I’m being induced tonight.

I’m being induced to– Nope. No matter how many times I see/say/think it. It still doesn’t feel real. Sometime on Thursday (hopefully!) Elliott will make his debut, this journey will be over, and a new one will begin. My head is so full of thoughts about what the next 24-48 hours will entail that I can’t focus on what the first few weeks with two children will entail, and that’s probably a good thing.

I can hardly believe it’s going to be over, though. I can’t remember what it’s like to not be pregnant. What’s it like to eat or drink anything you want? What’s it like to walk without waddling? To do more than 1/3 of a day’s worth of “work” without being exhausted and in pain for the rest of the day? What’s it like to have a spine that isn’t concave at the bottom? To take a 20 minute steaming hot shower? What’s it like to sleep on your back for more than 5 minutes? Or your front at all?

There are things I will “miss” about being pregnant. I’ll miss the thick hair. I’ll miss the way most people seem to be extra nice and accommodating. I’ll miss a bit of the attention. I’ll miss not being obsessed about looking overweight and I’ll certainly miss folks telling me how great I look, even when I know they’re lying. I’ll miss knowing one of my children is safe because he’s always within reach. Elliott will never be this easy to care for and keep track of, and I’m sure I’ll miss that. It’s silly, but it’s true.

But I’m ready to be done. At my last pre-natal checkup, we discussed the risks and benefits of being induced a bit early. On Thursday I will be 8 or 9 days away from my due date, depending on which one you use and how you count days. It’s only 5 days earlier than the last sonogram calculated my due date at, although that’s largely irrelevant. Since I was progressing slowly but steadily and Elliott’s proven checkup after checkup that he’s healthy and on the big side, my doctor scheduled an induction that starts tonight, and will likely end some time Thursday morning. Last time was quite literally a breeze, more or less. My body was really responsive to the induction methods, the epidural was great, and Charlotte was ready to go when it was time. I’m not expecting Elliott’s birth to go as smoothly, but it sure would be nice. It could be over much sooner, and it could be over on Friday. So long as we end up a healthy family of four, I won’t complain too much.

…and you know what? I’ve been messing around with this post off and on all day. It doesn’t say nearly the stuff I want it to, but i’m now 20 minutes away from the “call window” for my induction, and I can hardly focus. So if it’s raw up there and sentences stop and start, so be it.

If you want to follow the action (assuming that the action doesn’t get so crazy i don’t have time to tweet, or, like last time, I get to sleep through the most “action-y” chunk), you should follow baby_squirt on twitter (or just keep reloading that page. This space, Facebook, and my regular twitter account will all be updated much less frequently, but will have announcements and pictures as soon as logistically/priority-ally feasible.

what i’m not cool with is any version of the following question/comment:

“6 weeks, eh? are you ready? you know, my best friend’s sister had her second child 7 weeks premature, so you could really go at any time, now. I bet you’re really looking forward to being done, right?”

For the record: no, i am not ready yet and despite all of my non-squeamishness, I do not want to hear about people who have already given birth by this stage. Every time I hear it, the “it could happen at any time now” voice gets louder and the “i’m not ready yet voice” gets a bit more panicked and it’s stressing me out.

here is how it works, or at least, how it worked last time and more or less looks like it’s going to work this time: if you’re fortunate enough not to go through pre-term labor issues, you reach a point near the end of your pregnancy where your discomfort of being pregnant eclipses any anxiety you might have over labor or new-parenthood that prevents you from being “not ready” to deliver. you go from “i don’t know if i can do this” to “for the love of god, would someone get this thing out of me already?”

it’s a healthy thing and i’m looking forward to it.

i am nearly there. the constant backache, the limited mobility, the giant wiggly baby in my belly are all wearing on me and i’m pretty much ready to be done with it all. it’s making me cranky, which frustrates me and everyone who’s trying their best to be accommodating to my needs and moods because, holy crap, i’m a super-pregnant woman. there’s just one problem: Elliott’s world isn’t quite prepped for his arrival. Although there is nothing that doesn’t have a “while Kelly and Elliott are in the hospital” solution, there are lots of things that i’d like to have accomplished before i can fully embrace the “let’s get this show on the road” attitude.

