Her Story

Well, she did indeed hold out until her due date.  Stella Lucille was born 2-1-12 at 12:08 pm.  She weighed in at 9lbs 14oz.  She was 20 and ¾” long.  Yep, she’s a big ol chunky monkey with cheeks that go on for days.  And she is perfect. 

We spent the last month of the pregnancy playing the “Is this it?  How bout now??” game.  It wasn’t fun.  We had a couple trips to the hospital for monitoring and a bio scan which revealed her big size.  After weighing our pros and cons with the doctor and  a lengthy discussion, we decided it was in the best interest of all parties for a C section.  It was scheduled for Wednesday, February 1^st at 11:00 a.m.  There was so much anxiety relieved after we scheduled the C section.  That morning we went it, checked in and then waited.  We got bumped for an emergency C section, so they didn’t come to get us until about 11:45.  Once she was in and prepped and I was in my fancy scrubs, they let me go back with her.  Approximately 10 minutes later, we heard a scream.  At 12:08 p.m. our baby girl was born.  They had to cut her cord since she was a C section, but I got to trim it afterwards.  They cleaned her off, wrapped her up and handed her to me.  I took her over to Lauren to show her.  We were both sobbing with joy.  Hell, I might be right now just typing all this out.  They started stitching Lauren back up while Stella and I went to the nursery for her tests and shot.  Her blood sugar was low, so they gave her a bottle.  A half an hour later they tested again and it was higher, but still too low.  Turns out our little lady was hypoglycemic.  It is apparently pretty common with bigger babies.  They hooked her up to an IV and kept her in the NICU for 2.5 days.  Lauren was not happy about her girl being kept away from her, so she decided to speed up her recovery.  Everyone was impressed by how quickly she was down there in a wheel chair and then off her IV and walking the next day.  It’s probably the reason she healed as quickly as she did.  Getting up and walking does wonders for C section recovery, they say.  So for 2.5 days we schlepped down to the NICU every 2 hours to see our girl.  Usually it was more often as she had loads of visitors and sometimes we just wanted to hang out with her.  Her recovery plan was 24 hours of sugar readings over 50, then slowly wean off the glucose in the IV (taking approximately another 24 hours) then a 24 hour watch to make sure it stayed above 50. (I know 3 days > the 2.5 she was in, I’m getting to that).  On Wednesday, once it went above 50, it stayed there, until Thursday very early AM.  Then the rest of Thursday was good.  It dropped below 50 again very early Friday AM.  You see how this can be discouraging?  We hadn’t even made it past step one at this point.  If it dropped, we started all over.  At 5 in the morning on Friday we were getting very discouraged.  We were starting to wonder if she was coming home with us.  Just as we were leaving from that feeding, she kicked her IV out.  The nurse said she would have to restart it and yes, the whole process would basically start from scratch.  So when we went to the 9 am feeding (the NICU is closed between 6 and 8, so they fed her at 7) we found out that they couldn’t get the IV back in, but her blood sugar was up and as long as it stayed up for 24 hours, she was all ours.  We totally skipped like 2 steps of the process.  Sure enough, it stayed up.  Saturday morning Lauren took her dad and step-mom down to the NICU to see her and brought her back with them.  At 3 days old this little girl was telling us she would be doing things her way.  They wanted to do a couple more tests that day, but as long as it stayed up, she’d be officially released from NICU care and discharged on Sunday.  With Lauren. 

She is now 3 weeks old.  We’ve adjusted to life with a baby pretty well.  I do feel kind of bad since Lauren has to get up with her all the time.  I guess that’s the price for getting 3 months off work.  ;-P  I, on the other hand, am in the middle of an outage and working 12.5 hour shifts.  Not exactly how I would choose to spend the first few weeks of my daughter’s life, but that’s timing, you know?  We just happened to get pregnant on the first try and I just happened to get this job, so she just happened to be born during my busiest time of the year.  Luckily, I won the boss lottery and they were amazing enough to let me take a week off when she was born.  In a couple weeks, I will be back to a normal shift and seeing my girls way more.  At least until the Braidwood outage starts. 

