Exciting day... too exciting

So today has been a lot more exciting than we hoped... Short story.. .Everything is perfect... baby girl is here crying with big lungs and testing out perfectly on all fronts.

Julie did so well and had a very short and easy delivery, but that pesky placenta gave us some trouble. We were able to get it out with a bit of love from Nancy, and the situation became nice and stable. After some discussion we decided that it would be best if Julie took a trip to the hospital and that I am going to stay home with one of the midwifes and the baby... She is out there now... pix will be posted soon...

Keep sending the love and good thoughts.. it is going to be a long night.

D&J

Midwife Check In

The midwives (Nancy and Michelle) stopped by to check in on Julie. Everything looks good and they checked out setup which also looks good. Still a bit early in the process, so they are going to come back in a couple of hours.

They're telling us that getting rest now would be a great idea. We are going to go for a bit of a walk and see if anything changes. They are going to be a quick phone call away.

4-1-1 (we think)

So one of the mileposts in the whole pregnancy/giving birth journey is the 4-1-1 stage... This means, that there are 4 minute gaps between contractions, which are lasting 1 minute each.. and that this has been going on for an hour... The contractions haven't been all THAT strong, but we don't really have a frame of reference that really gives us an accurate callibration (just the birthing videos, and most of those ladies were pretty calm up until the birth).

So we're actually right around that neighborhood and Julie is calling Nancy our midwife to give her an update.

Not yet in transition is the report.... things progressing well.

D&J

It's GO time!

Julie's water broke at around 3:00am this morning. We were both too excited to go back to sleep, so we got a bunch of last minute things sorted around the house (videos returned to Blockbuster, bendy straws and donuts bought at the 24-hour super market). We went for a nice walk around 5:00 to watch the light come up over the city which was very nice and beautiful.

We waited until 7:00 to call the midwife and are waiting a bit longer before we call my folks (Doug's parents) because we know that as soon as they get the news they'll try to come over/fly up as quickly as possible.

Note to people engaging midwives: when she says, "Call when your water breaks." She really means, "Even if it is 3:00am in the morning, CALL WHEN YOUR WATER BREAKS!" After we talked to her this morning and let her know that the water was clear, she let us know that it is going to be a LONG day and that we should go back and try to get some sleep.

So Julie is resting/sleeping now and I'm going to start getting some breakfast together.

Julie calling her sister with Kiki.

Stay tuned for updates.

Our last quiet weekend?

Well, it's Monday and Julie and I had a very quiet, chill weekend. We're figuring that we probably are never going to have another weekend where it is just the two of us. A very exciting and scary thought indeed!

Brother Jon came over Saturday morning before he left for a photo-walk and took some great pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonbeck/DougAndJulieAlmostTime?authkey=Sple_af0uPo


It is nice to know that at least one of the brothers has a shred of talent for things creative.

Other than visiting with Jon and getting a delivery (and car seat inspection) from James Green, we did a whole lot of relaxing and video watching.

So now we wait!

Last Birthing Class Tonight!

We're getting close! Tonight is our last birthing class, and we should be ready to go. We are at 37 weeks which means that we are in the "Green Zone" for having a normal birth (full-term pregnancies run 37-42 weeks). Julie has been having lots of problems with her back and ribs, but has been a real trooper about everything.

So I think we have everything ready to go. Julie has been checking out some pediatricians, and I am going to try to get the car seat anchored in the back of our Corolla. I'll post some pix of the baby's room and all of the great stuff we have.

Kiki is going to be so mad!

Up until now, Kiki has been Julie's precious little baby. Those two are so cute together, following each other around. Sometimes it seems like Kiki thinks that Julie is HER baby, and will be very diligent about making sure that Julie's face is clean (like in the picture above). Hopefully little Kiki will understand the changes that are going to start happening in our home. She is a smart and sweet little cat. Maybe she'll be fine if we give her an extra wet-food treat for the first couple of weeks.