8 months. there is crap everywhere as you can imagine with all those kids. it could be a very good house underneath it all, or it could be a structural nightmare - really hard to tell with all the crap. so jeremy wanted me to see it on sunday when i came down. he scheduled a showing with the sellers' real estate agent for early on sunday. we felt guilty kicking the whole family out but heck, we've been playing this game with our richmond house showings. that's what you have to do to sell your house - all part of the game. we got there a bit early, and knowing what it's like (frantic last minute cleaning, making sure everything is perfect, trying to get out in time) we decided to cruise the neighborhood for a bit. we came back a few minutes after our scheduled showing and all the same cars were still there. we figured we must have screwed up the time or something so jeremy called their agent and made sure we were still on. she said she was in the house waiting for us, as was the ENTIRE FAMILY. i guess they don't feel the need to vacate the premises for showings (or clean! - eek!) we toured the house with a new strange child peering at us in each room. it was seriously creepy and made it hard to ask questions and point out flaws. it was really quite uncomfortable. and creepy. we decided we really liked the house in general, the location is quite good, and the price is awesome. but it is also a serious risk - what exactly is lurking beneath all that crap?!?!!? the bathrooms were atrocious and we have a feeling that those are the least of that house's problems. immediately following the creepy kid house we went on the peg journey jeremy discussed before. peg was a nice lady and was probably a really good realtor before technology sped by her and swallowed her whole. can you imagine - a realtor with no cell phone??? as jeremy mentioned, we really liked one of the houses in hanson. it's smaller than we want (25% smaller than our current house), doesn't have a fence for the dogs, and is a bit more of a commute for jeremy. on the plus side, it has enough rooms, a full cellar, almost a whole acre, and the best part - central air conditioning - a rarity in houses up here, especially those in our new price range!! we debated for quite a bit between the risky, creepy house and this one, eventually deciding that the creepy house was just too much of a gamble. it could be fun to make it into a nice house, but who knows how much that might end up costing. if we weren't about to be paying two mortgages for an undetermined amount of time, we might take the risk since the house has so much potential, but without knowing when the dual mortgage situation will end, it's just not a risk we can take with a roo so imminent. can't risk a money pit (awesome movie, by the way!) so while saddened that our richmond house continues to be the bane of our existence, we were both quite happy with the new choice and ready to pursue it. yeah! but... that's when our richmond realtor calls us. he called us late tuesday night as we were driving back to western mass to let us know that he was expecting an offer from the 12-minute showing lady the next day. we were ecstatic, but tried to remain calm. there's a big difference between expecting an offer and having one in hand. but there was light at the end of the tunnel. woo hoo. we might even be able to expand the budget for a new house and get more of what we want! all day wednesday we waited for a call. nothing. when we finally got in touch with our realtor we learned that her agent had written up an offer and handed it off to her to review before they submitted it. and apparently that's where it is stalled (and continues to be 5 days later.) we do not get this lady. either you want to put in an offer on a house or you don't. i'm 9 months pregnant dammit - i can't handle this kind of stress. either put in the offer or stop wasting our time (and getting our hopes up!) every time jeremy's cell phone rings we hope it's the realtor with good news, but it never is. so now a week later, we've made no more progress towards buying a cheaper house because we got caught up in the prospect of a bigger budget. but we have come to the realization that 12-minute lady's torture may be endless or she may just walk away entirely. with roo so close, we have decided we might as well go ahead with plan C (or whatever plan it is we're on now) and just buy the cheaper house, ignoring what may or may not be happening with our cursed richmond abode. heck if it does sell, we'll have a lot more money to put in savings or do home improvements with. so tomorrow morning we're going to see the house in hanson again, hoping we still like it. if so, i guess we'll start things in motion to get an offer in and take it from there. it would be so nice to not be homeless when roo is born!

