And Then There Were Four

In case you hadn't heard, on Thanksgiving (November 28) at 10:53pm, we officially welcomed our son, Jasper Whitfield, into the family.

We hadn't made big plans for Thanksgiving -- honestly, since Lo was 3 weeks early, I'd spent the previous 2.5 weeks feeling like I was living on borrowed time -- (Bukka) Ben came over, and we had a bacon-wrapped turkey breast and some sides. I'd done most of the prep-work the day before and had made notes as to how things should be cooked (temp, time, when to go in the oven relative to the turkey) just in case.  Thanksgiving morning, I woke up and had some semi-regular contractions.  I was excited ... and also a little ambivalent -- now that it was Thanksgiving, I wanted to enjoy my dinner, goshdurnit.  I downloaded a free contraction-timer app (there's an app for everything!) and started keeping track.  They were about 15min. apart at that time.  That continued for a few hours and then stopped.  Yay, I thought -- I'll get Thanksgiving dinner, and then we can have a baby on Friday.  That'll be perfect.

As it was, I'd finished my last shift of work -- and boy was it a fine fare-thee-well-for-a-while kind of shift! -- on Monday the 25th (through Tuesday morning) and wasn't scheduled again until December 27.  This meant that I was technically on maternity leave -- the sooner this little Dude-ling decided to join us, the more time I'd get with him before starting back up with "regular life." Since I'd had a good rest on Tuesday and had time to prep on Wednesday, anytime after the Thanksgiving meal would work out pretty well...

So, anyway, back to Thanksgiving.  The contractions started up again and seemed stronger, so I asked Z if he wanted to see if Ben would come over earlier ... just in case. By the time Ben arrived, the contractions had stopped again.  I basket-weaved the turkey with bacon and put the ginger-apple pie in the oven.  And then the contractions started again, and I put my feet up and put the Rutter boys to work chopping, and cleaning, and generally sous-cheffing.  We started dinner at around 6:00-ish.  Zac piled his plate so high ("Then I won't need seconds," he said).  At 7:00-ish, Zac wondered aloud if he should put on a pot of coffee ... as the contractions had started up again and were getting closer together and much more uncomfortable, I tried to shoot him a meaningful look as I said, "Yes, make coffee." (Translation: "It's going to be a long night, and you've just had a ton of tryptophan...")  Zac and his brother chatted a bit, and I retired to the bedroom to call my OB just in case.  As I relayed to her my symptoms and reminded her of Lorraina's relatively rapid arrival, she said that we should head in and get checked out just in case.

Zac walked into the bedroom as I was getting off the phone.  I informed him that we needed to go to the hospital. We hugged Lorraina, and I heaved myself into the Green Machine. I begged Zac to avoid the bumpy roads.

We arrived at the hospital at 8:00-ish, and Zac asked if I wanted a wheelchair -- because it's about four bajillion miles from the underground garage to the L&D ward. (OK, it's not that far, but it's a bit of a hike through the buildings and up slow-moving elevators.) I obstinately refused, as is my wont. We got checked into a lovely, large room that would have had a view except that the lights were on in the room, and it was dark outside. There was a large clock on the wall. (Already, Fletcher Allen was miles ahead of Lenox Hill! I still find it hard to believe that there was no clock in the delivery room and I was "timing" my contractions with Lo by the Weather Channel "Weather on the 8's" .... Seriously.) The resident came in, introduced herself, and then got personal.  I was 7cm dilated. It was go-time.  My OB arrived. It was go-time ... oh, and by the way, as things were progressing so rapidly, there might be no time for an epidural.  Also, there were fewer anesthesia teams available for the epidural ... and they were in the OR.  It was a holiday, after all.

WHAT!?

