Wow, I'm a mother!

Well, the big day has finally arrived. It actually came last week. Here's what the hubby posted for some friends of ours on a forum we both visit:

Hey, guys! Finally got home, figured I'd update everyone.

Douglas was born on August 22, at 1:01am EDT, weighing 7lbs, 8.5oz.

After a few days of some really bad contractions which I think turned out to be false labor, I took Deb in Tuesday morning because she thought her water broke. Turns out she didn't, but she was ALMOST dialated enough to be in full labor.

A walk around the suite fixed that REAL quick.

She spent 18 hours in full labor, but no dice. The hospital, in trying to make it painless, pushed her too hard too fast. Her uterus got too tired and we had to have a C-section. Damned doctors.

Baby and mommy are healthy. Deb's still got some swelling that's being treated, and of course she has to recover from surgery, so she'll be there for a few days yet.

I've gotta finish putting the crib together and arranging apartment furniture. We were in the midst of that when our baby boy came along a week early.

Thank you all SO MUCH for your well-wishes. It warms my heart, truely.

I've got pictures. They will be posted sometime in the next week or so. Yay for the digital camera the wife gave me for Christmas!

My being incommunicado for the last week has been because I was working with hubby to get everything ready here for the baby's arrival and then I was at the hospital resting. The experience of being at the hospital has some ups and some downs, I'll be ranting about that later. Yep, that's right ranting. More aggrivations then just the crappy food (and why the heck is it that hospital food is so bad as a general rule?).

It's funny, we expected him to be born this week and he showed up a week early. I'm now working on trying my hardest not to let the wacky hormone swings and the nervousness about being a new mother interrupt my enjoyment of being a mother. That said, I get worried as hell when this kid just won't stop crying. My mother tells me that is something all new mothers and fathers go thru and it'll be better next week. I admit it, I'm excited but I also feel like a cat in a rocking chair factory. :)

10 days and counting

Well, it's ten days until the due date. I'm nervous, excited, and generally feeling a bit like I'm all over the place right now. This weekend, my dear and darling husband has been working very hard to get things rearranged so that the furniture we need for the baby can be in here. His brother so very generously helped us out. It was a good thing, to say the least, as I'm at a point where I'm not exactly useful for doing things like moving bookcases and such.

I didn't really get to do much more then supervise. It was frustrating because I felt like I should be jumping into the fray and helping out, too. I have been having some kinda wild mood swings over the last few days. I feel like it's making me a terrible person to put up with, never mind live with right now. Hubby has been generally of good cheer about it all and managing it with a sense of aplomb that I wish I could accomplish at the moment. I didn't exactly enjoy being hit with a weepy sense of angst that I was losing my sex-life for good and that I was doomed to be a mediocre parent at best. It was especially terrible because it happened at 11 O'clock at night last night, right when we were going to bed.

From what I've been told, mood swings get worse as it gets closer to delivery. I'm hoping that since I didn't have really wild mood swings before now, these won't rival some of the ones that I had back in high school. As funny as it may sound, I think I was a crazy child in high school because of the plain insanity of hormones (aggravated by the fact that I've poly-cystic ovary syndrome, which means the hormones aren't functioning quite right to begin with). The other worry that I have is that with the hormones being all over the place, I may just have to deal with a bad case of postpartum depression. That makes me very nervous, to be honest because some folks in my family didn't just have postpartum depression but a postpartum psychosis.

I've to admit, though, the different reproductive system related problems that I've got running around in my family, I'm thankful that it's not as bad as it could be. The baby is healthy. I'm healthy. (I don't know why the doctors are always just about glowing as they tell me how proud/happy they are that I've been taking good care of myself. It's almost as weird as the hospital staff not fully comprehending that I was pregnant and I had appendicitis back in January.) The first thing that was tried worked for helping us conceive, unlike my aunt who had to go thru years of fertility treatments and a few lost pregnancies to have her little boy. I'm really thankful for this child. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to have children because of all the problems that run in my family. So this... this is a huge blessing for many, many reasons.

So now, we just have to make it thru the next week (approximately). Then we'll have a new, wonderful little baby in our home. It's funny, because this is all happening so close to our wedding anniversary. Hubby was joking with me that it was planned perfectly, I didn't need to think about what to give him as a gift at all for our anniversary. I realize that money is going to be a bit tight with the baby and all, but I still want to do something special for him. It's been three years on the 5th of next month that we've been married. It doesn't feel like it.

Some how, I'll think of something, even if he insists that I don't need to. He's helped me make so many of my dreams come true. I just can't ignore that or the fact that it's a great excuse to really do something wonderful for him. The man's the best thing to ever happen to me.

Baby shower gossip. :)

Sorry I didn't post this sooner. Life has gotten busy and I've been feeling very tired of late. On the up-side, it seems that the baby has begun to descend to the proper position and it's raining right now (which means much less humidity).

The baby shower was held at my husband's parents' house a few weeks ago. The weather was stunning and fortunately not too warm. The color scheme was blue and white. I've noticed that a great many things in my life have had that color scheme (high school grad party, engagement party, baby shower, a birthday party...). I wonder if it's a weird coincidence or some twist of fate. Either way, aside from the color scheme, the other major theme was 'It's a Boy!'

Fortunately, folks didn't get too nuts over it all. I was a bit concerned that they'd go crazy. You never know with my husband's sister. The food was standard picnic fare with an ice cream cake for dessert. I was quite glad that I've taken to carrying lactaid in my purse with me everywhere. I don't think I would have been able to have about half of the food there if I hadn't had it.