Time Keeps on Slippin

Time is doing this really weird thing.  It’s going really fast and really slow all at the same time. I just wrote the other day about how time was flying and we only had 7 weeks left.  Somehow we are down to 5.  Notice how we stopped counting up and started counting down.  It was just a few weeks ago that we were telling people she was 20 or 25 weeks.  Now when people ask, we say she has 5 weeks left.  5 weeks.  That’s crazy!!  And that is a real big “ish”.  Sure her due date is 5 weeks away, but have you seen her lately?  Of course not.  I have been slacking on pictures like I have been slacking on blogging.  But who has time?  And where exactly is this time going? - I knew things would get crazy busy once we were into the holidays, but holy smokes this is nuts.- So we are taking some pictures tonight to put up on facebook (and who knows, maybe even on here).  The last ones were taken 5 weeks ago right around the time of the 3D ultrasound.  That only seems like a few days ago.  5 weeks seems so short!  Yet, going forward (when you are waiting to meet your bundle of joy) it seems like forever. So, yeah new pics are going up so we can hear even more people say, “No way is she going to go for another 5 weeks.”  We are just hoping she holds out until January 13^th.  A large portion of my family is going on vacation until the 12^th.  Many of them, especially her Momo, would like to be around for her birth.  It’s hard to imagine she is going to be here so soon.  When I think about seeing that double line (it was so faint!!!) for the first time, it really doesn’t seem that long ago.  And yet here we are, within 5 weeks of her arrival.  Ish.

Time is flyin

Let’s play catch-up.  I swear I am not ditching out on this blog, things have just been really busy lately.  It’s really no excuse. I need to make time to write.  I think she will appreciate it.  As much as I want to do this to keep our friends and family up to date (LOL, sorry), I wanted her to have something to look back on to see what we were up to.  I will try to fit as much in this post as possible of the last month. 

November 12^th was our first baby shower.  Lauren’s sister, mom and aunts threw us a BEAUTIFUL shower at the Joliet Country Club.  Her sister made us a gorgeous/delicious cake and we received many beautiful gifts. 

The following weekend was a very derby weekend.  The derby girls went to Maneuvers on Friday night to visit Stella’s Auntie Phoenix at the monthly drag show.  Saturday I got to skate on a banked track with Bonnie D. Stroir.  No big deal.  That night was the Gotham/Windy City and Rocky Mountain/LADD banked track tournament.  For those non-derby nerds, this was a really big, awesome deal.  The 88s chatted with some of the best derby players in the world that weekend.  I have to include it because they signed a poster for Stella’s room.  We will be telling her about this weekend for her entire life.  Varla Vendetta rubbed the belly!  She got lots of good derby juju that weekend.  Sunday night I bench coached the Glams as they took on HCC for the 88s third home game.  The Glamazons won that one.  I realized my derby life won’t end when I retire from skating.  I have a future in bench coaching.  I absolutely love it and was told I’m not too shabby at it.  Maybe someday I will coach Stella’s junior derby league.  (If she decides on her own that derby is her thing, not because we plan on pushing her into it.) 

Tuesday, November 22, we went for a 3d ultrasound.  We finally got to see what our little gremlin looks like.  She looks just like her momma!!  Technology is amazing. 

We showed the family the pics on Thanksgiving and got to celebrate more great news.  2 of my cousins (who happen to be sisters…. And one is Stella’s fairy god mother) got engaged to their respective boyfriends within a few days of each other.  Thanksgiving was the first day we were all together in a long time, so we had a lot of celebrating to do.  Last weekend was our baby shower with my side of the family and a lot of our friends.  My mom, cousin and aunts went all out and decked Sam’s dance studio out in black and hot pink.  I baked about 7 dozen cupcakes in 4 flavors (red velvet with cream cheese frosting, dark chocolate with raspberry frosting, dark chocolate with vanilla frosting and lemon with lemon frosting and strawberry goo) Lucky Miss Stella got loads of awesome stuff.  This child is so loved.  I celebrated my 32^nd birthday a few days later by ordering Chinese food and watching a movie.  Yep, I am officially old.  It was fantastic.  Between derby practice and general running around (especially right before the shower), we hardly had time to sit down.  A night on the couch with good food and a good movie (and an amazing wife) was the perfect way to spend my b-day.  It was a big change from my usual bday week that would require at least 2 crazy visits to the bar.  I just can’t hang like that anymore. 

Now we are focusing on finishing her room, putting all of her awesome stuff away and getting ready for the holidays.  This weekend is our derby shower and I can’t even imagine the amount of awesome this will bring.  It’s amazing to hear these women talk about her.  Our little derby baby is going to have 50 of the coolest aunts (and a handful of uncles) a kid could ask for. 

