Monthly Archives: October 2006

Spence in da house

Spencer Eliott arrived on Oct 29 at 1:01pm.
8 pounds, 2 oz and 20 inches of adorable little boy.


And we couldn’t be happier. We just got home from the hospital a bit ago and are recovering together. Photos tomorrow, I promise.

Trickle, trickle, GUSH

My water just broke. Wait, let me rephrase that. MY WATER JUST BROKE!!!

(The event occured at either 1:30 am or 2:30 am on Sunday morning — depending on when exactly we were supposed to set our clocks back that hour.)

I’m having a baby today. Holy crap. Wish me luck.

Tick tock, tick tock

I feel like a walking time bomb.

tick tock. tick tock.

Just waiting.

I think I’m having contractions though. But, the fact that I think I’m having contractions makes me question it. Everyone says you just know when you’re having contractions and I’m not sure.  But I just sat in an hour long meeting and wrote down the times when I felt the cramping sensation- 1:59, 2:15, 2:28, 2:45. Then I went for a walk and felt my 3:00 cramp. I see a pattern developing here, don’t you?

tick tock, tick tock.

Update: Right after I posted this, our office filled with a noxious smell and we were evacuated by the fire department. Somewhere in all the excitement I lost track of my contractions and they seem to have disappeared. But, I did get to go home early, so all is not lost.

3 is a good number, too

3… As in 3 centimeters dilated! And 80% effaced!

My doctor doesn’t show much emotion. But she actually seemed excited when she examined me. My cervix is low, baby’s head is in place, baby is measuring well. She said it looks like I’m going to have a great labor. Though she also told me to schedule another ultrasound for my due date, so nothing is definitely imminent.

And now I can hardly concentrate on work though I’m totally freaked out that I could have this baby any day now and need to get everything in order pronto!

Lucky 7’s?

At the ultrasound today, the tech estimated the baby’s weight to be 7 pounds, 7 ounces. She assured me this is perfectly within the normal weight range. Despite the assurances, that sounds big to me when you consider I could possibly be pregnant for 4 MORE WEEKS!

Oh, and Ian & I both thought we saw boy parts on the screen. But, the tech told us she’d tell us to close our eyes if she was going to give anything away. So, we are doubting ourselves now. (I also thought the baby was blowing bubbles and later found out my bubble was a hand, so clearly I am not qualified to make these observations.)

And I thought that was big???

Last night I was uploading photos from my recovery disks (yay for saved files!) onto my new computer. And, I had the brilliant idea of putting all my pregnancy photos in one place. One thing led to another and well, I ended up with this:

38 weeks on Vimeo

Two important things happened in the making of this video:

1. I laughed and laughed at the early photos (well really I was laughing at my own naivety) when I thought I looked pregnant. That first photo is from Japan when I was about 11 weeks pregnant. I was anxiously awaiting THE BELLY and the end of the "just looking chunky" phase. A month later my photos from Montauk show the wee beginnings of a belly, but NOTHING like the belly of today. Oh, I knew so little 20 weeks ago about the realities of the pregnant body.

2. The ultrasound photos made me cry. Seriously. They never did before. But even now when I see them for like the tenth time in last day, I still tear up. I guess this just proves what I already knew — I’m a big huge ball (quite literally) of emotions right now.

Behind the photos

So, the scary photos probably need some explanation – right?

We bought a Mac laptop yesterday and it comes with a built in camera and software called iPhotoBooth which provided us with hours of entertainment yesterday. I’m still figuring out my way around the Mac – things like iWordProcessing and iSpreadsheets will come later – but I’ve totally nailed the photo booth concept. The commercials are right – Macs totally have more fun than PCs.

When I wasn’t playing with my new toy, I was busy this weekend. I had ENERGY. Lots of energy. Nesting, perhaps? I ran errands, did laundry, cleaned, AND baked brownies. I went to yoga. I went to the movies (Marie Antionette – I loved, Ian HATED) and went out to dinner.

Today I’m tired just listing all those activities. Phew.

State of the Cervix

Were you feeling lucky when you woke up this morning? You should have since today is a special day. Today my dear blog reader, you get the first installment of "How’s my cervix?"

I’m afraid I have bad news to report. The cervix is closed up nice and tight. And my water has not broken despite some weird sensations I had overnight that gave me hope. In other words, no sign that baby is ready to make his debut. No relief in sight for me.

Mark your calendars: Wednesday is the "big" ultrasound to guess the weight of the baby. The ultrasound technician is just guessing, so why don’t you join in? Leave your guess as to the baby’s current weight in the comments section and we’ll see who comes closest to the ultrasound results.