Monday, April 23, 2012

James

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James Corey Atkinson-Freeman was born today at 11:49 AM. 6 pounds, 15 ounces, with a healthy set of lungs. We're both a little shocked at how tiny he is compared to his brother and sister, who were both 9 pounds at birth, but he's absolutely perfect.

Baby tomorrow

Well, later today at this point. But in about 8 hours, we're leaving for the hospital and will hopefully have a spiffy new baby not too long after that. Oh my.

I know that this hospital has wi-fi (unlike the one I was in with Alec, where we were told they didn't, then discovered they did on my second admission when I brought along my laptop so I could watch movies), so hopefully I'll be doing well enough tomorrow evening to update with pictures and vital statistics.

Monday, April 9, 2012

So! I'm not sure where the past few weeks went. Busyness, mostly. I have at least one doctor appointment a week, I enrolled K in a homeschoolers gym class and I took K back to the urologist and the eye doctor. That takes up a lot of our days. Somewhere in there, we continue to provide our child with an education and I continue to gestate a baby.

* All goes well on the pregnancy front. An ultrasound on Monday revealed that Godric is estimated at 6 1/2 pounds (my doctor did an ultrasound Wednesday as well and estimated him at 5 1/2 pounds, which just goes to show what a big margin for error ultrasounds have at this stage. Personally, I'm inclined to go with the ultrasound tech, who spends all day long measuring fetuses). It also showed that he's very much like his sister. Firstly because he made it impossible to get any good pictures by curling up in a little ball and putting both his hands AND feet in front of his face. But also because he's lying transverse across the top of my abdomen. That would explain why my stomach is largest at the top and rather pointy. I can still wear pants that I had to give up before 30 weeks in previous pegnancies, because all of the baby bulk is above my waistline. On the plus side, since he's not in my pelvis at all, the pubic bone pain I've had before isn't as bad this time. K was transverse too, but was happily lying in pelvis like a hammock, while Alec favored various weird positions within my pelvis, often involving his head lodged in one of my hips. With both of them, at this point I was mostly wondering when my pelvis was going to split right in half, whereas now, it's painful but not as bad. On the down side, a baby lying right under my ribs is free to happily kick and punch away at my cervix and bladder, activities that my previous babies had to give up before 30 weeks. Ow. I'm not exactly thrilled by his habit of shoving his head into my ribs by pushing as hard as he can against my hip either.

Anyway, we already had a c-section scheduled (as it turns out, it's very hard to find a doctor around here who will let you attempt a vaginal birth after two c-sections, and at this point, I just don't care enough to try), so mostly I feel amused that Godric has decided to make it so very necessary.

* It's a little hard to absorb that I'm having a baby in two weeks. We're using our three-day weekend to rearrange our bedroom, and now that the baby's dresser is set up in there, I'm hoping we can dig out clothes and diapers tomorrow. At that point, we'll be at least minimally prepared. There are plenty more things we should do, like go through and see what bottles are reuseable and stock the freezer, but we'll at least have clothes, diapers and carseat ready.

* In other child news, K is getting glasses. I noticed a couple months ago that her reading was markedly better when she held the book about six inches away from her face, so this doesn't come as much of a surprise. I'm pretty sure she knew she needs glasses too, because she was vehemently opposed to the idea of going to the eye doctor, and every time the topic came up, she would yell, "I don't need glasses!" Not exactly a master poker player, dear.

Once she was actually in the chair, thankfully she was really very cooperative (something I was very worried about because she's been displaying a level of shyness and stranger anxiety lately that I find challenging, to put it mildly). She happily picked out a pair of pink glasses and was disappointed to find out she would have to wait for them, so hopefully it won't be a problem getting her to wear them consistently. Actually, I think it won't be a problem at all to get her to wear them once she finds out what life is like when you can see clearly. I'm going to be interested to see what happens to her reading and writing after she has glasses.

* I'm having a baby in TWO WEEKS. TWO. And then there will be three small people around here that we're expected to take care of and send to college. Eek.