I’d like to spend a little bit more time refreshing my memory on newborn care, especially the nursing part. i’m sure it will all come back to me, but i never trust that theory. between the toddler and the newborn’s needs, double-checking a book or the internet when i run up against something i feel like i’m forgetting just won’t happen. while he’ll be sleeping in a bassinet in our bedroom for the first few months, i’d like to have the nursery re-established with the right furniture in the proper place. i’d also like to have all his bedding, blankets, and first clothes washed and prepped and put away. it’d be nice to know where in our bedroom we’re going to put the bassinet now that we’ve added furniture to it, too. oh god, and the “lets go to the hospital now” bag isn’t anywhere near prepped. i keep forgetting about that one. and ordering the new stroller and the pump supplies and…

see? i’m so not ready to be ready!

we’re working towards all those goals, and the closer we get, the less panicked i feel. but please, strangers and family alike, please quit telling me that it could happen any day now and asking me if i’m ready yet. i know, and i’m not.

i promise to tell you when i am.

It was pretty fun as far as showers go. The limited amount of gifts, and the fact that they were all clothes and toys instead of “big ticket items” meant that I didn’t spend too much time feeling overly self-conscious as everyone just sat around while I opened things. There weren’t any overly game-y games, the food was tasty, and there was no drama. There was even a sweet 8 month old baby girl to help Charlotte “entertain” everyone.

As I mentioned, the haul was entirely clothes, toys, and other small items like receiving blankets and bibs and such. Later, as I was sorting everything into piles by size, I noticed that while there were only a couple of duplicate gifts, everything looked “the same.” Adorable, mind you, but pretty much the same. In fact, when I started sorting everything the next morning, I was unable to remember which gift went with which person, despite the best efforts of my gift-documentor. Which set of “puppy onesies” went with my aunt and which one went with my sisters-in-law? Thankfully, the thank you notes don’t have to be quite that precise.

Being who I am, I started to wonder which theme was the most prevalent and that opened the statistical floodgates. As I sorted, I recorded the theme(s) and category (size) of each item.

Here’s what I learned with the help of some basic charts from Excel:

As you can see, Puppies and Baseball were the major themes, with Zoo and Vehicles right behind. I really thought Monkey was going to take it, but that was because everything that was Zoo themed included monkeys but wasn’t counted as a monkey-themed item. While it looks like Misc Animal had as many hits as Puppy and Baseball, It really didn’t. More on that in a minute if you don’t start tuning out beforehand.

We had warned everyone that Elliott was likely to be a big kid, which explains the relatively even distribution in clothing sizes from 3 to 9 months. It’s hard to resist the tiny clothes, because they’re just so gosh-darned cute. Anything much bigger can be a serious hit-or-miss since babies “sizes” don’t always match their ages. Who knows what season he’ll really be in the 12 months clothes? I suspect it will be well before his one-year birthday.

Sadly, I don’t think my sample size was large enough to answer any more interesting questions. I wonder if there’s a connection between size and popular theme: are puppies even cuter in the 0-3 months size? Does construction equipment make more “sense” for the 18 month set? I also wondered if what I’d picked out for him (and added to the sorting after I’d finished cataloguing) matched up, or if my pro-monkey/anti-sport-themed bias would be too obvious. I know the additions would have bumped frogs into it’s own category. Since that pile of previous purchases also included items from Grandma, and I couldn’t remember who had purchased which items, that’s another unanswered question.

If you’re moonlighting as a stat geek, too, you might care that Zoo was defined as anything with multiple kinds animals on it. One might consider this category Jungle or Safari, but they usually contained animals that don’t ever see each other in the wild. Misc Animal was defined as clothes with a single animal theme, like Monkey or Puppy, but only containing one or two item with that theme. That didn’t seem like enough to clutter the pretty charts with a single block for elephant, penguin, frog, turtle, etc etc. Misc Sport was defined similarly. The No Theme theme was reserved for clothing and items that didn’t have a theme so much as they were a solid color or pattern. Some had phrases like “I’m Awesome” or “Little Brother”, but that didn’t seem theme-y enough. I intentionally left No Theme off the bar chart because even though it was nearly 1/4 of the items, it wasn’t as interesting as the rest of the themes and skewed the visuals. The packet of blue and brown pants is useful and i’m grateful, but it doesn’t really address the primary “popular theme” question. As far as categories go, Misc Cloth are laundry-bound things that aren’t clothes (bibs, blankets, wash clothes, and a stuffed lovey), and Misc Toy/Acc are toys and other things that won’t be laundered before Elliott gets to use them. (boiled, maybe ;)