So there we are.  All caught up.  I am hoping to do a post on the Christmas traditions we have and those we hope to start with her.  Also, look for a post on the freak out we are experiencing with less than 7 weeks to go. 

Mover and Shaker

When Lauren could first feel Stella move I was so jealous and just could not wait until I got to feel her too.  Smallish kicks soon turned into jabs n pokes.  I was starting to feel them a little more, but still couldn’t really see them.  A couple weeks ago I felt my first big kick.  I was laying down to go to bed and Lauren was standing next to me saying good-bye as she left for work (working nights is awesome….ppppphhhhtttt!!).  I put my hand on her belly and said, “Stella should kick me real hard.” AND SHE DID!! Scared the crap out of me.  I yanked my hand back and maybe… possibly… pretty sure I screamed….. ok, yeah, I did.  I mean, I get that there is a baby in there, but holy crap, she kicked me!  It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.  I have felt her a whole lot more since then, but it seems whenever I am not around she is putting on an acrobatic show for everyone else.  Lauren just stares at her belly as it dances in front of her.  The minute I am around, she stops.  (Lauren swears that my voice soothes her and she stops to listen to me.  LOL, right.) She tried once, in vain, to send me a video.  The lighting wasn’t great so I couldn’t see much. And it was faint, so it was hard to see anyway. (at that time, I think we thought that was a lot.  I’m not sure we realized a little ripple across the belly would turn into elbows poking out.)  Tonight was our first pre-natal class.  (Everything …. Well, ok, a few things you’ve wanted to know about breast feeding!! :-D). About half way through, Lauren jabbed me and nodded at her belly.  Holy crap!!  It looked like that dancing guy from Spaceballs (I know, I know.  That part was a parody of Aliens, but the Spaceballs guys was so much better!) was about to bust out of her.  I stopped paying attention and just stared at her belly.  I was finally getting to see what all the hype was about.  I only have a few more days on this crazy 12 night shift schedule and will soon return to a normal M-F day time, 40 hour a week job.  Then I get to hang out and stare at her belly for hours (to be replaced in a few months by laying around staring at our baby.) I’m also excited to get into the preparation mode with Lauren – who is already in full swing.  Before I started the fall outages, we were still mostly in planning mode.  Now her room is coming along nicely and most of her stuff is organized.  Just in time for our showers…. 

Lucky Ducky

We’re still here!  Baby is still cookin.  We had an ultrasound last Wednesday.  We got some great profile shots and a super cute one of her sucking her thumb.  She is looking good and still very active.  Lauren is already pretty uncomfortable because this little one just seems to be growing so fast.  I remind her constantly that we have a long way to go and she is just going to get bigger.  It’s not a very popular response.  Hitting 25 weeks seems huge to me.  I know we still have 15 weeks, but that’s not that long.  We are going into what I like to call the “Holiday Snowball.”  Once Halloween hits, this snowball of birthdays and holidays hits and the next thing I know is that it’s the New Year.  And then we will be within a month.  It’s going to be here so fast. 

If you are actually reading this during the 25^th week, the ticker at the top says, “My ears are much more sensitive this week.  So would you mind keeping it down out there.”  I am pretty sure this is a direct response to her Auntie Frankie.  Frankie is our derby sister and one of the loudest girls I know.  I’m a loud girl, too, so I absolutely love it.  She was extra loud when we saw her on Sunday at the bout (Divas 133 – HCC 100.  Go Divas!).  She loves to stand there and yell, “STELLLLLLA,” at Lauren’s belly.  She is also terrified of Lauren’s belly and Lauren chases her with it to freak her out. 

This is one lucky little girl.  Everyone around us is so excited to meet her.  Our family and friends are being so great and supportive.  We are having so much fun planning for her arrival.  People keep giving us gifts for her, which is so sweet and lots of fun.  She already has a pretty stellar shoe collection.  (I still need to get her some baby Adidas and Nikes.  I think we may get matching Nikes) We are just so grateful.  It’s already been an amazing journey and it’s barely just begun.  Motherhood is gonna rule. 

Wiggle Worm

The little wiggle worm is a super active little girl.  She likes to play when mommy lies down to go to sleep and again right before it’s time for her to get up.  Looks like are going to have a night owl on our hands.  The butterfly kisses have given way to jabs, pokes, kicks and bizarre alien movement.  Not only can I feel her, but we are just starting to see her move if we stare at her belly long enough.  Her nursery is coming along nicely.  She has painted walls, a crib, a comforter, curtains, a changing table and a bookshelf.  Lauren made the comforter and the curtains herself.  She is currently working on her mobile.  She also painted a picture for the wall.  I married myself a crafty little one, didn’t I?  I have been working a whole lot, so I haven’t had much of a chance to pitch in.  Once these outages are done, I plan on helping with the rest of the decorating and organizing.  Hopefully, we will have her dresser and the rug soon.  Once those are in, we can finish organizing and we will be ready to take some pictures!

