Home again and popular!

Sorry we have not updated things in a few days. Here are all the latest photos! Jennie and Leah are doing well. Leah had her first doctors appointment on Wednesday, her fist big outing. We are all going on to Bubbe's of Friday for Shabbat supper, and that will be a much more fun outing. Thanks to everyone who has come to visit us at home or here on our blog.

My First Day!

She's Finally Here

Leah is doing well, and getting Mom & Dad broken in a little bit. Here is how the rest of the day went yesterday:

They started me on the pitocin around 12:15. By 1:30 the contractions were pretty bad, so we asked for the epidural - as my friend Mandi said about the aenesthesiologist who did her epidural: God bless that sweet man. By 2:15, the epidural was in, and I was very groggy (but feeling NO pain!). The doctor was due back around 3:30 or 4:00 to check me, so we turned the lights down & dozed for a bit.

When the doctor returned she was sure she would just check my progress and then leave me be for a few hours. Once again - first time pregnancies tend to be longer labors, etc. Well, she checked at 4:00 and I was fully dilated with the baby poised to make her entrance. When the doctor told me that, I chuckled - and she suggested that I shouldn't laugh again until they were ready for the baby! Since I was feeling no pain, and the Leah was not in distress, they waited a few minutes to get started (there was a difficult delivery in another room, and they wanted to be sure that one was adequately staffed before we got started).

The doctor & nurses got all of the equipment ready for Leah's arrival, got me into place, and the pushing began. We pushed through 3 contractions - and to give you an idea of how little pain I was feeling, the nurse had to tell me when I was having the contractions. The doctor said that the baby was almost out, and turned her back to grab some supplies at which point one of the nurses says "You might want to get that" because Leah was so anxious to get here that she decided not to wait for the rest of us! Needless to say, the doc had quick reflexes, and caught the baby before she could make a complete exit.

After less than 5 hours of labor, Leah Alice made her grand entrance, and shared with us her well-developed set of lungs. However, since that initial trauma of entering the world, Ms. Leah has been relatively quiet and peaceful. The doctor who delivered her just stopped by, and said that I will be clear to head home tomorrow morning (Monday). Leah is in the nursery with her first visit to the pediatrician as I type this. Her Daddy will be here in a few minutes (I took mercy on him & sent him home to sleep in a real bed). Her Bubbe is going to be at the doors of Nieman Marcus at noon to pick out an outfit for Miss Priss to wear home from the hospital! Leah has already met her Granny, Bubbe & Honey, and Uncle Michael. She looks forward to meeting the rest of her family & friends in the coming weeks & months. As for me, Mommy feels pretty good - as long as you keep the ice packs & pain killers coming! - J

The Gherkin Arrives

Leah Alice Medeiros arrived today at 4:55pm. She weighed 6lbs, 12 oz and was 20 inches long. Mama & baby are both doing well, and will be staying at Northside Hospital through Monday or Tuesday. Photos to follow as soon as possible!

Third Times the Charm!

After two dry runs to the hospital, this time they are keeping us! After monitoring Jennie for a couple of hours they decided, since she is almost 38 weeks along, that it was best to pop the lid off the pickle jar. (Just to be safe.) So here we are at Northside Hospital. Around 12:15 pm they released the brine and started giving Jennie "Pitocin" to help matters along. Everything is going smoothly and Pickle and Gherkin are doing fine. They think she will make her grand entrance sometime before 8:00 pm. I will keep you posted.

And the results are?

Well, the perinatologist called, and said that all of the bloodwork was normal. She instructed me to stay on bedrest until my next appointment with the OB (which is on Wednesday, 7/25). Then she called back about 10 minutes later, and said that, after further review she wanted to monitor me more closely. So, they doctors on call are expecting us at Northside tomorrow morning to recheck my blood pressure and bloodwork. If all is good, then I suppose I come back home to go on bedrest. If there are concerns, then they will most likely induce labor. Now I get to try to have a "restful" afternoon & evening until I can get rechecked. I'll do my best to make sure that Alex or I keeps the info current here. - J

No Pressure

Well, we just returned from the perinatologist, and all looks good with the gherkin. The doctor estimates that she weighs about 6lbs, 15 oz.....with at +/- 14 oz margin of error. So, she could be 6 lbs, or almost 8 lbs! We tried to get the doctor to make a prediction about when the baby will be here, and she wouldn't committ to anything. She said that the fact that I am having contractions is a good sign, but that they aren't frequent enough to be a real indicator.

My blood pressure was high today, though it came down a lot during the time we were at the doctor's office.I haven't had any of the symptoms associated with preeclampsia (problematic high blood pressure during pregnancy), so the first thought is that the decongestants I have been taking this week are probably a contributing factor. Just to be safe, the doctor ordered bloodwork, and hopes to have the results by the end of the day today. You would think they would take my blood pressure again BEFORE they tell me that bad results from the bloodwork could send me to the hospital...but of course not! My bp still went down, but it took some serious talking to myself to keep me calm while we waited.

In the mean time, no more decongestants, and the doctor's orders are to "go home and lay around the house". Here is one more of the oddities of pregnancy: when the doctors wanted me to be up & moving I had no desire to leave the house...now that I am under orders to stay put, I keep thinking of all sorts of things I need to do. The dogs are thrilled to have me sitting here & doing nothing, so at least someone is benefitting from this! I will update later when we hear about the bloodwork. - J

Coming to Term

Happy Monday everyone! We saw the midwife this morning, and all is good with the gherkin. Her heartbeat sounds good, my weight-gain is normal, and we're still waiting. The big news is that today marks week 37 of the pregnancy. That means that this baby will be considered "full term" whenever she arrives. While in truth, there probably isn't a huge difference in how the baby was developed yesterday versus today, 37 weeks is a good milestone for her health.

