What I've learned...

In the last 2 and a half weeks, Matt and I have learned a LOT:

• the best place to vomit while in the hospital is in the operating room because they suction it straight out of your mouth
• Matt is incredibly patient, helpful and loving in such stressful times
• it takes 23 minutes from walking into an operating room to delivering a human via c-section
• surgeons don't care about what music is playing in their OR (we listened to Christmas music while Bella was born)
• you are united with your baby an hour and 40 minutes after being born, whether you can move your lower extremities or not (I couldn't wiggle my toes for approximately 4 hours after Bella was born)
• beer increases milk production (in limited quantities, obviously) and so does drinking a lot of water, eating a lot of food and sleeping a lot
• no amount of vicodin helps with the pain associated with raw, cracked or bleeding nipples
• postpardum depression is real
• breast shells (plastic covers for your nipples to air dry) work to heal quickly
• nipple shields (silicon nipple) work to alleviate pain and speed healing but can become addictive to a little baby
• losing 23 pounds in 2 weeks is great, but may mean that a body is stressed (so yes, I'm still proud to say that I gained 25 pounds during the entire pregnancy and have almost already lost it all!!! ...however, I'm still wearing maternity clothes)
• dermabond (skin glue) is the best for sealing incisions
• walking upright takes about a week after a c-section
• breastfeeding is hard work and a constant event (I hope it becomes rewarding sometime soon)
• it feels good to hear from people that your baby is cute
• babies must regain the weight that they lose after birth by 2 weeks of age or there's a problem (Bella weighs 7 lbs. 14 oz. and needs to gain 5 ounces this week!)
• asking for help is hard
• swaddling is an artform and the tighter the better
• it takes a week for a man to get over changing a baby girl's diaper
• baby's belly buttons look cool until you look closely
• breastfed baby poop smells and resembles movie theater popcorn
• breastmilk sours on your body
• pumping breastmilk is humilating (but Matt helps make it fun)

double the fun

My parents at their Farewell & Godspeed Party with Jack & Bella.

1 week check-up

So we have survived an entire week: three days in the hospital, and five at home; surprisingly, getting enough sleep to survive. For the first few days, Bella has been sleeping three hours at a shot, but now goes four hours sometimes, but two hours on other occasions. Let's just hope that she keeps the four hour cycles during the night. Diaper changes on the other hand, can be anywhere between four hours on a good stretch and five minutes when you are trying to get things done around the house, like cook dinner. After this week of practice with me at home, it remains to be seen how Laura goes it alone come Monday when I get back to work.
Bella had her first checkup with her Pediatrician Dr. Kinalska. All is in working order and she is progressing on schedule. In fact, she has grown a whole 5/8 inches in those eight days. The visit was fairly pain-free, except for the first of her series of vaccinations. I can say safely, that it looks like Bella has inherited her Mom's dislike of needles.

who needs a boppy...

...when you have a Penny?

More visits by the family

Yesterday was Bella's first day home, and as can be imagined, there was a line of people waiting to greet her. Laura's Mom, Brother John and Sister-in-Law Ashley came with Bella's cousin Jack. My brothers also flew in from New York on Friday night bearing bags of gifts for baby Bella, and dinner for the rest of us.
Needless to say, it was very busy around here; fun, but busy, and it eventually took its toll on Laura and I just as everyone left for the evening. Just as John and Mike were getting ready to leave Bella started to protest: maybe she was tired, perhaps just hungry, but quite possibly registering that her audience of undivided attention was slowly going away leaving her alone with just Mom, Dad, and the dogs. It took nearly all of our remaining ounces of energy to get her settled again before the two of us passed out. We feel bad that John and Mike could only spend an afternoon and evening with us before returning to New York, but given the circumstances, I'm sure everyone understands.

Bella and Matt

Bella's favorite place to sleep is on Matt's chest. Matt loves it too.

a basket of babes

Here's Jack and Bella in Bella's bed basket. Cute!

Happy Valentine's Day

Here's our little Valentine on her way home.
We hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Thursday February 12, 2009 - Day 1

The first night was actually pretty smooth. While it took us all a few hours to get into a routine with the feeding, burping, changing, and sleeping cycle, Bella and I got a solid four hours sleep after midnight on the sleigh bed in the room. Just to give you an idea of the setup here at St. Joseph's, the majority of the rooms were at one time semi-private rooms which have since been converted into single occupant suites. Half of the room is the original hospital style room, while the space formerly reserved for a second patient now holds a twin sleigh bed against the wall, a table with four chairs, a small credenza under the window complete with table lamp, a large TV, microwave, and small refrigerator. I can sleep comfortably and be just a few steps away from either Laura or Bella should they need assistance during the night.