I almost cried.  Heck, there's no "almost" ... I'm pretty sure I cried. I whined. And then I began screaming. By the love of all that is holy, please, please let me have drugs.  The delivery team kept telling me that I was doing a good job, and that I was "being amazing," and there was one point where I said, "I don't want to be amazing. I just want it not to hurt anymore." After my water finally broke, the anesthesia team was able to come in and give me the epidural (praise the Powers That Be!).  The anesthesiologist was very nice, but she went over the possible complications SO SLOWLY that I thought I was going to die. Or scream. Or die screaming. I was so far beyond being ladylike. I was a primal beast being tossed about on a sea of knives. I was not present. There was no Amanda, only Zuul.   I don't remember what exactly she said, but I remember when she said, "Your husband can sign the consent form." And I laid my head down on the pillow and cried, "YES. PLEASE." (Well, I probably said please. I'm usually the polite type.  I do recall apologizing for all the yelling and screaming and unladylike behavior in between my Zuul-times.)  Eventually the epidural went in (they kept telling me to relax my shoulders. Really. RELAX. Yeah. That's why I want the drugs. TO RELAX. There is no relaxing with this maelstrom of pain, my dudes. No relaxing. I. AM. NOT. CHILLAXED.), and there was mild tingliness and then peace.

I had about ten minutes before it was go-time again.  And once again, my baby got halfway out and then changed his mind, and his heart rate dropped. And it was time for a vacuum-assist. Again. (Zac says that he's going to assail the kids with a dustbuster when they don't want to get up and go to school in the mornings, "I guess you need a vacuum to get you out ... just like when you were born!") And then there were three Rutters in the room. And then he cried out, announcing his arrival.

Welcome to the world, welcome to the family, Little Man. 

Jasper Whitfield, 13 hours old

With Love,  -A

Stillness

This morning Lorraina woke up just before dawn. I changed her into a dry diaper and brought her into our room for a little "Snooze-Snuggle." Sometimes this works to buy another hour or two, sometimes it works not one whit. This morning, I got about 30min of extra shut-eye. (Although, I'll admit shut eye next to a toddler is not close to actual sleep. It's more of a vague mixture of "happy to be under the covers" and "did she move? is she awake? why is the cat yowling now?" and "live in the moment, Rutter, they're only this little once."  So, only a little relaxing.  But more relaxing than making breakfast while simultaneously chasing a toddler around the house ... so ....  I digress.)

Anyway, this morning had a touch of magical serenity.  Lo was cuddled up with her head between my shoulder and chest, her arm wrapped around my neck and her small fingers gently grasping my hair, her soft breaths just loud enough for me to hear.  Zac was asleep on the other side of the bed.  The dark sheets which pass for curtains were letting only the smallest sliver of pre-dawn silver-grey light into the room.  The Sprout was slowly moving about.  It was as if in those scant moments, everything that mattered to me was right there and at peace.  I was overcome by a feeling of quiet joy.  I lightly hugged Lorraina closer to me ... and she murmured, "Mama."  And all was right with the world for another ten minutes or so.

Love and Peace,
-A-

Learning to speak "Toddler"

So ... time flies when you're parenting a toddler, working various part-time jobs, and trying to figure out your way in a new city.  It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since we've moved to Burlington ... and now we're most certainly the parents of a toddler.

In the past few months, Lorraina has gone from tentative steps and vague quasi-language to running, climbing, dancing, and creating her own little dialect.  Examples of her "Lo-speak" include:
                       *"BukkaBaa" = Uncle Ben
                       *"Zhaaa" = Jack
                       *"Way!" = Wesley
           ..and my current personal favorite,
                       *"Bee-oh-baa-bay" = spider (made with accompanying motions for 'ItsyBitsySpider')

In the last week or so, she's picked up "No," "Please" ("pwee"), and "Thank you" ("aan oo").  Of course, the "no" is pretty darn clear and the rest are a bit mangled.

She's got some awesome animal noises, even if her cow-moo and elephant trumpet are just a bit too high-pitched.  We went to the county fair and she had a great time "baa"ing at the sheep and making "eee-aaww" noises at a few donkeys.