 

I know I haven’t been updating this a ton, but I never know what will make a good blog these days.  At the beginning, every little thing was written down and recorded.  We blasted through milestone after milestone and you can go back and re-read each one.  Not much is going on now besides the belly getting bigger and bigger.  (I should say bellies.  Dang, it’s like I am eating for two, too.)  These days we spend a lot of time talking, planning and hoping for her future.  I don’t want her (or anyone else) reading into this and feel like we are putting undue pressure on her, so I haven’t really blogged about it.  It’s not so much “She will be a doctor.” or “She better get straight A’s.” It’s more general like, “She won’t be a bully and she will learn to share.” and “I just want her to try her best.”  I know I can’t literally dictate what kind of person she will be, but I hope through the things we teach her, the way we act and the way we treat her will help her become a good person.  I don’t care if she is rich, famous or “successful,” I just want her to be a decent human being.  There are so many people these days that still care more about money and power than doing what is right and helping others.  I’m not saying she has to be a missionary (but if she wants to be, that’s fine) but I would like her to volunteer, or donate to a good cause occasionally, or just be NICE to people.  There aren’t enough nice people these days.  I know I’m not always nice.  I don’t want her to be a pushover, either.  I think she needs to stand up for herself and for what she believes in. I just don’t want her to be one of those girls who is a bitch for the sake of being a bitch.  I used to know a lot of those girls.  I know what a lot of them are doing now.  If that ain’t karma, I don’t know what is.  My dad is pretty religious and I (surprise!) am not.  He did tell me one thing that has stuck with me though.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.  Yep, the Golden Rule.  Not that hard.  And no, I am not perfect, but I at least try to consider other people’s feelings before I act.  There are times that my brain justifies turning that off (lying, cheating or blatant disregard for others), but I will let her figure that out on her own, if she so chooses.  But if I can get her to just take that away from everything else, like I did with my dad, I think she will be alright.

Half way there

Tomorrow is 20 weeks.  How on earth is it the middle of September??  I guess going back to work has a lot to do with it.  Time just seems to slip by.  I started my full time job Aug 22^nd and then went to Byron last Monday.  I was home this weekend, leaving again today, will be back this weekend and then gone for a couple weeks for the outage.  Rinse and repeat for October, but I will be home since it’s at Dresdan.  For those who can’t keep up, just nod and smile.  Half the time I feel like I can’t keep up either.  After this outage, I should be home for a while.  I will work some crazy hours, but at least I will be home.  Being gone has been particularly rough on the wife this time around.  Usually at the end of spending our summer off together, she is ready to get rid of me for a while.  I think the pregnancy hormones are getting to her.  She just hates me being gone.  I can’t lie, it’s been rougher this time for me too.  I am so afraid I am going to miss something.  I guess I better get used to that feeling.  She isn’t even here yet.   If only we were independently wealthy so we could both stay at home and stare at her.  On second thought, that just sounds creepy.   

I will be home Wednesday morning for her 20 week ultrasound.  20 weeks.  Yikes.  That is officially half way.  (40 week is how they calculate due dates.)  It’s been about 5 weeks since our last ultrasound.  I can’t wait to see how much she has grown. 

We got the nursery painted last weekend.  It’s a really pretty yellow.  It makes the room look so bright, I LOVE it.  The crib has been ordered and we are on the hunt for a dresser we love.  It’s not easy pleasing us when it comes to furniture.  We like unique, but not things that look unique for the sake of being unique.  That probably only makes sense to us.  We did decide to use the bird patterns we got at JoAnne a long time ago.  All the colors we are using for the decorations are based off that.  I posted pictures of it in one of my first posts. 

In non-baby news, I skated in my first public bout last night.  We won 81-79.  It was such an insanely good game.  Both teams played their asses off.  I think we proved more than anything that we, as a league, are going to be a force to be reckoned with.  Lauren, obviously, couldn’t skate, but she makes one hell of a bench coach.  I can’t wait until she can lace up with us again.  Stella can sit with her Momo and cheer us on!