The midwife says that she thinks I have "a little while to go", but admits that she doesn't know whether that means days or weeks. The gherkin has dropped somewhat, but not as far down as they would expect her to before she decides to arrive. The wonderful news about the baby dropping is that it is offering major relief from the heartburn that has been SO bad for the past few months.

Not that there is any science to predicting when the baby arrives, but my Mom asked my sister-in-law's perinatologist (did you follow that?) what he thought. He said that in his experience, most babies arrive within 2 weeks of Mama popping the cork. The 2 week line for us would be this coming Wednesday....so who knows? If we haven't had a baby by Friday we go back to our perinatologist for a last set of fetal measurements.

Not a lot of other news around here. I managed to pick up Alex's cold, so I'll be laying low for a day or two to try to shake that off. I am very limited in which decongestants that I can take while pregnant, but we picked up the doctor's recommendation and it is already making HUGE difference. I would imagine that our next post will either be a birth announcement, or an update from the perinatologist on Friday. Have a good week! - J

Just Kidding

Well, we made false alarm trip # 2 to the hospital last night - though I use the term "alarm" loosely. I'll spare you the gory details of what was bothering me, but silly girl that I am, I called the advice nurse to double check on a question. I was positive they would just assure me that it was normal pregnancy stuff, and that I was just being a nervous first-time mom. Of course not - they called the midwife on duty, and she asked that I come in to the hospital to be checked out. I was almost positive that this was not the big "L", but we went on in to the hospital as directed.

This visit was MUCH faster than last week's, since we already had most of the paperwork completed. The nurse was great, and kept a sense of humor. For those of you who haven't been around me when I get anxious, I either start crying or cracking jokes. Last night I was feeling humorous, and was relieved that the nurse could laugh with us. After monitoring the baby's heart beat & my contractions for a bit along with a few other small tests we got the all clear to go home. The midwife double-checked all of the tests, and said that the gherkin looks great (she showed us the patterns that they look for in the fetal heart rate which was really cool).

They also showed us that I had several contractions while I was hooked up to the machine - some of which I felt while they were happening, others I didn't. These contractions are still considered to be Braxton-Hicks, or "practice" contractions. However, we were at the hospital almost twice as long last week and only had one contraction the whole time we were there. The increase in contractions, along with some other signs indicate that things are moving towards the gherkin's debut. The midwife still said it could be several more weeks though, so the wait continues.....

Our out of town company for this weekend decided that they didn't want to be hanging around the house if the baby decided to arrive, so they cancelled their plans. I am totally convinced that if they had come, I would have gone into labor this weekend. Since they aren't coming, I am sure that she will wait until next week (or I guess even later?) to appear. Meanwhile, Alex has a cold, so he will be able to use the weekend to rest up. Have a great weekend!!! - J

Your guess is as good as ours

We just got home from the doctor's office, and got more conflicting opinions about when this baby might arrive. Our regular OB is on vacation, so we saw a midwife today. She insists that first babies are usually late, and that the gherkin could stay put until my due date. That being said, everything else I have read AND the doctor we saw at the hospital last week say that 2-3 weeks is generally the maximum amount of time between when the cork pops & when the baby arrives. I guess the point is that even though medical science has come a long way, childbirth is one event that they will never be able to predict with certainty. On a positive note, the midwife said that I can drive and continue with other activities as long as I feel comfortable. While I don't have any burning desire to go too far from home these days, the big news there is that I'll be able to keep my hair appointment scheduled for tomorrow!! :) So, assuming that we don't have a baby this week, we have house guests coming this weekend & we go back to the doctor on Monday. Keep the e-mails & phone calls coming - 'cause for the most part I will be home doing laundry & waiting. - J

The Gherkin Unplugged!

No she is not doing an acoustic set. It seems the cork has popped off the kid. We were not sure if Jennie's water broke or not, so the doctor advised us to go to the hospital. We were there for a few hours and after a few tests they said that it was not water, just the cork and sent us on our way. Everything seems to be fine with Momma and baby, this just means that things will probably happen sooner than later. Somewhere between two days and two weeks (most likely). It was a good practice run for us. Now we just have to wait for the real action to begin!

The Gherkin's Guard Dog

Could it really be in the water?

They keep saying that pregnancy is in the water at the offices of United Way. Now you can see why! There were 6 girls expecting within about 3 months of eachother, plus at least 2 new daddies expecting in the same timeframe. Michelle, Gina, Neese (not pictured) & I had a bunch of "prego lunches", and are looking forward to having mommy lunches soon. These babies are the gherkin's first friends!

Do they really call the baby "Gherkin" ? Yes we do....since my loving husband calls me pickle (and anyone who knows me, knows how much I enjoy a dill pickle), Gherkin became our nickname for the future Baby Medeiros. Generally, we refer to her as "the Gherkin", so we aren't actually talking about pickles as much as it seems like we might be!

OK, so I should have mentioned that we totally stole the concept of a baby blog from our friends, Gina & Greg. They are doing an amazing job keeping everyone informed about their brand new baby, Anna through a blog. It makes so much sense, and once we get rolling, we can keep from having to e-mail everyone all the time.