More Pictures of the Birth Day

Disclaimer: Dan and I have never managed to have a camera with us for the birth of our children. So, this was our first birth with a working camera, and we tried to make up for past births by taking pictures of every thing and every body. Feel free to skip this post if the content is too boring :)

Here I am shortly after arriving at the Family Birth Center reception area. This was between contractions. I wanted to document my belly at its biggest:



Here I am in the triage room. They had just measured my cervix and told me I was an 8. Dan told me to put up 8 fingers and took this shot. I don't know why I look so happy...this must have been between contractions, too:



This is my anaesthesiologist (i.e. favorite person in the whole world). We waited for this shot until the epidural kicked in:



This is the doctor that delivered my baby. I had never met her before, but I liked her a lot. Dan had promised the boys a picture of the crochet hook they use to break my water, so here it is, moments before being put to work:



Thanks to the exquisite timing of Naomi's birth, Bug was able to be with us for the big event. The whole thing happened while all three of my older children were at school:



Here is Naomi's first photo op with her papa. She has been cleaned up and properly swaddled.



This is my labor & delivery nurse, Michele. She was the best:

Naomi's Birth: The Narrative

Eli, Adam, and Esther were all born well before their due dates. Eli was due June 21, born May 24; Adam was due November 11, born October 19; Esther was due May 31, born May 13. So Naomi was due December 6, but starting in the first week of November, I was wondering if she could be born any day. We made it through the time Eli would have been born, Adam would have been born, and then we got to November 18, the day Esther would have been born. On that day, it seemed to me that the baby dropped, but I thought my mind might be playing tricks on me since I knew it was the day Esther would have been born if she had had Naomi's due date. When Eli dropped (the day before he was born), I felt a distinct change from not being able to breathe well (before), to having to pee all the time (after). But throughout the pregnancy with Naomi she felt low, like most of the pressure was down under, not up in my ribs. On the 18th, however, the pressure down low seemed to increase noticeably. Could this be a sign that she is coming? I thought to myself all that day.

In the night, I was awakened a few times by contractions, but went right back to sleep.

At 5:50 a.m. on Wednesday, November 19, my cell phone alarm went off. I got out of bed to take my morning walk with Janie & Elizabeth. I always have some contractions while we are walking, but this time it seemed like I had more. After our walk, as we were standing outside of Janie's house chatting, I continued to feel some contractions. When I walked in my door at 7:15 a.m., I said to Dan & Bug that today might be the day I give birth. Bug was especially excited, but I quickly warned that I could be wrong. Dan asked if he should go into work or not, and I didn't know what to tell him. He was about to take Bug to the mechanic to have her car fixed, so I told him to come back and check in before leaving for Detroit.

When I went to the bathroom, I saw some bloody show (too much information!), which I have only ever seen on the day I give birth. That made me feel a bit more certain that the baby would be born. I did the usual things one does to prepare for a birth: I shaved my legs and washed my hair. Contractions continued, but they did not hurt much at all. I folded laundry. I told Dan to stay at least an hour or so to see what happened. I didn't feel like eating, especially since I have always thrown up right before giving birth. Around 8 or 8:15, while trying to get the kids off for school, we started timing contractions. They were 4-5 minutes apart, and lasting 30-60 seconds. We called the doctor's office and told them we were heading to the hospital.

My contractions still weren't hurting very much, so it seemed strange to be driving to the hospital, but I've learned from past experience that I go fast. I was really hoping to get my epidural before I got to an 8 or 9. We checked in at 9:15 and while waiting in the reception area the contractions started hurting more and more. By the time I got to the triage room, I was begging for my epidural, and when they checked me I was an 8 already. That was good because it got the triage people to take me a little more seriously and hurry things along. I'd been telling them that this was my 4th baby and that I go fast, but I don't think they were paying too much attention until I was an 8.

