Ponderings of a Scientist

From WMUR:

“CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire soon will be joining its New England neighbors in banning smoking in bars and restaurants. The House on Thursday approved a smoking ban bill 224-117 and sent it to Gov. John Lynch, who has said he will sign it. It will go into effect 90 days later. More than a dozen states and hundreds of cities and counties around the country ban smoking in restaurants, bars or both. New Hampshire is the only state in New England that does neither. Nashua Sen. David Gottesman, the prime sponsor, said a ban will protect workers and customers from the health risks of secondhand smoke. Opponents argued that the state should instead educate the public about the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke. They said restaurant and bar owners should decide when or if to ban smoking in their establishments, not the state.“

Yeah to a democratic state government, who finally got this bill passed after years of trying!

We had our first baby check-up today at 16 days post fermentation and boy has she grown, not that this wasn’t expected given how much she likes to eat!  The stats:

Birth Weight (5-15): 7 lb 11 oz

Hospital Exit Weight (5-17): 7 lb 1 oz

Visiting Nurse Weight 95-19): 7 lb 1.5 oz

Today (5-31):  8 lb 4 oz

Over 1 lb in 1.5 weeks!  Oh and 2 inches in length too.  I was going to write more but baby is hungry!

So today begins my journey as a stay at home/working from home Mom.  How do I feel about this?  Good question.  I guess I will need to ask myself that question again and again as the days and weeks pass.  Today’s answer would be - I don’t know.  So far Addie has spent the morning sleeping and I’ve spent the morning doing chores.  This afternoon we are going to venture out to Target (woo-hoo) for a few more needed baby supplies.  This evening we may go watch Zipy play softball - if he plays.  In the future, in order to stay sane I think the following will be important:  1) talking to other adults during the day (how I will accomplish this I don’t know - I don’t really feel comfortable joining a mother’s group, but we’ll see);and 2) doing the “working from home” thing more than the “stay at home Mom” thing (my hours working for the lobster association are going to increase, but exactly what I’m donig and where is still in question).  I’m sure I will post on this issue in the future.

She has arrived… I think between Zipy and myself everyone who reads this blog already got sent an email with some pictures.  If you didn’t please harrass us; it was hard trying to think of everyone who might care while sleep deprived at the hospital.  Below is one picture for prosperity, but I will likely try to keep her face of the world wide web in general and stick to email updates for photos.

We’ll the kid has now fermented for an estimated 41 weeks and 1 day (8 days post estimated due date).  This is totally normal for first time babies, but I still wish she would hurry it up already.  We had a marathon appt on Wednesday which consisted of:  1) non-stress test; listening to and record the baby’s heart rate for at least twenty minutes to make sure it fluctuates when she moves, that she is moving enough, and to record any contractions; 2) ultrasound - double check on baby location and make sure there is enough amniotic fluid, 3) the usual belly check (measurements, blood pressure, urine, etc); 4) pelvic exam to check the cervix.  We found out basically nothing new: 1) she is super happy in there, moving a lot with enough fluid; 2) my cervix is very ready to have a baby and things have progressed beyond the point where most women are already in labor; 3) she is very low in my pelvis (hence my new found waddle), looking the right way (face toward my back), basically locked and loaded.

Now we wait for the chemical signal from the baby to tell my body it is go time for real (instead of all the fake go time I’ve had for weeks).  Oh and if this doesn’t happen by Tuesday am, I get a forced induction.  Hospitals don’t let you go beyond 42 weeks (which will be next Thursday) so the midwife kindly schedule an induction for me.  It was actually a funny conversation as we both expected different things from the other person:
she said: ” the baby is so really and you are so near labor. This baby needs to come out.  I want to you wait the weekend and I suggest an induction on Monday.”

I said: ” How about we discuss induction on Monday - I would prefer natural all the way.”

She said: “Wow, I expected you to want the baby to be induced sooner - as most first timers do”

I said: “No thanks.  I’m sick of the pregnant thing, but don’t want to fall into the slippery sloop of intervention labor”  (Pitocin means IVs, constant baby monitoring, laboring the entire time at the hospital, not being about to move around, having super intense contractions due to the medicine, likely not progressing as fast at they want, possible epidural because of the unnatural pain, and possible C-section because of slow progress because they were trying to force something that wasn’t ready.)