I generally hate the dopey games that they make you play at baby showers. Anyone who knows me also knows that I'm not a fan of Bingo in any incarnation of the game. Fortunately, there was only one game played at the baby shower. Unfortunately, I had to suffer thru 'Baby Bingo'. I think I hid my distaste for playing Bingo fairly well. Though I knew that my brother's wife and my mother were both secretly smiling at how much I was suffering. To me, Bingo is the most god-forsakenly boring game on the face of the earth. It doesn't matter how cute you try to make it, it's still boring. We only played 2 rounds, so I wasn't bored for too long. The serious Bingo players in the group, I noticed, lit right up like Christmas trees at the prospect of playing. The kids had fun also, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

It really was a huge surprise that Mom was there. I had expected her to still be out in Ohio or on the road. Everyone except for my husband and I were in on the surprise, apparently. It was wonderful to see her when I had prepared myself not to. I don't think I can really put into words how much it meant for her to be there. Mom had missed my bridal shower because she was on the road trying to get a little more money to help pay for the wedding. It was a huge disappointment, and that was before the familial drama of my Grandmother's stunt.

I now realize that I am switching back and forth between capitalizing Mom and mother. As well as making other grammatical errors. I don't think I care at the moment. :) Sorry, Lady Cinnibar, but the internal editor is on vacation right now. :P (It's always fun to drive my former english major friends nuts... LOL)

The other major highlights of the party were:

• My husband and his father eating the charred hot-dogs. One of these things still had smoke coming off of it! And they were thrilled that these things were so burned. Just goes to show you, I am married to an odd man. :)


• Watching my brother-in-law's girls and my eldest niece play with the adorable little puppy they had brought with them. I think it's called a cockapoo (it's a cross between a cockatiel and a poodle) and is named Toffy. Real pretty little thing with fur the color of caramel and cream, and has a very sweet temperament, too.


• The gift of the refurbished antique rocking chair from my husband's parents left me as speechless as seeing my mother there. This chair, if my suspicion is correct, came from the house of his late grandfather. It is a wonderful and very comfortable rocking chair. If I can manage it, I'll try to post a picture of this thing up here. I'm not very good with figuring out the whole digital camera stuff.


• Having my eldest niece and my mother in law help me out of the rocking chair after I sat down in it was probably the funniest part of the afternoon, too. Wonderful chair, but it's difficult to get out of because it doesn't have arms!

On the whole, the party was light-years away from what I had been dreading. It was a nice, casual affair. I'm disappointed that my friends weren't able to be there. As one of the gals in Buffalo did note, there is the possibility of a 'welcome baby' party after the kid is born. It was a nice family party and I'm thankful for it. I mailed out the army of thank you cards just recently. I still need to get the film developed with the pictures from the shower on it. As things get settled out, I'll try to either make an on-line photo album or some how share these with you folks who are interested.

I blame the Russian.

It's all this guy's fault. :)

Your Score: Katharine Hepburn

You scored 23% grit, 14% wit, 47% flair, and 28% class!

You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the
Classic Leading Man Test.

Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Wow! I'm actually learning how to do this stuff!

For the first time ever, I made a web-page on my own! I'm feeling quite thrilled and proud of myself. I'd been scared to try for a few years. With the fact that I'm starting a business on the internet, I needed to have a web-page. At first, I tried to make one using Geocities. It came out ok, but I couldn't link to it on Keen, where I'm running my business.

I asked my busy husband to help me move the page to Keen. In the midst of his being busy with work and trying to get himself ready for the baby, I realized this morning, it would be better if I took some steps to try to make this page myself. So... I gave it a shot and it actually came out ok. If you look at the section that begins "Meet Your Reader" ... well... I did that!!

I'm feeling *so* proud of myself right now. :) I just thought I'd share that little bit of happiness with all of you before I go rummage around to find my notes on the baby shower.

...

Of course, I wrote down notes! I've been forgetting what I went to get out of the fridge as I'm opening the thing up! If I don't write notes, I'll just have a vague blur for a recollection of the baby shower! And I thought that the forgetfulness to this extent was just a myth... I was *so* wrong! Now... what was I going to do?

Just kidding! Be back soon!

Well, it's August.

I don't know about you guys, but it's hot as an oven here. Today, the temperature got up to almost the mid 90s and I think you can probably just wring the water out of the air. Tomorrow, it's supposed to be hotter. I'm not exactly looking forward to it. While we've got some air conditioning now, it confines me to just one room of the apartment. :P

I'm sure that some of you are wondering how I'm doing and just what the juicy details of the baby shower are. I apologize for the fact that I forgot to update here. The past week has been busy mainly in the direction of making baby clothes, when I've been awake. It's somewhat foolish, or at least I feel somewhat foolish, for how I get tired for no apparent reason right now. I understand that because I'm pregnant and it's hot out, my body is feeling more worn out by everything. I just wish that I didn't get so sleepy all the time. It's been difficult to get things done. I'd love to be able to get the dishes done and have this place cleaned up at the end of the day. I don't exactly manage that right now, however.

I may get some of the things I want to do done, like getting the mail or folding up my laundry, but others will fall by the wayside as I run out of steam. I find myself sitting at the computer looking at silly pictures or sitting and reading a book, if I'm not napping right now. Either I'm physically exhausted or I'm mentally drained. Neither work too well for accomplishing much, but I've been doing my best not to feel too guilty over it. But, that's what's been interrupting my posting recently.

I'll ramble about the baby shower in the next post. And it won't be a week until it shows up, I promise!