Laura has already started experimenting with Bella's wardrobe in preparation for visitors. In this picture she is sporting a hand-woven cap made by my Aunt Jackie up in Dallas. Laura brought along a whole bag of clothes for Bella, but we will save those for when we go home. We were visited by my friend Laurent, and Laura's high school friend Jennifer.

10:23 AM, Wednesday February 11, 2009.

Its an unprecedented time in history; the World if not our Country is enduring tough economic times, a new President is getting his feet wet in the White House, up in space satellites are crashing together, but quietly in the confines of the St. Joseph Medical Center Women's Center, a new life begins in the form of little Bellatrix "Bella" Alessandra; another first as a baby girl is born into our families.

Bellatrix comes from Latin roots meaning female warrior, one of the more prominent navigational stars (#13) defining the left shoulder in the constellation Orion. (So far, she has lived up to this by coming into he world kicking and screaming in objection to being brought out of her home for the last 39-1/2 weeks to the cold air and bright lights). We didn't choose Bellatrix to honor any warriors or pagan gods, but rather after the navigational star Gamma Orionis (more commonly known as Bellatrix) which is one of the easier stars to locate in the Winter sky (SHA 279, Dec N06), the 13th Navigational star in the nautical almanac. Laura and I wanted a unique name, something with significance (me particularly from celestial navigation), but Laura made a mandatory requirement that it have three syllables to be in conformance with my last name. (We had a lot of fun tying to meet this particular criteria: wasabi, banana, Uranus........) Alessandra was a compromise of sorts, as Laura liked the name Alice but this didn't have a nice flow to it when you put all three names together.

Bella was born at 10:23 AM, weighing 8 lbs 2.7 oz., and measuring 19-7/8 inches long. Not small by any means, but a surprising size given Laura's small frame. She was quickly cleaned up and dressed in the nursery and turned over to me until Laura came out of recovery. Bella was ready to get to work as soon as she came into the room; her head was hunting and mouth and tongue moving around ready to latch on to anything that got within reach (my fingers included). Laura was only about 10 minutes behind, so as soon as the nurses transferred Laura to the bed, I put Bella on her chest and let her get to work. It was amazing to see how quickly Bella found her place and dug into her first meal. All I had to do was sit back and let them bond.

Bella was soon visited by her Grandmother Carolyn, Aunt Ashley, Uncle John, and Cousin Jack. Jack was born only 3-1/2 weeks before Bella, so we are sure they will grow up being very close. John took quite a few pictures, and even a short video to put away in the archives (or perhaps on Ashley's blog).

10:00 AM, Wednesday February 11, 2009 - Here we go...

Now isn't that a happy face? No more pressure, no more kicking, "I can't feel a thing down there, although I swear I can still wiggle my toes." Maybe its the drugs, maybe its the end of the anticipation, but Laura is not worrying, and her hands are not sweating either.

Laura was given a direct injection of Duramorph into the spine which acts quickly at numbing everything below the nipple line and should keep her pain free for 12 to 24 hours. The only drawback is that she did vomit shortly after I left the room.

Day Zero - Wednesday February 11, 2009

Well we missed our opportunity to make an entry for the last two days with all of the details from day zero, so I'll make it all up here before going on about what happened yesterday and today.

This is Laura's final picture before the "Big Event", keeping in tune with the last series of entries. She's not nervous, not worried about the needles or anything for that matter. We arrived at the hospital at 07:40 well in advance of our 08:00 appointment. We had originally been scheduled for 1:00 PM, but then received a call on Monday moving us up to 10. While it cut our day a little short, it did have the benefit of letting us get it all over with.

This is IT!

Tomorrow is the day! We think we're ready. The bag is packed. The essentials are on board. The car is gassed up. The house is clean and I'm going to shower with special surgical soap tonight and tomorrow morning. Here's the plan: Arrive at 8:00 am. Get IV. Go to OR. Deliver baby at 10 am (well, I'm not really delivering...it's being delivered to me and Matt). Recover. Start a whole new life!