She said: “I agree (being a midwife and likely these natural things), but you still have to be induced before 42 weeks per request of the hospital (for all these scary reasons that often don’t hold to be true- I guess that is what I get for choosing a hospital delivery instead of birth center or home - mostly for Zipy’s well being and stress level - but now we are constrained by the hospital’s fear of malpractice if they let me go too long and the placenta stops working or the baby gets too big); I will call the birth center and schedule it for a late as I can.  (Hence the Tuesday, instead of Monday deal!)

I said: “Ok” - but I was thinking not ok, not ok!

So now we all need to beg the baby to come out on her own before Tuesday at 6:30am when I’m scheduled to call the birth center at the hospital and get my morning induction schedule.  I’ll be working my body through every wive’s tale on how to naturally induce a baby between now and then and working my brain through the idea of an induced labor and how I can make that work for us.

I stumbled upon a neat quiz on the Dover Public Library Blog, while I was looking for a new book to read.  The quiz is designed to tell you what type of accent you have and where you likely live.  Here are my results:

Okay I’ve been officially “disabled” for two weeks now.  Meaning my disability insurance company (not health insurance - another thing entirely that I’ve been paying into) is paying me 80% of my salary to stay at home and wait for my baby to arrive.  You might think, oh what a sweet deal, but trust me its not.  As I’ve ranted before our country’s policies on maternity and paternity leave totally suck.  Refer below to some post I don’t feel like finding and linking to, to see those stats.  My disability insurance will consider me disabled for 8 weeks, of which they will pay me 80% of my salary for 6 weeks, starting either 1) when the baby arrives or 2) at 38 weeks gestation (for those of us with physically demanding jobs, who commute, and don’t want to go into labor at work, in front of 50 10 year olds).  In a few cases, c-section or when prescribed by the doctor, you can get a few more weeks covered - up to 11 weeks max with 9 weeks paid.  What all this means is if you can’t afford to not work (thank you Zipy for allowing me to afford to not work) you have to go back to work 8 weeks after your baby is born - or potentially sooner if you have a late baby and have been out of work since 38 weeks!  Legally, a child can’t be put into daycare until they are 8 weeks old - so I guess you go back to work with the baby!

But I shouldn’t be ranting about that, because that is not my problem.  I get to stay at home for a year once this kiddo is born, thanks to my sugar daddy Zipy.  What I need to rant about is my quickly deteriorating mental condition.  Like I said I’ve been home now for 2 weeks and in those 2 weeks I’ve had contractions almost everyday, all sorts of signs of impending labor, a terrible time sleeping at night and still no baby.  I’m thankful I had such an easy pregnancy up until 38 weeks, so I shouldn’t complain too much, but boys and girls this really sucks.  These are the three scenarios my days follow:  A) Imagine getting up everyday wanting to accomplish something, but then feeling too shitty to do much more than walk around the neighborhood, watch TV and sleep.  B) Or perhaps you feel great, you start to get things done and then you have contractions that won’t stop, you get all excited, your about to call your husband home for work and they stop.  Now your way to depressed to continue with your productive day, all you can think about is the baby or lack there of, and you go back to plan A (walk, sleep, TV, books).  C) In either case, as much as you fool yourself into thinking you have important things to accomplish, you are spending 8 hours a day home alone.  You can’t start a big project, in case the kid comes, you’re leary to leave the house alone in the car, in case the kid comes or you water breaks or you have a contraction that pins the baby’s head against the nerve that runs down your leg while your driving, causing your leg to spasm and come off the brake….
So let us all hope that today is the day; this is her due date after all (I think something like 5% of all babies are born on their due date).  On the good news front, I did find out from my midwife on Monday that I’m now even closer to giving birth (meaning the intermittent contractions of the past few weeks have been working) and she even tried to do some natural inducing, but that didn’t pan out.  However, serious progress has been made, which should lessen the length and severity of active labor.

Thank you all for reading about my trials and tribulations.  I’m sure days from now, when she is here, I will look back on these weeks and laugh.  But for now,  I will continue to share my journey with you, so you can all laugh at me!