In the interest of full disclosure, the quantities (especially the totals by category) are a bit misleading. Excepting Zoo, if an item had more than one clear theme (like a dinosaur driving a car or teddy bears *and* construction equipment) then it counted in multiple categories. There weren’t many of those items (maybe 4?) but with a data set this small, it’s a significant impact. LIkewise, if a set had a bib with the outfit, it counted as two items in the same theme, and a 5-pack of onesies would be assessed as 5 different items (and they weren’t always in the same theme!). I know, I know. It’s amateurish not to track it both ways, but at the end of the day, I knew I had much better things to do than go back and re-count everything using different methods for different data crunching. I could have also tracked themes by gift (most people picked up multiple items), and tracking theme by age of gift-giver would have been interesting, too. At least with a larger sample size. Missed opportunities all.

As of now, the clothes are all sorted into gift bags based on size, ready to be brought out and laundered as he grows into them. The 0-3 clothes and the majority of the misc cloth and toys will be addressed as soon as we get the nursery set up and the changing table in place, which should be some time in the next couple of weeks.

i’m struggling with staying motivated to breastfeed. every time someone is surprised or unexpectedly impressed with the fact that i’m still doing it, what i hear is “nobody expects you to still be doing it.” even my aunt, who breastfed for over a year with her children, had assumed i had stopped by now.

i broke a few “rules” of breastfeeding. we use a pacifier to …well, pacify her. we probably wouldn’t have ever started, but thanks to colic, it was pretty much a necessity to keep us sane and her free from unnecessary distress. we use it less often now, but still a few times a day. charlotte also gets fed from a bottle on average once a day or more. usually this comes in 2-3 bottles/day shifts while i’m at work, so she has days where almost half of her meals come from a bottle. add that to the pacifier usage, and even though she’s well past the age where nipple confusion is a risk, she’s getting a bit lazy when faced with the challenge of a breast instead of a bottle. it’s something we can work around/through, but it means breastfeeding is becoming more work instead of less.

and then there’s the cardinal rule of breastfeeding survival that we broke: we’re supplementing with formula. i cannot tell you how many times i’ve read/heard the warnings against the evil powder and how i should put any formula samples under lock and key so that i’m not tempted during a weak moment.

basically, i was faced with a choice. either i’m attached to a breastpump or a baby for a very large portion of some of my days, or we trade out a meal or two a day with formula. even if she was only drinking breastmilk, pumping messes with supply. it’s manageable, but it’s rough. if it was just an inconvenience for me, it would be one thing, but with all the drama about her size, the stress of making sure i was producing enough would be my undoing.

well, thanks to enfamil dropping a few sample cans of formula on our doorstep, the choice became even easier to make. by my calculations, we’ll run out of formula sometime in april…when she’s almost 6 months old and likely ready to start transitioning to solids anyway. to get her acclimated, we’ve started giving her about 2 meals a week (4oz each) with formula, and i’ve encouraged her babysitters to give her a formula “snack” if she eats through the breastmilk before we get home and she’s very hungry. it’s all been in prep for my full days at work, which start this week.

i still want to breastfeed as much as possible until she’s 6 months at least, but i know that the more we supplement, the more difficult it will be to keep supply going long term, and “going back to work” is another key period where it gets extra challenging. i’m also self-aware enough that i’m probably doing a bit of pre-sabotage to try and control when i stop breastfeeding instead of having it fade on me when i’m not prepared.

i suppose i just need to keep focused on why this was the best choice for our family, and remember that buying formula, bottle maintenance, and most importantly, losing that bond are things i don’t really want to do yet.

since about new year’s day, charlotte’s pooping habits changed. instead of almost always going (every diaper change was both wet and dirty), it was like someone fixed the leaky faucet. she’d go once, maybe twice a day, sometimes 36 hours between poops and the rest of her diapers would be wet but clean. then the big break happened. charlotte pooped last saturday night (1/5) and again the next morning. then she went on a poop strike. on thursday i called the pediatrician. i wanted some verbal confirmation that the internet and its experts weren’t lying to me. the nurse said that it was perfectly normal since she was happy and eating regularly. she told me to call back on monday (today) if she still hadn’t gone, but that they would likely just tell me to keep watching her if she was still happy and healthy.