Real Estate Search

Hello all! Well Roo is rapidly approaching and we still don't have a place to call our own yet. The state of Massachusetts is the only state in the country with a decreasing population. I now know why! It is hard to move here. Anywho, the original plan was our house would sell quickly and we would buy a house up here and everything would be set by the time the baby came. Well, we all know that didn't happen. Plan B was to rent an apartment. I searched around for places with flexible leases etc. Found one that looked good. On Saturday the rent was ~1300 per month. I went back on Wednesday to fill out the application and the rent was now ~1550 per month. I told them to take the application turn it side ways and well most you know how the rest of that goes. I then started looking in the local paper for places thinking that a non-corporate landlord may be more willing to let us have the dogs. I literally called about 20 places and they had one of two answers: 1) No pets or 2) since you are having a baby, we can't rent because the place has lead paint. So we threw in the towel on renting. I called some mortgage folks and found a price range where we could buy and carry our mortgage down in Richmond. However, we need to move fast because we would like to have something lined up before the baby is born. Anywho, I frantically tried to use online requests for showings last Friday. By Saturday morning I hadn't heard anything. In a panic I called a real estate agent thinking they may have better luck arranging showings with short notice. That's how we met Peg. Peg was something else but to her credit she got 5 showings scheduled! So we pull up to the first house. The driveway was full of cars so we were worried about that the owners were still home. So we tried to call Peg. Well, Peg doesn't have a cell phone! Not sure how that is possible but it was. We sat there for 15 minutes before someone came out and I went up and said "Are you Peg?" It indeed was Peg. We were in front of the house and she didn't notice us nor did she keep an eye for us. Right away we knew Peg was gonna be awesome! Went through the house and were heading to the next one. Peg said to give her a few minutes b/c she has a hard time programming her GPS with her vision. After another 5 minutes, Peg came up to us and said she couldn't find the address on our GPS and asked if we could put it into ours. Ours worked fine so the agent followed us to the next house. She would follow us to two more houses that afternoon b/c she couldn't find it in her GPS. Peg also did not schedule 2 houses because she felt we would not like them. Thanks Peg, good work. To her credit she was right about one of them. Actually, one house she could not get in touch with the other agent so we did a drive by. On paper, this house looked like a steal. Now it did mention it would be good for a professional's office. So we plug in the address into the old TomTom and check it out. She tells us we have reached our destination and we're like what's going on all we see are two used car lots. And there it was sandwiched between two used car lots. A beautiful home that you would be crazy to buy. Well, long story short, the house we liked best is in Hanson, MA. It's 30 miles from Boston. It will take some commuting but I will do whatever I need to to have my family together! Talk to yous later! PS: RIP Skip Prosser :( Very tragic news for all those associated with Wake Forest. We'll miss you Skip!

the looks i get

meant to include this as part of the last post... jeremy and i went to the mall last night to buy the extra car seat base. i must look like a complete freak or something because people seriously gawk at me. there was this family walking through target and i watched their two little girls' heads just turn and follow me, their eyes totally fixated on me and my massive belly. i also get a lot of really sympathetic looks from the mommies pushing their little ones in strollers. then i ran into this same lady several times in another store. she declared that roo is a girl and is coming out much sooner than 4 weeks. good to know, random christmas tree shops shopper. thanks. :)

