My labor story for our first child.

After ten long months of pregnancy, we are having our baby today!

The timer goes off on the proverbial bun in the oven at noon today. What can I say, we are thrilled, excited, nervous, ecstatic, scared, happy and about twenty other emotions I don’t think I can possibly articulate. My biggest concern is that the baby is okay. She was moving like crazy last night so hopefully that means she is ready to come and join the outside world today.

Original Post We have been back from Iguazù since Monday afternoon. On Monday, we ended up passing on the jungle tour since it was raining and we had already had one complete day of being wet and instead went to the Wanda Mines. It was interesting to see the minerals but the two hour tour [...]

People at work keep asking why I am working and my response is consistently, “what else would I be doing?” I cannot imagine having at least work to fill the time. At this point, I don’t have a lot of pressing matters to deal with at work as my responsibilities have been transferred to the two people who are covering for me while I am out. It is not in my nature to pass off work to other people, so it has been hard for me to give all of my work away as it feels like I am dumping on others…but it has to be done for a smooth transition. Honestly by the end of the week, probably half of each workday has been spent talking with people who stop by my desk to discuss childbirth and get an update on how I am doing. People are really excited for me/us and it is fun to discuss their birth stories and theorize how things will be for us.

My sister, Anna, has not been overly interested in any part of the traditional wedding celebrations. It was with deep deliberation that we discussed both baby and bridal showers a few months ago. Our dilemma was that neither of us particularly like to go to showers so we felt hypocritical having showers for ourselves. My mom said that for the baby it was a must and I was actually quite excited about the baby showers as it was a great opportunity to see our close friends and family and receive some adorable baby garb. We pondered Anna’s bridal shower longer since everything about her wedding was untraditional.

One of the things that comes along with pregnancy, child birth and child rearing is unsolicited advice. Almost every person I talk to has at least one piece of sage wisdom that saved their bacon in their particular pregnancy, birth or first few weeks with new baby stories. If this week has taught me anything, it has reminded me that every person’s story is unique and unpredictable. This is really true with people’s lives in general, but the pregnancy/birthing case study is a microcosm of life.

According to most sources I have read, if you are “normal weight” which is what I guess I would have considered myself before I was pregnant, you should gain between 25 and 35 pounds. Underweight people should gain 28 to 40 pounds and overweight people should gain 15 to 25 pounds. Much of the weight gained during pregnancy naturally goes away when the baby is born, but certainly not all of it. Here is a breakdown where some of the additional weight is stored while you are pregnant (according to MayoClinic.com):

at what was happening. It was hard to tell what was going on, but I could see the form in Alecia’s belly move around. After about three minutes the mood in the room went from “relaxed” to “very serious”. The nurses started to reach for equipment in the room and the doctor went for the heart rate monitor. It turns out that Belén’s heart rate dropped from 135 (resting) to about 80. She was under duress. The doctor had warned us the day before that this could happen and that we might end up having to do a “crash” c-section. My stomach went into knots and I imagined that they might rush Alecia and Belen to the OR at anytime. After a couple of minutes, Belén’s heart got back to normal as she flipped back to the breach position.

As he was checking, I made a mental note that it seemed like he was doing a little bit more checking than last week but dismissed it as my full bladder making it seem slightly more dramatic. After he was finished, he quickly proclaimed in an almost surprised manner, “she is breech.” What he at first thought was a head was, in fact, the two cheeks of her buttocks.