My labor and delivery nurse, Michele, came to get me and we made our way painfully to the room where I would give birth. I was in so much pain I just stood by the computer station holding onto the desk for support. FINALLY my anaesthesiologist arrived and I had my epidural by 10 a.m. I guess that is pretty fast, but it didn't seem like it at the time. My OB broke my water at 10:30 and I started pushing around 11. It usually only takes me 10-15 minutes to push a baby out, but I pushed this little girl for a good 45 minutes. I was getting worried and it was really hurting, but when her head emerged she was face up, which explained why it was so much harder to birth her than my others. When they put her up on my chest she seemed much tinier than I remember the others being. Later they weighed her and she was my smallest...6 pounds 14.1 ounces and 19.5 inches long. The others were all over 7 pounds and 21 inches. I thought she would be my biggest because she was born the latest (well, just one day closer to her due date than Esther), so she surprised me with her relative tininess.

First set of photos

I got home from the hospital today at about 4:30 p.m. It is wild to be home with four kids...taking care of a newborn is much easier at the hospital. Tonight I will just post a few choice shots of the babe so you can get an idea of what she looks like. More details and photos to come.

In this photo, Naomi has just been born and her umbilical cord cut. She has not yet been cleaned off.



Here she is having some formula to get her blood sugar up. Who is that sexy mama with her?



A few hours after her birth:



The day after her birth:



Here she is all cute and naked with a big ole pacifier in her mouth:



That's all for today, I need to prepare myself for tonight's onslaught.

Tater Tot

Hello, DTR here, spouse of Potato Girl. She delivered a healthy baby girl this morning (Wednesday, November 19) at 11:37 a.m. The baby was our smallest yet: 6 lb 14 oz, 19.5 inches long. Mom and baby are great. Lots of pictures were taken, but they're all still on the camera, which is at the hospital (St. Joe's). I imagine PG will write a post with lots of photos and all the details you'd care to know. If there's anything specific you want to know, just leave a comment here. Thanks to everybody who helped us out today, and over the whole pregnancy.

Octopus Mother

Last Friday night, September 12, I drove my friends Janie & Becky to Mt. Clemens to attend the opening night of our friend Abbi Israelsen's art exhibit Deep Breath (read more about it here). Here we are, being so cute (L to R: Becky, PG, Janie, Abbi the Artist):



Abbi almost died of accute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) earlier this year, and after she recovered, she agreed to do some fund raising for an ARDS research foundation. As an artist, she decided to donate an original drawing to each person who contributed $50 to her campaign. She has been pushing herself to do a drawing a day for this exhibit. Each of the drawings in the exhibit that has not already been promised to a donor is being sold for $65, and all of that money will go to ARDS research as well.

I had been debating between two drawings that I wanted to buy (scans of all of her drawings are on her blog, Drawing for ARDS), but one of them had already sold by the time I got there, making my choice an easy one. I am the proud new owner of "Octopus Mother."

I can't wait for the exhibit to close on October 3 so that I can bring my favorite new drawing home!

Better Than Christmas

What could be better than waking up Christmas morning to the promise of gifts and family, friends and food? Waking up to the promise of flushing toilets, doing laundry, bathing the filthy children, and washing dishes in the comfort of your own home. Yes, I felt euphoric when I woke up this morning. By 8:30 a.m., Jim, Pete & Pete were already at work digging up the street to fix my sewer main. They were about my favorite people in the world at that moment. By the time I got back from running some errands, around 11 a.m., there was a huge hole full of stinky sewage water where just hours before a black stretch of asphalt had been. I could hear all of the sewage water on the floor of my laundry room being sucked down the drain and out into that hole. Here is a view of the action:



During Esther's nap I checked in and learned that not only was the bad orangeburg pipe running from the curb to the city main in the middle of the street, it was also running at least halfway across my lawn toward the house. It is possible that the only piece of cast iron pipe on the whole thing is a little patch they made near the house in the 1970s. So Jim, Pete & Pete will be replacing the whole thing from the house to the city sewer connection with PVC pipe, and we will be paying the full $9,000. But I am just so happy to know that these problems will be resolved soon!