Today we went to the hospital for the pre-operation assessment. I signed lots of consent forms, you know, basically, no one is responsible if anything bad were to happen. I made a down payment on the hospital bill. I had blood withdrawn. Surprisingly, it went well! I didn't even feel the pinch of the needle and only felt a bit woozy when the blood was coming out. Hopefully, it'll go that well tomorrow with the IV and spinal block.
Here's the first course of the last meal! It's "Straw and Hay" or fetticini with egg and spinach noodles with peas, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, topped with proscuitto. The main course was a filet mignon, but we gobbled that before remembering to get the picture. Matt's a fabulous chef! See below:
Here's Chef Matt at work! He's getting a bit nervous, I think...because he keeps asking if I'm nervous. Cross your fingers, send good thoughts and pray that everything works out just the way it's supposed to. We want a happy, healthy child that stays that way. We hope we never have to use the cord blood.

2

2 days to go...and oh so UGLY! This is what I look like holding a baby boy! Horrible isn't it! This is an unhappy Jack and a very tired, worn out, end of the day version of me.

Despite the looks of it, Matt and I had a great day! We ran errands and did lots of things that are usually reserved for the weekend, but since we're not working...we did them all today. It's so much better when you don't have the hassle of traffic or crowds. I'm definitely ready for the baby to arrive. My blood sugar or blood pressure is zig-zagging a bit (which the nurses tell me is normal for creating and sustaining another human being) and I'm just so tired (I must still be a bit anemic). McDonald's happy meals seem to do the trick - they make me happy! With the smallest effort, I seem to break out into a sweat and exhaust myself. I honestly think it's better to be at work where I'm productive but not active. We were certainly productive (well, Matt was) and I was great at sitting in the car today.

Matt celebrated his birthday tonight with his friends from the Radio Club and I visited my mom, Jack, John and Ashley for dinner.

3

3 days left! It's been real exciting...NOT! We vacuumed out Matt's car, took the recycling to the recycling center and rented a 24' (which wasn't long enough) then a 28' ladder to hang a wire antennae from house peak to garage peak. We did peruse around Urban Outfitters and 1/2 Price Books looking for something interesting for me to do (like a doodle book or something) but didn't find anything. We finally settled on seeing a movie: He's Just Not That Into You. It was a good movie! Matt even enjoyed it despite it's obvious chick flick appeal. It was filmed in Baltimore so Matt was homesick when we left. The greatest part about this Sunday night is that we don't have to work tomorrow! Yeah!

4

Cathy (also known as my belly artist) and I at the West Alabama Ice House wishing Kimberly and Marc a good farewell.
Kimberly and Marc leave soon to begin a new adventure in Perth, Australia! They'll be there for 4 years. Oh what fun and exciting experiences they will have! Chloe is going to have such a rich childhood!

5

5 days left! We celebrated our last days of work! I'm not officially going back to work until May 18th. When I left, the clinic director said, "Good bye Mom!" I sure wasn't ready to hear that! ...but I have 5 days to get ready. Matt's going to return to work (probably) on February 23rd.

We met Jan and Mariza for dinner at Raia, a great, new, casual Italian restaurant. We always have a good time with Matt's friends!

6

6 more days! We invited Tom & Linda, Kathy's parents over for dinner. As you can see Bob came along too! Here's a picture of me and Kathy, after dinner...I think that's why my belly looks so large (I had a very large serving of lasagna!)

7

7 days to go! Here's my last painted belly photo. Happy Valentine's Day!
Here I am with Chloe...just in case you were wondering what I will look like with a baby girl!
Here I am at work with a colleague. We have lots of fun sharing stories and making fun of my belly!

8

8 more days to go! So, the excuse this time is that Matt didn't say when he was taking the picture and it's at the end of a long day. Penny and I were clearly taken off guard or we would have smiled better. We'll try for a better picture tomorrow; earlier in the day & with better instructions to smile. Here's a preview of the baby's room: shelves hung, diaper changing station ready and diaper champ loaded with a fresh bag.

We went to dinner at Star Pizza. I brought travel Scrabble along in case we were stuck in a boring baby conversation. Fortunately we ended up having a great conversation about our day!

9

9 more days to go. Matt loves the "overhang" in this picture. It's not very attractive, I admit.

I visited the doctor for my second-to-last visit. It was an unremarkable visit (it's a good thing).

We celebrated one of Matt's friend's birthdays tonight. He loves Ihop and I love Ihop so it was wonderful evening! I even ordered a chocolate chip pancake for dessert. We had a great time listening to stories and laughing!

10

The countdown is on! 10 days to go. We went to lunch at Texadelphia...a kid-unfriendly place because of the booth-only seating, small, tight, hurry-and-eat atmosphere. Interesting thing is that there were plenty of kids there! We saw lots of little babies in their car seats squished sideways into a booth. We'll keep trying to do and find places in the next several days that really are not kid-friendly.