36 weeks

so close. at the end of this week, we are full term!!! also this week, we get a recap of the various stages of labor. roo is definitely dropping and i have the weird pressure on my lower abdomen. doesn't hurt, just feels weird and a bit uncomfortable. from babycenter.com: Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is a little under 19 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement. At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly. Now that your baby is taking up so much room, you may have trouble eating a normal-size meal. Smaller, more frequent meals are often easier to handle at this point. On the other hand, you may have less heartburn and have an easier time breathing when your baby starts to "drop" down into your pelvis. This process — called lightening — often happens a few weeks before labor if this is your first baby. (If you've given birth before, it probably won't happen before labor starts.) If your baby drops, you may also feel increased pressure in your lower abdomen, which may make walking increasingly uncomfortable, and you'll probably find that you have to pee even more frequently. If your baby is very low, you may feel lots of vaginal pressure and discomfort as well. Some women say it feels as though they're carrying a bowling ball between their legs! You might also notice that your Braxton Hicks contractions are more frequent now. Be sure to review the signs of labor with your practitioner and find out when she wants to hear from you. As a general rule, if you're full-term, your pregnancy is uncomplicated, and your water hasn't broken, she'll probably have you wait to come in until you've been having contractions that last for about a minute each, coming every five minutes for an hour. Of course, you'll want to call right away if you notice a decrease in your baby's activity or think you're leaking amniotic fluid, or if you have any vaginal bleeding, fever, a severe or persistent headache, constant abdominal pain, or vision changes. For first-time moms, labor takes an average of 15 hours, though it's not uncommon to last more than 20. (For women who've previously had a vaginal birth, it takes eight hours, on average.) The process of labor and birth is divided into three main stages. Here are the highlights on how childbirth progresses: First stage The first stage begins when you start having contractions that progressively dilate and efface your cervix and it ends when your cervix is fully dilated. This stage is divided into two phases, early and active labor. It can be tricky to determine exactly when early labor starts. That's because early labor contractions are sometimes hard to distinguish from the inefficient Braxton Hicks contractions that you may have been feeling for some time. Unless there are complications or your midwife or doctor has advised you otherwise, expect to sit out most of your early labor at home. (Be sure, though, to check in with your caregiver to make certain.) Early labor ends when your cervix is about 4 centimeters dilated and your progress starts to speed up. At this point, you enter what's known as the active phase of labor. Your contractions become more frequent, longer, and stronger. The last part of the active phase — when your cervix dilates from 8 to 10 centimeters — is called the transition period because it marks the transition to the second stage of labor. This is the most intense part of the first stage, with contractions that are usually very strong, coming about every two and a half to three minutes and lasting a minute or more. Second stage Once your cervix is fully dilated, the second stage of labor begins: the final descent and birth of your baby. This is the "pushing" stage of labor, and it can last anywhere from minutes to a few hours. (It's likely to be quicker if you've previously given birth vaginally.) Your baby's head will continue to advance with each push until it "crowns" — the term used to describe the time when the widest part of your baby's head is finally visible. After your baby's head comes out, your midwife or doctor will suction his mouth and nose, and feel around his neck for the umbilical cord. His head then turns to the side as his shoulders rotate inside the pelvis to get into position for their exit. With the next contraction, you'll be coached to push as his shoulders deliver, one at a time, followed by the rest of his body. You may feel a wide range of emotions now: euphoria, awe, pride, disbelief, excitement (to name a few), and, of course, intense relief that it's all over. Exhausted as you may be, you'll also probably feel a burst of energy, and any thoughts of sleep will vanish for the time being. Stage three The final stage of labor begins immediately after the birth of your baby and ends with the delivery of your placenta. The contractions in the third stage are relatively mild.

roo's bag

thought i was going to be able to start packing my hospital bag today. the ups man just delivered the lands end bag i had ordered. but i opened it up and they didn't monogram it the way i had asked. i wanted it to say "roo" but they capitalized the "r" so it says "Roo". not really wrong, but not what i wanted. instead of being non-assertive me and just keeping it as it is, i called them up :) they are making me a new one with all lowercase and i just have to drop the incorrect one off at sears. pretty convenient since we need to go to the mall anyway. we're going to use another of our babies r us gift cards to buy a second base for our roo carrier / car seat thingy. then we're going to set up an appointment at the police station to help us get them installed into our cars properly!

i pee good

my 24-hour urine test checked out ok. i don't have to be admitted today! woo hoo!

admit me???