Around 5 or 6 p.m. when I went out to see what progress had been made, they were finishing up for the day. They had laid the first section of PVC where the original break/ blockage had been, and connected it up to the orangeburg on both sides. They had reconnected the house to the city water line, and we could use all of our plumbing just like normal for the rest of the evening. The first thing I did was give Esther a bath and wash her hair. It took me about 30 minutes to comb out all the tangles after that, and it was a good feeling. The first thing Dan did when he got home from work was to start cleaning the kitchen counters. I put in a load of laundry, and then another. We flushed all the toilets. It was a grand feeling. Tomorrow morning they will disconnect us again so they can finish the job, but I think we'll have our plumbing back to normal again in the evening.

It is amazing how one day you can flush your toilet and it is not enough to make you feel happy and like all of your problems are solved, and then a few days later, that very same act seems like the pinnacle of joy and contentment. I have NEVER enjoyed starting the washer as much as I did tonight. If only each of you could experience this! Just kidding...

Sewer Saga Continues

We spent the weekend praying for our pipes, that somehow they could hold everything including the neverending downpour of rain that we got. Sunday night the water was still slightly below the level of the floor, miraculously. Monday morning the water had come up to a few inches over the drain, but was contained in the floor depression and not spreading all over the floor. Monday morning plumber #2 came to the house to use his expensive video equipment and locating equipment to find the exact location of the blockage. He placed a black "X" on our street, about five feet out from the curb, i.e. worst case scenario.

Before plumber #2 arrived, I checked my email. There was a comment from HW about a company she had used for sewer work that she really liked called Perimeter. She even gave me the phone number. After plumber #2 left, I got a phone call from Garn-Girl telling me that she had used a company called Perimeter to have her footing drains disconnected, and she really liked them. When she said that, I got the chills. I felt that these two friends were giving me this information in answer to our prayers for our pipes. I called Steve at Perimeter and set up an appointment for him to come out at 2 p.m. to check out the situation.

Before the revelation about Steve, I had talked to Mitch, plumber #3 about doing the work. I had called him to see when he could come out and was waiting for him to return my call when Garn-Girl called, leading me to call Steve. Right after I hung up with Steve, I saw a man in an unmarked truck park in front of my house and begin inspecting my street and yard. It was Mitch. I was planning to tell him that we'd decided to go with Steve, but I chickened out. I told him we were considering someone else for the job, and would he like to come in to look around so that he could give me a bid. He did, but he didn't look too happy about it. When he left, he promised a verbal bid by the evening and a written bid the next morning. I still have not heard back from him.

Steve showed up at 2 and was super nice, professional, articulate, and thorough. I vastly preferred him to Mitch. He also told me that he could give me a verbal bid that evening and a written bid in the morning.

I didn't get any phone calls from either company last night, but this morning when I got home from taking the boys to school, there was a message from Steve. I also noticed that the city had come and marked up the lawn and street to show where all the buried things are for the excavation. I found out that Steve had called Miss Dig for us yesterday, just in case we decided to go with his company, so that they could get started right away. After verbally agreeing with Steve to do the job, for which we will be charged $5,000 if the problem is just from the curb to the city's main line in the street, or a total of $9,000 if there is also a problem with the pipe running from our house to the curb, I got a call from another friend recommending Steve at Perimeter!

Steve has already brought me paperwork to sign, and will be mobilizing the necessary equipment today. His team will start first thing tomorrow morning. Yay!!! Yay!!!! I can't wait to be able to shower/ bathe, flush toilets, do laundry, dishes, cook, et cetera.

I would like to add that my husband Dan is a genius. Last night, looking around the filthy kitchen full of dirty dishes he said that he knew a way to run the dishwasher without flooding our basement. He disconnected the dishwasher hose from the pipe under the sink and put it in a bucket. Then he ran a full load of dishes and the hose drained into the bucket, which he dumped outside in our bushes. I know we shouldn't be putting dishwashing soap out there, but I really really don't care at this point. I did another load this morning, and it felt great! We could technically do that with the laundry, but it would be a lot more water to dispose of and we'd have to haul it up the basement stairs. For now, I am delighted knowing that we will be back in business tomorrow or the next day. And did I mention that the rain has stopped and the sun is shining in the robin's egg blue sky?