She uses some sign-language, too.  Her favorites are "milk" (and what I can only assume is "MILK!" when its done emphatically with both hands), "more," and one that she seems to have made up all on her own, "bacon" (pats head).  This one is (I believe) from an evening where she decided that bacon, in addition to being delicious, could also be worn as a hat.  We don't wear bacon-hats here at home, and she doesn't watch a lot of tv (mostly Red Sox baseball) ... so I have zero idea from whence this fascinating nugget of toddler-linguistics evolved. 

It's quite incredible to watch her assert her self-hood and independence ... although, I must admit that it's often frustrating as well.  Is that parenthood? Trying to let them become the best "them" they can ... without harming themselves or others?  *sigh*  Tough stuff.  (And it'll only get tougher, if the current trajectory is to be believed.)

And in other news, this particular branch of the Rutter family is embiggening once more: the newest addition, the Sprout, is due November 30.  Now, far be it from me to count on due dates, seeing on how the last one went down (I had plans, dagnabbit!), so when folks ask I just tell them 'Winter' or 'end of November-ish.'   We're very excited about things (Zac was excited first, I was ... wearing normal non-elastic clothes! getting settled into a new life! not quite ready, yet! ... but now I am enjoying the little kicks, jumping-jacks and squirmles and looking forward to meeting our little guy.) ... Lorraina likes saying that there's a "bay-bee" in my bump, but she has NO IDEA what's going to happen.  How could she?  Neither do we.  It'll be a wave of chaos and love and we'll ride it: sometimes gracefully and joyfully, sometimes barely holding on, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut as we are propelled onward into the future.

Until next time,
Love,
A&Z&L

Our cute little Monkey at 19 months.

LoLo says 'Wheee!'

Previously on The Embiggening...

So, it's been a while since we've updated this blog.  It's been on my "to-do" list for, oh, at least seven months or so.  I just keep finding other things to do: work, sleep, laundry (so much laundry!), try to watch TV with Z and fall asleep on the couch.... Lo is 14 months old today and watching March Madness with Z and her Uncle Ben.  I imagine it must be soothing to hear the squeak of sneakers on wood, as that's a lot of what she heard in her first few months.

I had a few half-written posts, so I'll paste the interesting bits here:

From September 2012:

In the past few weeks, Lorraina has showed us how unprepared we are for a mobile baby.  She's decided that now that she has two teeth and an expanded baby vocabulary (bway-bway! <<wookie noise>>, dadadada, heyheyhey, aiaiai, <<raspberry noise>>, and more), she's off to explore the world.  She started with a nice belly-down army-crawl which was pretty easy to corral.  Now she's actually crawling  ... most frequently toward things that are Not For Babies (maple leaves, pet hair on the floor, and electrical cords for starters).  Last week she learned about gravity by leaping off the bed (she's fine, we felt like jerks).

It's amazing to watch her become, as Zac says, "a little people." She's showing more and more of her personality every day.  She's such a (generally) happy, outgoing baby.  She goes for walks with Zac in the backpack carrier and "collects people" -- she flashes her grin and squeals at folks until they smile back.  She's been pretty well received in Burlington.  She loved spending the end of summer in a back yard -- she "helped" by ripping the grass out.  Perhaps one day she'll be a helpful little garden weeder?  We can only hope.   As we had joked when she was born, she is an impatient little Monkey.  She progresses from: "hmm, perhaps I am a little hungry" to "Oh yeah, I'm hungry!" to "HUNGRY LADY IS HANGRY!!" to "WHY IS THERE NOT FOOD IN MY MOUTH RIGHT NOW? I'M FREAKING OUT! WHERE IS MY PUREED SQUASH?!!" in about 38 seconds flat.  My mom reports that I was much the same.  Oh, dear.  Well, if she gets "hangry" and "impatient" and "reactive" from me, perhaps she'll get "sporty" and "confident" and "self assured" from Zac.