so we waited and she farted (super-stinky farts) with increasing regularity. saturday night (day 6ish of the poop-strike), she demonstrated that everything was still working by dropping a dime-sized amount. then nothing. had the nurse not told me she wasn’t going to be concerned and if we didn’t have an appt. on thursday already, i might have called today. as it was, i didn’t have to.

there we were, minding our own business, playing “how strong is my neck” (pulling her into a sitting position slowly by her arms) and the poop-strike was over. she of course gave no indication that anything different was going on, and would have been content to keep playing, regardless of how leaky she’d become. one very dirty diaper, several wipes, an impromptu second bath, and a new onesie later and she was happy as a clam. i also changed clothes.

as if we weren’t having enough fun, we’re fairly certain she’s on the cusp of teething as well. she has two bumps in her mouth where her lower canines might grow. when you rub them, she clamps down on your finger and is content. when she’s cranky at night (a different sort of cranky than colic), she’s content about 10 minutes after you give her a shot of tylenol.

we have a doctor’s appointment on thursday to verify that she’s gaining weight steadily enough. i’m glad she pooped today instead of closer to the appointment. it’ll give us time to fill her back up ;)

charlotte continues to be healthy. we chatted about various things like developmental milestones, cradle cap, dry skin, and the fact that she kicks like a fiend. the doctor assured us that she was perfectly normal. she also doesn’t have pink eye. which makes one of us ;)

she’s of average length (22.25 inches), but a bit small (9lbs 12 oz). we’re hitting all the numbers (feedings, dirty/wet diapers), but since she hasn’t gained weight as rapidly since the last appointment as she had for the two before this one, there’s some slight concern. it’s likely that the last week’s bought of sickness on my part has caused some of this. turns out dehydrated mommies don’t make all that much milk. we’ll be going back in a couple of weeks to make sure that she’s still growing at a decent clip.

in the mean time, we’re going to make some slight adjustments to her feedings. she’s been averaging about 6 – 8 feedings a day, but when she gets fussy between feedings, we distract her with other things instead of giving her a boob (which *always* works, at least while she’s attached). we’re going to stop doing that from now on, at least when i’m around. i’m also going to always offer both boobs at each feeding, no matter how sated she looks after draining the first one. i stopped writing down all the ins and outs early last month, but i’m going to start it up again, just to prove to me that we’re still on track.

then it came time for the vaccines. one by mouth (with a bit of tylenol to start us off), went very smoothly. i wasn’t too surprised. she’s easily distractible by new/different sensations, especially in her mouth (vitamins, gas drops, etc). then there were shots. two in each thigh in very rapid succession. while it was happening, charlotte and i had a good talk about how they hurt, but it was okay, and they were good for her, so it needed to be done. i’m not sure how much she understood, but it certainly made me feel better. she let out a few cries after the shock of all 4 shots was over that hit completely new pitches and volume levels, but that was about it. she fell asleep before we had made it back to the waiting room to schedule her new appointments. perhaps the colic has taught us how to soothe her quickly, and taught her that pain is temporary and she’ll be fine soon. she slept until we got home and cried a bit more when she woke up. once she had food, however, she stopped caring again.

she’s not any more fussy than she normally is as far as duration or tone, but the intensity of the wails is a bit sharper this evening. it’s like she’s maximizing the capacity of her newfound range. her legs seem a wee bit swollen, but i think that’s largely my imagination.

it’s odd, really, and a bit anticlimactic after all the “just you wait” warnings we’ve received from all of our baby-having friends. i expected all of us to be much more upset over the whole thing.

maybe at her 4-month set?

now > distracting myself with this blog entry. finding cranberry juice filling, but less satisfying by the hour.

next > …no clue. hoping to get a call by 11pm. may lay down again. at least all this waiting is pushing frustrated to the top of the emotional list, diminishing my anxiety down to near-nil.

i’m pretty scared.

i know inductions happen “all the time” and that most of the books i’ve read have at least a slight bias against them, especially when they’re elective, so i’m trying very hard to take all the perils they describe with a grain of salt. i just wish i had more stories of good inductions. so many of them (okay, maybe 3 of 4?) go along the lines of “omg, it hurt so bad and then i had to have a c-section anyway”. i’m worried about the stress my body’s going to go through. i’m worried about the stress charlotte is going to go through even more.