had a doctor's appointment this morning. i handed over my jug of pee, which i was happy to see go. when you have to pee 12 billion times a day it is no fun to lug a pee-catcher and a cooler with jug of pee around every where with you. plus since we were out and about yesterday, i had to set up the pee-catching contraption in a gas station bathroom - gross. we started with a non-stress test today since i guess i have now been classified as a high(er?) risk pregnancy with the high blood pressure. we passed with no issues - yeah roo! found these which explain what's going on pretty well: i either have gestational hypertension or preeclampsia. got my first vitamin b12 shot - that will be fun to do monthly! blood pressure was a little high today, but at least the new doctor finally(!!!) has my records from richmond so she can see for herself that my bp was fine prior to getting up here to boston! the results from the 24-hour urine test should be back some time this afternoon. fingers crossed for good news, because there were several mentions of admitting me today if there was still protein in the pee. don't feel ready to be checked into the hospital yet. haven't even started packing my hospital bag, haven't washed roo's potential coming-home-from-the-hospital outfits, haven't installed the car seat bases... i did order a fun new bag from lands end to use as a hospital bag and had it monogrammed "roo" :) hopefully it gets here before roo does!!! so now just anxiously awaiting the phone call about my pee :)

35 weeks

5 weeks to go! (hopefully not just 2!!!) roo definitely doesn't spin and roll as much but it is still very, very active. it also gets the hiccups 2-3 times a day. what a crazy feeling! from babycenter.com: Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that he's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 pounds plus. Because it's so snug in your womb, he isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times he kicks should remain about the same. His kidneys are fully developed now, and his liver can process some waste products. Most of his basic physical development is now complete — he'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight. Your uterus — which was entirely tucked away inside your pelvis when you conceived — now reaches up under your rib cage. If you could peek inside your womb, you'd see that there's more baby than amniotic fluid in there now. Your ballooning uterus is crowding your other internal organs, too, which is why you probably have to urinate more often and may be dealing with heartburn and other gastrointestinal distress. If you're not grappling with these annoyances, you're one of the lucky few. no new news on our richmond house so we're enacting plan b - looking for and buying a significantly cheaper house further from boston. we're figured out our new price range. and we've made a list up 8-10 potential contenders in the towns of abington, east bridgewater, hanson, weymouth, and whitman which are pretty far out of the city but have access to commuter rail. jeremy is trying to get us appointments to see them this weekend and hopefully we'll find something and be able to pull the trigger soon - like within a week! it would be really nice to be semi-settled into a house before roo comes! or at least knowing that we'll be settled soon!

back to the doc (and more key problems)