From December 2012:

My mother likes to tell the story of how I got into kindergarten a year early (or possibly just on time, depending on who you ask).  I was born in the end of November and the entrance cut off was a September birthday.  My mother thought that it was ridiculous. Also, after being a stay-at-home-mom for five years, I think that she was ready for me to be out of the house....  Anyway, the big day came and the nuns wanted to test my readiness for kindergarten.  I passed the more intellectual tests, but when it came to motor skills, I had a few areas that needed improvement, specifically, I couldn't draw an open cross and I couldn't skip. 

Years later as an adult, my lack of these skills comes as no surprise -- I'm terrible at drawing (you should see my bizarre square-ish representation of the heart and its chambers) and I'm not that sporty. 

I would imagine that it never occurred to my mother that one might have to teach skipping to a child, so when the school system brought my lack of learned motor skills to her attention, I was given intensive "skipping lessons" by her and my aunt. I learned. I went to kindergarten "early."  All was well with the world.

These thoughts crossed my mind late last week when I was reading a set of "milestones" for Lorraina's age (11 months! when did my baby get to be 11 months old!?). Of course, every milestone chart has a little statement on it that says something like, "These milestones are just guidelines. Each child will develop at his or her own pace" so that parents don't freak out, I suppose. I was scanning the milestones, checking things off my little parent checklist (yep, she crawls like a superstar, yep, she creeps around using furniture, yep, she grabs things and points at things and nods and and and) when I noticed "clapping" listed. Clapping? no, she doesn't clap ... but we never thought to teach her clapping.  Also, what? We were supposed to be working on 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' and 'Pattycake'?! 

And back to the present:

Zac did some intensive "clap classes" with Lorraina, and now she claps like a champ. He also taught her "wave bye bye" and "high-five."  Looking back, I realize that I haven't heard the "wookie" noise in a while.  I can't even pinpoint when it stopped... like I can't pinpoint when exactly she went from "lovable lump" to "little person with ideas of her own."

We're still kind of working on "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and Z and I disagree on the lyrics to 'Pattycake,' but despite our lack of experience, Lo appears to be thriving.  She's walking (and trying to run), she's talking a little, she helps us dress and undress her (and just today, I caught her trying to undress herself. Oh dear.), she's singing and dancing.  Dancing! My goodness, she is possessed by music sometimes: she'll be sitting and suddenly she nods her head, does a shoulder shake, or (my favorite), while crawling, wiggles her hips and kicks out her legs to the beat.  Watching her be-bop around fills me with such joy.

Lo said her first words (as in the first words that everyone would agree were real words and were used in appropriate context -- I think she said some words before this, but I'm her mom and I have a passing fluency in 'LoLoSpeak.') at ~13.5 months.  She said "BuhBye" while waving her hand. She sounded like a Sugarbaker sister from Designing Women.  She has a few other words (Mama, Daddy, this, that) and a lot of expressive chirps and gestures ... and a whole vocabulary of fart-sounds/raspberries.  Fantastic. She is definitely our kid.

Love to all,
A/Z/L

Cherish the chaos! Cherish it!

It's hard to believe that it's been five months since we officially met our little Monkey, Lorraina.  Heck, I look at my ~12.5lb baby girl and it's hard to believe that she took her first breath at just under 5lb.  A few weeks ago, I finally cleared out some of the clothes that no longer fit her ... I looked at the tiny Carter's "preemie" size and some of the other "up to 7lb" kimonos and I remembered when they were baggy on her.  In another five months, I'll look back again and wistfully recall the time before she was mobile.  And in a year, I'll look back and sigh as I recall a time before she knew the word "no!" ...