i don’t know how much of this is really related to induction, though. i’m sure at least some of it is simply labor-related anxiety. i do not handle unknowns well at all, even good ones or “no big deal” ones. monday’s visit to the hospital was uneventful, it at least killed one of the primary things that was concerning me. i’ve been to the hospital many times to visit folks. i walked my husband through the doors when he had to have his gallbladder removed, but i’ve never been a patient myself. as silly as that sounds, not having any experience checking in, having to put on a gown, and being the person in the bed was sort of freaking me out. at least now that’s behind me.

so, my plan for today is to finish up my breakfast/only meal of the day, which consists of 2 slices of cinnamon raisin toast, a hearty glass of cranberry juice and a can of dr. pepper. from 10:30 on out, it’s clear non-caffeinated bevvys for me, which pretty much means water.

at 11, i’ll take a shower. who knows when i’ll get another one, so i’d like to maximize how clean i feel as long as possible.

at 12, we’ll just wait for the phone to ring. there’s tv, the internet, and if we’re feeling very ambitious, dishes in the dishwasher that can be put away.

according to the most recent set of instructions, if nobody calls me by 5pm, i need to call them.

and that’s about all i can control at this point, which will have to be enough.

3:20 – we head in.

4:00 – we check in. it’s determined that my pre-registration didn’t take, so i re-register. i get gowned up, inspected, etc. we watch charlotte’s heartbeat and my contractions on the monitor for a while. charlotte is fine. it’s determined that i have not budged (still 3cm/80%)

5:00 – 6:00 – we walk the halls of the L&D, NICU, WeU (Women’s evaluation unit), and try to shake some progress out. contractions get steadily worse and regular.

6:00 – i still have not budged. they discuss sending me home, but the uptake in contractions means we wait to see if there’s been progress.

6:30ish – still no progress. charlotte is still fine. they talk about discharging me.

7:15ish – the discharge nurse comes in. gives me a pep talk. points out that i’m just not budging and i could stay there and be miserable for 7+ hours while i wait, or i could go home and nap and eat and such. am given a list of distinct signs to look for (not being able to talk, broken water, really-real bloody show) to come back. contractions are now more painful than any menstrual cramping i’ve ever had and are anywhere from 3-6 minutes apart. am told to ignore that.

7:30ish – when i get up post-peptalk to change back into my clothes, i discover i’m bleeding. and not post-exam like. bloody-show like. discharge nurse comes back in. frowns at the blood, checks me out again. i still have not budged. i’m still going to go home.

7:45ish – leave the hospital knowing i don’t get to come back until i can’t talk through a contraction or my water breaks, no matter what else happens in the mean time. am pretty confident that i’m going to end up giving birth on the living room floor. hope that amniotic fluid makes a good floor polish. as predicted, really horrible awful contractions start to taper off a bit. instead of engaging in conversation through the contractions, i “prove” i can still talk by reciting warmup exercises from theatre. “What a to-do” gets me mostly through each contraction if i take it slow. consider switching to sonnet 116.

8:30ish – arrive home via morning rush-hour traffic. sleep. it is difficult at first, but then comes easier. get up every couple of hours to pee, drink water, feel these fun contractions. faux-show tapers off to normal post-inspection style. have lots of dreams where i’m carrying heavy things and assume they’re coinciding with contractions.

now – heading to lion’s choice for “breakfast.” still contracting fairly regularly, but it doesn’t even interrupt typing, much less walking or talking. :)

the last … 3 contractions have been less than 10 minutes apart and all not-weak. still not something i can’t walk/talk through, but strongest yet, certainly. long enough that i can feel them start, peak, and back off, which is pretty new, too. before that we had a run of 15ish minute deals, with varying intensities.

i think this might be the start of “it” :)

i have one concern right now: charlotte. (i mean, duh, but a specific charlotte-related concern) she seems a little freaked out. not in a frantic “call the doctor if the baby is in distress” sort of way (which, btw, is complete bullshit. how do you know that?!). she’s just sort of squirmy. even if i’m totally projecting, it bothers me that i can’t tell her it’s going to be okay. that i know she’s freaked about what’s going on, but it’s supposed to happen and that it will all be over very soon, and that it has to happen and that it’s for the best.

anyway, this is my version of nervous chatter that i can’t really do right now because ryan’s in the shower (i just got out), and i’m probably just past the point of being able to nervous chatter anyway. only my fingers are capable at this point.

back to the game!