yesterday was a fun day. wicked fun. i had my 2nd appointment of the week down in boston to check in on the blood pressure and get an ultrasound to see how huge roo is. we planned for me to drive to framingham, catch the commuter rail, and meet jeremy at south station in boston to head to the hospital together. good plan in theory, except that 1) framingham sucks; 2) i absolutely hate traveling alone in unfamiliar territory; 3) framingham really sucks. i left my parents' house a little after 10 a.m. which should have been plenty of time to get to framingham to catch the 12:15 train into boston. with the help of the trusty tom-tom (god i love that thing!) i easily found the train station in framingham, arriving there right at noon. (do not ever attempt to find that train station without a gps or really solid directions. you will fail.) so i got there in plenty of time except that there was absolutely nowhere to park. the lot at the station (all of like 60 spots) was long since filled with commuters. street parking was not allowed anywhere and all the other lots required a permit. after driving up and down the street several times hoping for some magic answer, i decided to choose the seemingly most-legal place to park - on the street in front of a church several blocks away from the station. would god really let them tow the car of an 8-month pregnant lady? i hoped not. i hoofed it up to the station all the while thinking about how much i hoped it would be light outside when i got back because framingham is not a nice place, especially around the train station. i got to the station and found a train sitting there. but there was no indication whatsoever that this was my train. no signs, no people, no ticket booth, nothing. just a train sitting there. it was like a freaking ghost town. i walked the length of the platform twice hoping for some sort of something to let me know that i should get on this train, all the while cursing jeremy for making his pregnant wife with high blood pressure endure such unnecessary stress :) well i got my sign. at 12:15 on the dot it left. without me on it. the next train wasn't until 2 and wouldn't get me to boston in time for my appointment. my now too-frequent tears starting falling. i called jeremy to yell at him because it's obviously all his fault ;) and then hung up on him because i was so mad :) once i settled down, i re-programmed the tom-tom to take me into boston, directly to the hospital. i was certain that this was a terrible, terrible idea given my aforementioned hatred of traveling when i don't know where i am. throw in crazy boston drivers and i assumed i was just doomed. amazingly i made it there in no time, without any issues. jeremy hopped in the car at the entrance to the parking garage. i decided to forgive him since it all worked out ok :) we parked right there at the hospital figuring it would cost at least $30, but we didn't really care at that point. we had some time to kill so we grabbed some lunch at the nearby bagel place and sat there until it was time for my appointment. i checked in for my appointment and was informed we'd start with the ultrasound and then see the doctor - a different one today, because monday's doctor does not work on thursdays. the ultrasound nurse was very nice but used an exceptional amount of that goo they put all over your belly. i was soaked and so were my clothes! she kept saying how she couldn't really see anything because ultrasounds are pretty useless at this stage of pregnancy because of how little space the little buggers have in there (so why are we doing one??? i'll never understand.) we couldn't see much of anything, but we did see a couple of random fingers and part of roo's face. we couldn't see the whole face because roo insisted on keeping its hands in front of its face the entire time. everything else just kinda looked like pictures of the surface of the moon. as far as they could tell though, everything looked normal. on the way in to the doctor part of the visit, we ran in to the nurse who said that they still haven't received my records. seriously - what is the hold up??? all the records at the old doctor's office were digital - they carry laptops from room to room and it all goes directly into the system. how hard is it to hit print, and then fax them???? sigh. need to harass them today. we got the scary consent forms that i need to sign for labor and delivery, as well as the roughly 8-page massachusetts state birth certificate request form to fill out. as usual, stepped on the scale, peed in a cup, and had my blood pressure taken. my bp was much much better (phew - i was worried based on the framingham start of my day!) but there was protein in my pee (not good - potential sign of preeclampsia.) as a result i need to pee in a jug for 24 straight hours (and keep it refrigerated - ewww) and then bring my wonderful collection back to my appointment on monday. i'm sure people on the train in will think i'm thoroughly sane, carrying a big jug of my own pee :) if they confirm preeclampsia, roo will have to come out in 2 weeks (eeek - 2 weeks - so not ready!) otherwise, they'll just monitor my bp and let me go as long as possible. so i get to go in weekly from here on out. oh - and i'm still hurting in the vitamin b12 department, so i now have to get a monthly shot of b12 straight to the ass. loads of fun. mass ob/gyns are just overflowing with good news for me :) fortunately, despite all this, i actually feel just fine - pretty comfortable actually considering the size of my feet and how damn pregnant i am! to avoid another episode of tears, jeremy decided to drive me out of boston. (good husband!) the plan was to drive in to the train station in worcester, about halfway between boston and my parents' house. i would drive myself home from there and jeremy would catch a train back to boston. despite leaving boston at 4:45 we got out of the city rather easily and got to worcester without a problem. jeremy hopped out and i got on the road back to westfield. made it home with no problems, pulled into the driveway, reached for the keys to shut my car off, and realized... CRAP. they were jeremy's keys. the ones he needed to pick up his own car at the train station in boston. i quickly called him and before i could even tell him our newest issue, it dawned on him too. he got off the train at the next stop so we could formulate a plan. seriously - how did we ever exist without cell phones???? after researching various train and t schedules, we decided that the best plan was for him to hop on the train back to worcester and i would drive back, pick him up, and bring him back to my parents' house for the night. and of course then bring him back to the worcester train station first thing in the morning so he could get to his 9 a.m. meeting in boston. fortunately, everything went smoothly from there and as of 8 a.m. this morning, we're all back where we're supposed to be :) crazy. absolutely crazy.