I won't lie, the first month was hard.  I don't think that there's anything on Gaea's Green Earth that can prepare you for those first weeks.  There were many times when Z and I looked at each other and marveled at the fact that the people, the professionals, in the hospital had sent us home with a baby! Didn't they know that we had no idea what we were doing? Were they going to come back and do a spot inspection and rescind our parenthood at any moment? I can't stress enough how delirious we were ... somewhere in the cycle of Feed-the-baby-Change-the-baby-Rock-the-baby-Nap-the-baby-Feed-the-baby we lost days. We had conversations that made no sense like:

A: Can you please make some coffee?

Z: What operating system are you running on?

A: Coffee.

Z: Mac or PC?

and

Z: Here, she's hungry.
A: But I'm feeding her.
Z: No, she's here. In my arms. (Attempts to hand me the baby)
A: No. She's right here. I'm feeding her now. (looks down, notices distinct lack of baby) 
A: Oh. Nooooo! I thought I already was feeding her!

Z has a gift with settling a fussy (aka screamy, thrashy, hysterical, otherwise inconsolable) baby.  I think that it probably stems from his deep well of patience. He is amazing now ... and he was amazing then, when she was a month old and would scream and fidget and fuss for hours each night.  He would swaddle her, rock her, gently "shusssh" her and pace our small apartment until she settled.  Me? I would offer to feed her.  You know the old saying, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"?  I started referring to my boobs as "The Hammers."  After we watched Thor, we started calling one "Mjolnir" and the other "Ball Peen."  That's what parenthood does to you. Or, at least, that's what parenthood has done to me. Now my boobs have their own ridiculous names.


I went back to work when Lorraina was six weeks old, so that brought its own set of trials, which made the previous six weeks look relatively easy.  I think that I may have figured out something here: it never gets easier, it just gets harder in different ways -- which makes what you were doing before look easy.  

I am trying to be calm and not worry ... but who am I kidding? I worry about everything.  As my Nana said (and attributed to her mother), "You worry from the moment they open their eyes to the moment you close yours." That's just how it is in my family. We're fretters. I celebrate every little baby-achievement (yay! you smiled! yay! you cooed!) and I fret over perceived failures (why isn't she moving objects from one hand to another? it must be because I work all day!).  It's so ridiculous. 

Parenthood has also made me reflect on my own childhood.  Many people say that they want to give their children what they didn't have growing up.  I'd be happy if I'm able to give Lo what I had growing up: parents who loved and supported me, a yard to safely play in, an extended family to lean on, memories of simple, happy times camping or cooking with my mother ....  If I'm able to do this, if she's a happy, well-adjusted adult ... I'll consider myself a success.  Of course, I suppose I won't know if I'm doing a good job for another thirty years or so.


But here in the present, we are at 20-odd weeks and Lorraina is thriving. She's waking up to the world more and more every day and becoming more of her own person (and less of a no less lovable baby-lump).  We love her very much (even when she's gross (which is most of the time)).

With Love,
A

P.S. Almost forgot the photo!  Here is our sweet little Monkey at 20 weeks:

The way I seen it... that is to say, I saw it.

Wait, what the hell just happened? I thought I had a few more weeks of freedom, all the while listening to Amanda complain of cankles as I marveled at how well she still managed to get around and be highly functional. And for someone who was just coming to term, she sure wasn't terribly big. She still didn't even look pregnant from behind.

And yes, we had plans that weren't to be. Amanda neglected to mention she didn't even get to keep her appointment to get her hair did this week. And even as I type, our good friend Scott Chasolen is taking the stage for his first SC3 show (with many guests, he advertised) of the new year. As it is, I feel very fortunate that my best friend Kenny talked me into going to see Umphrey's McGee in Times Square last Friday night. Not only was it a surprisingly excellent night of music (like Cream, Zeppelin, Faces? Try London Souls, the night's opening act), complete with spot-on, left-field cover by UM (Lionel's "All Night Long" anyone?), but it also turned out to be a final hurrah of a night out before my life changed forever.

