On Friday, September 21st, at 10:07pm, little Allison Dawn poked her head out into the world.
I don't think I have time to go through the whole "birth story", but the short version is that on Thursday night (during Survivor!), Diana started feeling contractions that felt different. Not painful, but different. We actually started timing them, and wondering "is this really how it's supposed to be? This isn't anything like the movies!"
Apparently during the night, Diana had some more painful contractions, but slept through them. The next morning, however, starting around 6am, things definitely started picking up. Her water never broke, but her contractions were often and strong enough that we called the hospital and came in.
The rest of the day was long and intense, and I won't go into detail here. The end result was the birth of little Allie after a full day of labor and about two hours of pushing.
We spent the night, next day, and next night in the hospital, and received really superb care. A+, 5 stars, however you want to put it. Everyone from start to finish was just great.
Yesterday we drove home, and have been in sort of survival mode ever since. Diana is still a little slow moving around, but managing well. Allie loves to eat and sleep during the day and cry at night. We've found that it's pretty easy to get her to stop crying by holding her and shushing loudly. It's what to do after that that was challenging. But we made it through with no real problems.
Emotionally, I'm on top of the world, in spite of being tired and still a little shell-shocked. Newborns are snotty and poopy and spit up; I never doubted my friends' affections with theirs, but wondered if I'd feel the same way with my own, and I do. Every little bit of her is perfect to me.
We have our first doctors appointment today! That will be exciting.
More later. Thank you all for your kind words and well wishes.
2007/09/24
2007/09/20
Some people say that dreams are kind of like your brain’s rehearsals for real life event. I’m finding myself in full-on daydream mode today, trying to imagine exactly what it’s going to be like when Diana calls or announces that her water has broken, or that she’s having strong contractions and we should head to the hospital. I guess I figure the more I prepare and visualize it now, the smoother things will go.
(It should be noted that my actual sleep-dream last night was about Philip Rivers throwing a touchdown pass to Tomlinson in the back of the end-zone, and he dropped it, not only missing an opportunity for the Chargers, but messing up a potential double-dip opportunity in my Fantasy league.)
Diana had her weekly doctor’s appointment this morning, and everything is doing well. Hearing other women’s “dilation and effacement” numbers always creeped me out a little, so I’ll refrain from that. I will say, however, that things are progressing well, and the doctor was pleased. So hopefully that translates into an easier labor when it finally arrives, but who knows.
We had dinner with my parents last night, who are back from Montana, and it was nice to see them. We somehow found ourselves in a good, constructive conversation about how to deal with differences of opinion and various conflicts that might come up in the next couple months. I don’t really anticipate any serious problems, but I’ll be blunt and say that with two sets of grandparents in such close proximity, there just has to be the potential for conflicts and hurt feelings at some point. I don’t even know what, exactly, but my gut says SOMETHING will come up at SOME point. So it was nice to preemptively get ourselves on similar footing. And if there aren’t any problems and it was all for nothing, no harm done.
We gave my parents a combined birthday present which I’ve been really excited about. It’s the eStarling 2.0 digital picture frame. It’s a small LCD screen in a picture frame that will display a slideshow of digital pictures. What’s really cool about it is that it connects to your wireless network, which means you can do cool things like point the frame at an RSS feed (for instance, a Picasa web album, or a Flickr channel), and the frame will update itself as pictures change. You can also email pictures directly to the frame itself. The plan is that I’ll maintain some sort of web album, so my parents will wake up one morning and have a fresh set of pictures displaying on their frame. I’ll also share the email address with my brother, so he can email pictures to it, too.. It’s pretty neat, and seems to work as advertised. We’ll see how it goes.
Another thing that’s been on my mind lately is if/how my relationship with my friends will change after little Spraggette is born. It’s hard to know exactly how things are going to go at this point, and therefore hard to predict how much time I’ll have for a game night at Eryns, or a round of golf with Iwan. And even if I have time, will I have the energy? And if I have the time and energy, will I even still want to do those things? I don’t know the answer to any of those. I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoy the time I spend with my friends, and I anticipate that remaining a priority in my life, but I also realize that priorities might need to be shifted to some degree.
I guess to sum it up, I enjoy my relationship with my friends, and the idea of that changing (in isolation to everything else) doesn’t appeal to me. Lucky for me, my friends collectively excel at flexibility, so I’m sure everything will work out. In fact it has to, with Rock Back coming out so soon!
