in case you were wondering..

.. the baby is doing great! Here is one of her first smiles from a few weeks ago:

This is her standard sleeping pose:

Here's a serious face:

Mr. Foxy showing off his soothing skills:

The child was a colicky beast for a few weeks there, but now (at 3 mos.) she is pretty cool. I went back to work last week. I was a little panicky because the baby was not a fan of the bottle-drinking. She got the hang of it after a couple days. That is all. Just wanted to check in.

babydays are here again!

Because we had Waffle Girl at 36 weeks, the wait for my scheduled c-section at 39 weeks (six days ago) was a little nerve-wracking. This pregnancy was not high-risk in any way, but I kept thinking, "Can we get her out yet? I know she's ready! What if something goes wrong and we're too late?! Let's just get her out so we'll know she's safe!!" Okay, so I'm a little scarred by past experiences.

Well the day finally came, and we got to rescue our baby girl from the untold dangers of my womb! On Wednesday, October 6th, we welcomed an 8 lb. 9 oz., 20" little piece of heaven.

The c-section was about the same as last time, except that it took a little longer. They cut through my old scar using a cauterizing tool. The smell of burning flesh was gross and freaked me out for a moment there. When they scooped out my baby, the OB said "Wow, she's really mad!". She was yelling and looked like a PO'd little beastie. Getting stitched up took a long time. I'm asthmatic and, even though I took my meds, I had a claustrophobic moment because the curtain was close to my face, there was a warming blanket too high up on my chest, and I felt like the table was tilting me head-down a little. I was panicking a bit, so Mr. Foxy distracted me and then the nurse brought my baby over for a kiss. *sigh*

I'm recovering okay and am happy to be home with the family. The baby doesn't have a blog pseudonym yet.. not to mention that I'm not sure where to go (and whether to go) with this infertility blog. Just wanted you to know that all is well with our (probably?) complete family and that I am so very happy!

updates, now in spanish!

Let me start with a quick 'Hola!' to the people of Latin America. This week I got my first blog hit from the Spanish-speaking world. (This is after dozens and dozens from Europe, Asia, Oceania, and even Africa.) Not only did someone from Venezuela pop over to my blog, but apparently they accessed the site via blog.spot's automatic translator. I had no idea! It seems that 'the infertile breeder' is also known as 'el criador infertiles'. So cool.

Here's what else is cool: Peaches and my brother had themselves a healthy baby boy this weekend! He is adorable and everyone is doing well. If we weren't already envious of a lady who got PG after 2 months off the pill.. get this - she went from the first real contractions to holding her little baby in about 8 hours. After a few hours of labor at home, they raced to the hospital (as instructed) once her contractions were 5 minutes apart. They had the baby within 45 minutes! No time for an epidural or anything. They're lucky they made it!

As for me, I'm at 37.5 weeks and hangin' on. One of my OBs realized that I'm 40 years old and so I need to come in twice a week for these non-stress tests (NST). You ladies under 35 don't need to get these, right? It's pretty nifty. You lounge in a recliner for ~20 minutes with two sensors strapped to your abdomen. One sensor tracks the baby's heart rate (see my printout below) and the second records any uterine contractions. Also, I push a button whenever I feel the baby move (vertical arrow on chart). What they want to see is your baby moving and then her heart rate going up temporarily after that. If the baby's not moving, or if her heart rate doesn't react to movement, then this is a sign of fetal distress. (Mine looks good.) The doc said that I was having a lot of small uterine contractions, but nothing major.. nothing I could feel. She did an internal exam and said that I'm not effaced or dilated at all, so we're holding steady.

So.. this week I'll be working at home and I have OB appointments on Tuesday and Friday. The following week I'll have a Monday appointment and then c-section on Wednesday. If we make it that far. Not that I'm having any signs of labor or anything -I'm just super huge. This week I measured 1-2 weeks ahead. I'm still skinny(ish), so I look like a thin woman with a basketball under her shirt. It's comical and really quite uncomfortable. We've located all the essential baby gear in the basement and today I washed Waffle Girl's newborn-sized clothes. We're ready anytime! Right?!

predictions anyone?

As I told you a while ago, my sister-in-law "Peaches" is expecting her first baby. Her due date is 2 weeks before ours, or 1 week before my 39wk c-section. For your amusement, here is a double baby bump pic (me on the left). This was taken when we were respectively 35 and 37 wks.

Most likely Peaches will deliver first. But then again.. her mother had both her babies at 41 weeks, not to mention that bump looks pretty high, right? Hee hee. In theory we could deliver the same week and our baby cousins would be virtual twins!

Speaking of twins, I'm excited to see what both babies will look like. My little Waffle Girl looks like Mr. Foxy. It would be nifty if girl #2 looked like me... in which case her cousin (gender as yet unknown) might take after my family, too, and they'd totally look alike! That would be a hoot.

So, what else is going on? Not a whole lot. I turned in my PhD thesis for formatting review and am waiting for comments. The reviewer lady is going to take a couple weeks to measure my margins, check the pagination, and other such thrilling details. Depending on how long the review takes and how many changes I need to make, this could all be done before baby comes.. or not. No big deal either way. The mental heavy lifting is all done and I can certainly adjust font size or whatever while I'm home with a newborn. Bring it, lady.

The weather has finally cooled off. I would loo-o-ove to go work in the garden, but I just don't have any energy and my belly gets all cramped up with the least exertion, so forget it! The edges between my lawn and flowerbeds are a total disaster.. to be dealt with in the spring.