I took advantage of Kenny's presence on Saturday afternoon to finally move our damaged loveseat out to the curb to make room for the mechanical baby swing. His presence would prove to be very valuable as events took their unexpected turn late that evening and into the next day.

Amanda was so exceedingly calm (especially for her) when she woke me up shortly before 4:00am. Her almost surreal calm and apparent reluctance to admit that her water had really broken meant that it didn't fully register what it implied when she'd said, "Zac, I think we need to go to the hospital." She successfully lulled me into thinking we were truly making the trip more as a precaution than anything. It was this rationale that made me think it wasn't worth waking Kenny to let him know we were leaving. Should it be necessary ("this is three weeks early!!"), he could call when he woke up to an unpeopled house, but chances are we'd be back before he got up. Yes, walking out the door, I actually thought this.

I finally began to get an inkling that something was actually up when Amanda spoke with the admitting nurse at the ER. As earlier chronicled, she argued that she didn't need a wheelchair. Having been so duped into complacency, I don't think we even talked contractions on the drive into Manhattan. So when the nurse asked her to rate her current level of pain on the 1-10 scale, my dumbass, expecting a zero or one, was taken aback by her response of three to four. It wasn't until we were upstairs in the initial exam room a half hour later when the resident officially confirmed that Amanda's water had indeed broken and that she was in fact 2-3cm dilated already that it hit me: "Holy shit, this is happening."

Officially admitted into Labor and Delivery, we then of course were conditioned to believe we were in for a long haul. This is why I didn't think it was too awful of me that I succumbed to my body's insistent reminder that I'd only gotten two hours of sleep. I will admit that as I drifted off in the chair next to the bed at 9:00-ish and heard that Amanda would be getting the epidural (hadn't she just asked for something mild?), I was drowsily concerned that a) if she needed the heavy stuff now, her threshold for pain was even lower than I'd thought and b) if we were truly here until possibly into Monday, the epidural would wear off before shit got serious. I didn't like that combination, and yet I dozed. I know; I'm awful. In retrospect, I found out that if I'd voiced these concerns out loud, I may have lost my eyebrows in the fire that sprang from Amanda's mouth, but such was my sleep-addled haze.

I wasn't out long before I was rousted and ousted for the administering of the epidural. I guess expectant fathers have historically not taken well the sight of an 18-gauge needle going into their significant others' spines. Having nowhere to go, I didn't stray far from the open door. That was rough. Believe it or not, those were the worst cries of pain to come from Amanda for the duration of the morning. I agonized and ached for her, but I didn't know what good rushing back in to the room was going to do. Of course, the upshot of that pain was that from that point on, to inelegantly quote a big, fat junkie dealer from the movie Rush, Amanda was more or less "floating on a cloud of titties," albeit itchy titties. (runner-up: "Pretty soon, you'll be feelin' all unnecessary.")

The next two-plus hours totally flew in the face of the scenario the resident and nurses had set us up to expect. Contractions were building steadily; dilation was seemingly expanding exponentially. The next thing I knew, Amanda's OB had finally arrived. If Amanda had been on the bottom of her list to expect a late-night call, below all the dues and overdues, I wonder if she was even more surprised to arrive at 11:30 to find that it was indeed already go-time. I barely had time to text immediate family that pushing was set to begin before we (we?) were doing it.

I wonder if it just weren't the luck of default by position from where I'd been standing at her bedside the past hour, but as Amanda began to push, I was given the responsibility of holding up her right leg. I was so impressed with her initial efforts and by just how utterly quickly events were unfolding before my eyes (was that a hairy head already?) that I at first forgot to be the supportive husband, coaching and praising the push. Thankfully (and obviously), my encouraging efforts were the difference maker as I found my voice, and the air in the delivery room took on an even more accelerated and rarified quality.