(It should be noted that my actual sleep-dream last night was about Philip Rivers throwing a touchdown pass to Tomlinson in the back of the end-zone, and he dropped it, not only missing an opportunity for the Chargers, but messing up a potential double-dip opportunity in my Fantasy league.)
Diana had her weekly doctor’s appointment this morning, and everything is doing well. Hearing other women’s “dilation and effacement” numbers always creeped me out a little, so I’ll refrain from that. I will say, however, that things are progressing well, and the doctor was pleased. So hopefully that translates into an easier labor when it finally arrives, but who knows.
We had dinner with my parents last night, who are back from Montana, and it was nice to see them. We somehow found ourselves in a good, constructive conversation about how to deal with differences of opinion and various conflicts that might come up in the next couple months. I don’t really anticipate any serious problems, but I’ll be blunt and say that with two sets of grandparents in such close proximity, there just has to be the potential for conflicts and hurt feelings at some point. I don’t even know what, exactly, but my gut says SOMETHING will come up at SOME point. So it was nice to preemptively get ourselves on similar footing. And if there aren’t any problems and it was all for nothing, no harm done.
We gave my parents a combined birthday present which I’ve been really excited about. It’s the eStarling 2.0 digital picture frame. It’s a small LCD screen in a picture frame that will display a slideshow of digital pictures. What’s really cool about it is that it connects to your wireless network, which means you can do cool things like point the frame at an RSS feed (for instance, a Picasa web album, or a Flickr channel), and the frame will update itself as pictures change. You can also email pictures directly to the frame itself. The plan is that I’ll maintain some sort of web album, so my parents will wake up one morning and have a fresh set of pictures displaying on their frame. I’ll also share the email address with my brother, so he can email pictures to it, too.. It’s pretty neat, and seems to work as advertised. We’ll see how it goes.
Another thing that’s been on my mind lately is if/how my relationship with my friends will change after little Spraggette is born. It’s hard to know exactly how things are going to go at this point, and therefore hard to predict how much time I’ll have for a game night at Eryns, or a round of golf with Iwan. And even if I have time, will I have the energy? And if I have the time and energy, will I even still want to do those things? I don’t know the answer to any of those. I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoy the time I spend with my friends, and I anticipate that remaining a priority in my life, but I also realize that priorities might need to be shifted to some degree.
I guess to sum it up, I enjoy my relationship with my friends, and the idea of that changing (in isolation to everything else) doesn’t appeal to me. Lucky for me, my friends collectively excel at flexibility, so I’m sure everything will work out. In fact it has to, with Rock Back coming out so soon!
2007/09/19
No big news yet. However, the bags are packed and in the car. The baby car seat (a prerequisite for taking a baby home from the hospital) is installed and checked. Cell phones and cameras are charged (is the camera charged?) We’re pretty much on high alert, so I think it’s time to move to DEFCON 3.
Diana’s doing fine. Getting out of bed is a little difficult, but once she’s up and around she seems fine. She reports feel more internal pressure, and generally feels like things are getting close (although, this being our first time, it’s hard to know what feelings mean what). Her official due date is a little over a week from now, so sometime, anytime, soon, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
For my own part, I’m excited. I’m ready. I have the usual pre-game jitters, but I’m confident and feel that all systems are go. (Remind me to read this in a couple weeks, I wonder how it will sound to me then. :) I actually have a lot of feelings going on right now, and so many open questions about how my life will change. We’re kind of driving off the edge of a Thomas Guide map, and the only thing we have for directions are some pamphlets and scribbled notes written on coffee napkins. It’s thrilling and scary and mysterious altogether.
A while back Diana bought some decorations for the baby room, including stickers that stick on walls. Some of those stickers were alphabet stickers, where the letters have a picture on it of a thing beginning with the letter. The Z has a zebra on it, the M has a magnet, etc. As a test, she peeled off the “A” sticker and stuck it on the wall to see how it worked. Then she peeled the lower case “a” sticker and stuck it to some furniture, to test how they stuck on that surface. And for a time, we just left it at that. At some point my Iwan and Little Buhr came over and saw the A’s on the wall, and became convinced that we’d chosen a name beginning with “A”. Now every time we see them, they say “Good luck with little Amanda, Alyssa, Amy, Adrianna….” Funny stuff. They crack me up.
