If I am, then too bad because Zoot is having her baby today! At 12 noon CST, to be precise. Which I think equates to 10 am out here in the sticks. I am completely and totally stalking her updates… watching for news on Twitter (I’m actually sending her updates directly to my cell phone! Stalker!) and pictures on Flickr. I’m so excited, partially because I remember so well the last time she had a baby, and how I refreshed her page all day long looking for updates. It’s like we’ve come full circle or something.

Plus, I shared a room with her at BlogHer last year. And I saw how sad she was in the aftermath of her miscarriage. Having suffered my own kind of loss, I guess it’s natural to want to spare a friend from that.

She’s going from two to three, just like me! I’m so excited to see how it goes for her. I have a box of boy clothes coming her way (it has sat in Kile’s van, waiting for him to remember to take it to the post office) that I’m hoping will come in handy for their new bundle of blue.

So tell me this: am I nuts for being so excited about this baby? Because I am. Excited that is. Not nuts. At least, I hope I’m not nuts. Anyhow, go wish them luck and good wishes, if you have a moment. Congrats, Zoot family!

Tags: baby, c-section, misszoot, pregnancy
Filed under Fantabulous-ness |

If you’ve been eyeballing my Twitter, you know that Evie is here! But first things first. We got to the hospital at the bell toll of 10:00am and got set up right away in our “holding room”. I call it that because it’s the room right next to the doors to the operating room and it’s the same room I had to sit and wait in when Liam was born. We watched some really strange things on TV, including a program that included time-lapse photography of a decomposing cow. It was way wrong. But it kept us busy.

Lucky us though, we got in right on time. I was taken back to the OR five minutes past noon. I won’t detail anything here (I’ll leave that for my birth story post!). Needless to say, Evie made her arrival into the world at 12:29pm, weighing a grand total of 6 pounds and 8 and a half ounces. So this means that Violet won the “What Will She Weigh” contest! Violet, shoot me an email at callistawolf AT gmail DOT com and I’ll get your addy so I can send you a little somethin’. Though Southernbelle gets an honorable mention for getting the closest guess in on her time of birth. Way to go guys! And thanks to EVERYONE for putting in guesses. It was SO fun to read them while I was busy freaking out about having a baby. Heh.

I’m beat. I’ve got lots of stories to share with you all. I’ll leave it at that for now. In the meantime, it looks as if I WILL get to watch “LOST” tonight. Woo hoo!

She is absolutely adorable. I mean, don’t take my word for it. Take a look for yourselves…

^{The cute is threatening to eat us all.}

^{Making faces already}

^{I dare say she’s razzing us}

^{Harry is already in love}

^{Mutual admiration society starring Kile’s mom and Harry}

^{Liam surprised us by being so interested in her. He even tried to give her a kiss. Unprovoked!}

Tags: birth, c-section, Evelyn
Filed under Evelyn |

Okay folks. This is it. We’re counting down HOURS here. The end is nigh. The beginning is imminent. Life, as we know it, will be turned on it’s ear. Are you scared yet? No? Cuz I am. Heh. Seriously though. Very excited. Very nervous. I can’t keep a thought in my head for more than two seconds at a time. It’s really rather pathetic.

In other news, I had my last NST this morning. Good times were had by all. Except maybe Evie who fell asleep about 5 or 10 minutes into the darned thing and kept her heart rate at a steady 120bpm the rest of the hour. Go figure. But all systems are go for tomorrow.

So here’s the drill: My c-section is scheduled for 12 noon (pacific time, yo) and I need to be down at the hospital by 10 am. We’ll probably leave here at 9:30 or so. Even so, I’ll try to throw up a post of some sort (something that probably says, “OH. MY. GOD.”) before we leave. I will be leaving the laptop in the van until I have a postpartum room all set up (along with the rest of my crap, of which I have lots), but I will have my cellphone on me. Which means two things, a) I will be able to check email, though it would be considerably more difficult to send email and b) I can twitter to my heart’s content. I can also conceivably “post to my blog” through flickr. Which is how I do the majority of my Wordless Sunday posts. And this will probably how the initial “announcement” is made. I’m trying to educate Kile on what media he is expected to take at what point throughout the day. I want video of the actual birth. But I want stills of her on the table and being brought to me. Somewhere in there, I want him to take a picture with my cellphone so that it can be sent to flickr and posted to the blog. WHEW.

So I guess my point here is that if you are interested in updates, keep an eye on Twitter, Flickr and eventually, the blog here. Once I do get settled in, I plan to fire up the laptop, post pictures to flickr in earnest and make a nice decent blog post. That probably won’t happen until evening sometime. Again, this is all pacific time, of course.