The baby is moving a lot, which is great. I think she's kindof a goofball, though, 'cause she keeps pushing her little body off to the right side of my belly. I'm lounging around on the coach, looking at this ridiculous asymmetric bump, thinking "What is up with this crazy child?" And her recent tendency to elbow me in the colon is just weird and unnerving. Cut it out!

we did it!

I know my cyber friends are just dying to know, so here's the news: the fetus and I successfully defended my doctoral research this week. Sweet!

Here's how it went down. It's basically a two-hour process. First I had to give a presentation to my 5-professor dissertation committee and interested parties - other students, faculty, coworkers and friends are invited. After helping me set up, Mr. Foxy sat in front and managed to stay awake and appeared to be interested, bless his heart. Then during the 2nd hour, everyone else was kicked out and my committee asked me questions, made suggestions, and offered their critique. Then they kick me out to confer and decide whether I've passed or failed the examination. This only took a couple of minutes before they called me back in to shake my hand, call me "Dr." and put their signatures on the official paperwork. I had little doubt that I would pass, but it was still stressful.
Afterward, Mr. Foxy took me out to lunch at our go-to celebratory Thai restaurant. I thought we might be able to catch a movie and goof off in the afternoon, but the hubby had to leave for work. Waffle Girl was home with a sitter, so I opted to play hooky alone. I got myself an ice cream sundae and then went to a matinee of the movie "The Kids are All Right". It's a really well written and acted story about a lesbian couple whose two teenage kids track down their sperm-donor bio-dad.. drama and complications ensue. Unlike recent romantic comedies that treat DS-IUIs like a hilarious romp, this movie approached the subject with some maturity. Go out and see it if you get the chance.

So what has Waffle Girl accomplished lately? Not to be outdone by the rest of us, she got on board with potty training in a big way. I figured out that those diaper-like pull-ups don't give any motivation to use the potty. So I ordered a few pair of thick cotton training underpants. After two days of peeing herself and near-misses, it all clicked and Waffle Girl was yelling "I have to go!" and running to the potty like a champ. So the family has a diaper-free month ahead of us before baby #2 comes along, what with the random pooping and peeing.

As for my pregnancy, I'm feeling excellent. There have been a few indignities, though. I wanted to find some comfortable pumps to wear for a wedding last week - mine were all kindof tight. I had to bite the bullet and go up a size.. *gasp!* I bought some cute shoes in a size 10! That bummed me out. Even worse, it was time to get out the electric trimmer and tidy up my "lady garden", if you know what I mean. I'm sad to tell you that I can no longer see any of my bikini area and had to go entirely by feel. When I noticed a little drop of blood on the clipper, I knew that this was not going well. What's the old saying, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye."? Let's just say I was in danger of lobbing off something pretty important down there, so I quit while I was ahead.

Now I'm looking forward to a mellow September. I still need to make final edits and formatting changes on my dissertation, but that's all a formality. After this weekend the heat should finally be gone and perhaps I'll even spend a little time outdoors.

happy blogiversary to meeeee

With all the excitement lately, I almost spaced out on my blog's one year anniversary. Woo-hoo!



50 blog posts.. averaging about one per week. And culminating in pregnancy - third trimester already. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. :-p

Speaking of which, I had my 3rd trimester ultrasound this week - such are the perks of a geriatric pregnancy. Baby looks excellent. My BP is low and amniotic fluid looks good, so I'm glad there is no sign of an early delivery.

As for the dissertation.. my advisor had minimal comments on my 85% complete draft. So I finished 'er up and sent the full draft to my committee members on Tuesday. This gives them 2 weeks to review and comment before my big 8/25 defense. Did you notice that I'm still on schedule? Hells yeah.

Finally, just a random bit of weather craziness. A couple weeks ago we had a wild all-night rainstorm that dumped about 6 inches in our part of Chicago. Here's a picture of my little temporary pond. (now gone.) Stay cool, my cyber buddies!

ticker time

Hello my darling readers. Thank you for the encouraging comments about my letter to the Washington newspaper copied in my last post. I'm proud to report that they actually emailed me back to get more info (confirm my identity, etc.) and even sent a slightly edited version of the letter that was considered for publication. But, alas they didn't end up printing it. I officially gave up hope a few days ago. The points that I made needed to be said and echoed the thoughts of my many online IF friends. So, note to self: I should be quicker to respond the next time such an opportunity comes up.

Did you notice my new tickers? Yes, I've made a lot of progress on my dissertation and am tentatively scheduled to defend it on August 25th. So far I've written about 92 pages, including nearly 50 charts, tables and figures. Having recently finished the Methods and Results chapters, I still have to write Discussion and Conclusions. This is where the real magic (a.k.a. bullshit) comes in. Hee hee.

The second ticker is counting down to my baby girl's scheduled c-section on Oct. 6th. This week I saw Dr. Single-Thin-and-Neat and we went ahead and put it on the hospital calendar. Not that I'm such a crazy control freak lady, but my in-laws will be driving up from Texas so things must be planned. Now I'm living in fear of premature labor and the possibility that a derailed baby ticker will screw up my PhD ticker. Not that I have any risk factors or symptoms of early labor, but a gal's gotta be paranoid about something, right?

At 28 weeks PG, I'm still feeling okay, but starting to slow down and get more tired. I'm definitely more of an old pregnant lady than I was just 3 years ago with Waffle Girl. My upper abs feel sore in the latter part of the day and hurt like heck when I sneeze. My heels are suffering from the extra weight - I'm actually wearing my athletic sandals around the house 'cause I need the cushioning. The weather has been rough. Today was the first day in July that wasn't anywhere near 90 degrees. Here's hoping that August will be more tolerable. I'd hate to be an A/C-addicted couch potato all summer. What's the point of that if I can't swig a brew while I'm at it?!