Diana’s doing fine. Getting out of bed is a little difficult, but once she’s up and around she seems fine. She reports feel more internal pressure, and generally feels like things are getting close (although, this being our first time, it’s hard to know what feelings mean what). Her official due date is a little over a week from now, so sometime, anytime, soon, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
For my own part, I’m excited. I’m ready. I have the usual pre-game jitters, but I’m confident and feel that all systems are go. (Remind me to read this in a couple weeks, I wonder how it will sound to me then. :) I actually have a lot of feelings going on right now, and so many open questions about how my life will change. We’re kind of driving off the edge of a Thomas Guide map, and the only thing we have for directions are some pamphlets and scribbled notes written on coffee napkins. It’s thrilling and scary and mysterious altogether.
A while back Diana bought some decorations for the baby room, including stickers that stick on walls. Some of those stickers were alphabet stickers, where the letters have a picture on it of a thing beginning with the letter. The Z has a zebra on it, the M has a magnet, etc. As a test, she peeled off the “A” sticker and stuck it on the wall to see how it worked. Then she peeled the lower case “a” sticker and stuck it to some furniture, to test how they stuck on that surface. And for a time, we just left it at that. At some point my Iwan and Little Buhr came over and saw the A’s on the wall, and became convinced that we’d chosen a name beginning with “A”. Now every time we see them, they say “Good luck with little Amanda, Alyssa, Amy, Adrianna….” Funny stuff. They crack me up.
2007/09/12
For the past week or so, Diana and slowly started to notice more and more light contractions. From everyone I’ve talked to, it’s pretty normal to feel contractions in the weeks before birth, so we’re not freaking out about it. However, I have officially moved us to DEFCON 4. Other than that, not a whole lot of baby news to report. We’re about as ready as we’re going to be, and have pretty much settled into waiting.
In other news, we’ve had a meeting with a man about installing solar panels on our roof. The guy we met with analyzed our location and roof area, as well as previous year of electric bills, and presented a proposal to us about cost of installation, savings per month, etc. If we bought and installed solar panels that covered 90% of our current usage, it turns out they would pay for themselves in about 12 years. The panels are under warranty for something like 20-25 years, so, in theory, it’s a pretty good investment.
At least as important as the financial decision, though, is we try to be environmentally friendly when we can, and this seems like a great way to do our part. (And I have to admit, the idea of an electric car, fueled by self-generated solar power, is pretty cool).
The guy we spoke to was from a smaller, local company. We have another meeting with someone else from BP, who is paired up with Home Depot to do residential installations. It will be interesting to see who the two presentations compare and contrast.
Solar power seems pretty cool. I don’t know anything about how the panels are actually made (maybe it involves cutting down acres of rainforest, or spewing thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the mouths of baby seals), but it sounds like it’s a Good Thing. No moving parts, no side effects, no day-to-day maintenance. Just grabbing free power out of the air and using it. We’ll see how it all works out, but so far, I’m pretty amped (ha!) on the idea.
In other news, we’ve had a meeting with a man about installing solar panels on our roof. The guy we met with analyzed our location and roof area, as well as previous year of electric bills, and presented a proposal to us about cost of installation, savings per month, etc. If we bought and installed solar panels that covered 90% of our current usage, it turns out they would pay for themselves in about 12 years. The panels are under warranty for something like 20-25 years, so, in theory, it’s a pretty good investment.
At least as important as the financial decision, though, is we try to be environmentally friendly when we can, and this seems like a great way to do our part. (And I have to admit, the idea of an electric car, fueled by self-generated solar power, is pretty cool).
The guy we spoke to was from a smaller, local company. We have another meeting with someone else from BP, who is paired up with Home Depot to do residential installations. It will be interesting to see who the two presentations compare and contrast.
Solar power seems pretty cool. I don’t know anything about how the panels are actually made (maybe it involves cutting down acres of rainforest, or spewing thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the mouths of baby seals), but it sounds like it’s a Good Thing. No moving parts, no side effects, no day-to-day maintenance. Just grabbing free power out of the air and using it. We’ll see how it all works out, but so far, I’m pretty amped (ha!) on the idea.
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