And, in case you don’t know, I am beyond thrilled at everyone’s interest and excitement in my big news. You all totally rock, you know that? I love each and every one of your comments. Your encouragement means more to me than you could possibly know.

I also have a little fun in store for you all. I decided to make a little contest out of how big you all think this baby will end up being. Harry was 7lbs 5oz at 40weeks 2days. Jackson was 6lbs even at 38weeks even. Liam was 4lbs 15oz at 37weeks even. Now, at my 35week ultrasound, the doctor thought that she weighed 5lbs 9oz. A pretty good estimate, but who knows, really.

Tomorrow I will be 37weeks 2days pregnant. What do you think her weight will be? The winner with the closest guess will be awarded Something Fabulous (that I haven’t figured out what it is yet). But you can rest assured it will be Fabulous. So whaddya say? And, in case of any “ties”, I will break it by having you all guess what TIME she will be born. Now, I know I said I’m scheduled 12pm, but we all know how these things go. I could get bumped because of an emergency or whatever. And I’m talking EXACT time. If two people guess 6lbs 2oz but one guesses 12:05 and one guesses 12:30 and she weighs 6lbs 2oz and is born at 12:25, the second person wins. Sound fair? Sound like a plan?

Let the guessing begin!

Tags: birth, c-section, contest, Evelyn
Filed under Pregnant? |

Before I get into Today’s Topic, I want to put some closure to some subjects I addressed earlier. First off, my NST went great this morning. Baby was, once again, happy and reactive. She never fails to amaze me. Or maybe I’m just used to how stubborn and uncooperative Liam was during his NSTs. AND, I got a reprieve on the internal exam! Woo hoo! I don’t think I’ll be as lucky next week, unfortunately. Secondly, Holly came through her little operation with flying colors. I picked up Harry after school and we went and got her. She’s pretty sore and is moving like an old lady, but none the worse for wear, I figure. And hey, no more dogs in heat!

Okay, now on to the Topic at Hand. It is: Birth Control. Now wait. Before you run away, let me just say… well, there really isn’t much I can say that will make you interested in this subject. Except that perhaps I need your advice, experience, input, etc. Maybe that will convince you to stick around and see what I have to say. Maybe? I hope?

So, I STILL don’t know what I should do about birth control after this baby is born. It just seems like there is no “perfect” solution. And see, I have no problem with permanence. Which is probably why most women object to getting their “tubes tied”. Permanence is fine. I know we are done having children. This phase of our lives is about to be put behind us once and for all. The nice thing about a tubal ligation is that I can get it done right when the baby is born. Nothing more to worry about. Done deal. Taken care of. What worries me about getting a tubal ligation is the risk of ectopic pregnancy. I need to do some more research on it, see how likely it is to happen. I just need to know more about the whole thing, period. What can I expect from a tubal? Side effects? Pain? How does it effect periods? So on, and so forth.

The other option, which I was considering just as heavily, was the Mirena IUC. Basically, it’s a hormone-laden IUD. Same difference. It lasts for 5 years and has some hormones in it to suppress pregnancy. I asked my doctor for more information about it today and she handed me a pamphlet. Sadly, the pamphlet has probably only made me more likely to chose another avenue. It’s very effective, that’s true. BUT (there’s always a “but”, isn’t there?), it’s not placed until th 6 weeks postpartum visit. Which, you know, normally no big deal but it would be nice to have it taken care of right off the bat. Also, it has to be replaced every five years. DO NOT DIG THAT. I want something I can do and forget about it. Five years is a lot of time, true. But maintenance isn’t a strong suit of mine. Also, I’m not real crazy about it’s method of preventing pregnancy. Reminds me of when I used to take the Pill and I got skeevish about the fact that it wasn’t necessarily preventing pregnancy so much as preventing a pregnancy from “taking hold”. Morally, emotionally, for me that is kind of a deal-breaker.

I suppose a “tubal” doesn’t prevent pregnancy either. But… I think it’s probably a lot more effective at preventing pregnancy. And we arrive back at the whole ectopic pregnancy thing again. I guess what I want is a tubal that doesn’t increase my chances of an ectopic pregnancy. I guess there’s nothing like that out there, is there? What are my other options, though? DO I have other options?

So I made a nifty little poll. If you could take the poll and/or leave me a comment with your ideas, thoughts, suggestions, etc I would SO TOTALLY appreciate it. Because I’m still at a loss here and I need to be making some choices here pretty darned soon.

[poll=4]

Tags: birth control, c-section, iuc, iud, mirena, sterilization, tubal ligation, tubes tied
Filed under Pregnant? |