The former half of the preceding sentence: hogwash; the latter, far from it. Dr. Brill gave new instructions to her team quickly, firmly, and perhaps even a bit furtively, and in my avid sideline ignorance, I knew we were at a moment of truth. This next push was going to be the one; had to be the one. Turns out, every time Amanda pushed, the baby's heart rate was plummeting, meaning the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. And damn if Dr. Brill and her team didn't show just why they make the big bucks, acting with assured and smooth precision to safely deliver my daughter with a vacuum-assisted final push.

This semi-dodgy scenario meant that I wasn't going to be the one to cut the cord, but quite frankly, I don't care, and it didn't even occur to me at the time. All I knew and all that mattered was that our little (and hoo, I mean little) Lorraina Marie had been safely ushered into this world. Through some mystical metaphysical property, the swelling love and bursting pride I felt for Amanda had grown exponentially several times over in the space of minutes, while at the same time expanding across to this new soul that was the ensuing result of our love for each other. As I gazed lovingly into my exhausted wife's eyes, we both broke into tears of elation as we simultaneously heard our daughter's first defiant cries of life.

To be continued...

37 weeks: an unexpected surprise

So, um, I had big plans.  Plans to talk about pregnancy and body image, plans to take more bump pictures (and perhaps be told by random lady-strangers in my neighborhood, again, that I should be taking more naked bump pictures), plans to cook  freezer meals, plans to see Stew and Heidi of The Negro Problem, plans to see the Daily Show (and try not to laugh so hard that my water would break right there in the studio audience) ....  I had plans.  When asked about my concerns for labor, I would remark that the odds of a first-timer like myself going early, or even having the water break as the first sign were very low.  And also, I had plans.  So clearly, this was going to happen on some sort of schedule.

Well, our little Monkey had other plans.  At midnight on January 22, I was officially 37 weeks and was considered "at term."  At 3:00am, my water broke while I was sleeping.  At 3:45, I decided that perhaps I should call my OB about this new, moist development.  She told me to go directly to the hospital.  At 3:50, I calmly woke Zac.  We checked in to the hospital at 5:45am where I argued with the staff that I most certainly did NOT need a wheelchair, I could walk myself to the 6th floor, dagnabbit. I was fine, if a bit -er- damp and mildly crampy.  They disagreed and wheeled me around.  I offered to kick open the doors, karate-style.  They asked me nicely to refrain.  About 30-40 minutes later, it was confirmed that labor was starting and that I would be staying. The resident said that it might be Monday before the Monkey made an official appearance, as these things take time, especially with the first.




We got set up in our swanky delivery suite (not as swanky as Beyonce's, I'm sure) and Zac fell asleep in the chair next to me as I idly stared at the Japanese Bridge Monet print.  The sound system couldn't connect with our iPods, so the suite was pretty quiet except for the steady beep-beep of the Monkey's heartbeats. By 8:00ish, things got a little more painful, so I asked for some sort of analgesia.  The nurses rang for the anesthesiologist for an epidural.  That stung like a [expletive deleted], but then there was peace in the world again.  Yay, drugs.  (I did get a bad case of the opium-itchies, and Zac lovingly referred to me as his "junkie wife" as I begged him to scratch my face, my arm, my back, anywhere, everywhere, ohmygod, itchy itchy itchy)

At 11:30, my OB arrived to check me out.  She joked that she had a list of people who she expected to call her over the weekend ... I was not on the list.  Not even close. And yet, here we were. She examined me, said it was almost go-time, and she was going to change into scrubs.

At 12:02pm on January 22, 2012, our little Monkey made her official appearance, and it is with joy that we present to you Lorraina Marie.  She was 4.87lb (4#14oz) and 19.25in.  We love her.  Very much.  And we hope that you'll all understand if the blog updates are a little slow for the next few weeks -- we've got our hands full.

LMR @ not quite 12 hours old

LMR @ ~48hrs, checking out the world, right before we were discharged. 

 

Before and After :)

Much MUCH love to all,
A+Z+wee-Lorraina