A Sure Sign of the End Times

...or else the Percocet is affecting my brain. In either case, I actually thought today's Cathy was kind of funny. (Make sure you look at the 11/30/08 strip, because I'm guessing the strips on subsequent dates might not be, you know, funny)

They tell me I'll be able to go home tomorrow! It's a little intimidating, since I haven't been doing anything but sitting and taking pills for so long, but I think I'll be able to ease back into a normal routine pretty soon. It'll be nice to spend an entire consecutive 24-hour period with my daughter (yes, even the middle-of-the-night parts). Also, I'm really missing Soren, and I hear he misses me, too. Chris has been amazing through all this, and we're so thankful to have had help from Erica (who was finally released from duty on Friday), and now my mom, who flew out on Friday night.

Well, I suppose I should rest while I can... it's almost time to start doing all the things mothers of two have to do.

Hanging in There

Hey. I'm doing OK, but will have to stay in the hospital for at least another couple days. Watching TV and sleeping is about all I'm good for these days, but I thought I'd at least post something. I'd update my Facebook status, but the hospital is now blocking FB. So lame. Anyway, wish me luck in the major goal of being able to eat normally again! I'm looking forward to feeling better and getting back home to my family.

Two Steps Forward...

[The following is high on narrative content]

Sigrid: Was discharged from the hospital Monday. Monday night was pretty good, especially once Kirsten figured out that she wanted her arms bound in a swaddle (Soren wanted just legs), since their flailing impaired her going to sleep. At today's first appointment with her pediatrician she was back within an ounce of her birth weight. She has been pronounced in good shape. And very impatient.

Soren: Is still not sure what to make of his sister, so he mostly ignores her. But, he really likes the two trucks she brought him when she came home (thanks for letting us appropriate your present for that purpose, Mom and Dad), so she can't be all bad. His teacher said he smiled while answering questions about her at school yesterday. And yesterday evening, he asked me if Sigrid would like a goldfishy. Perhaps later.

Kirsten: Was relieved to be home with everyone, but she was sent straight from her GI appointment yesterday back to the hospital for her digestive issues. She's quite uncomfortable--since they're making her take antibiotics on an empty stomach, in addition to the discomfort of the underlying problems--and misses being with Sigrid (and the rest of us). We're hoping that now that she's not pregnant, they can actually treat the issues to resolution.

Me: I'm a little tired since I'm managing Soren and Sigrid (including the nighttime feedings; the hospital will let Sigrid stay with Kirsten, but Kirsten's in no shape). I'm relieved Sigrid seems to be holding it together eating from a bottle and sleeping in reasonable stretches at night. I curse the baby monitor for interrupting one of my stretches by beeping loudly for a new battery at 3:30am (and requiring not just a screwdriver, but a nonstandard screwdriver, to access at the battery compartment). And I'm glad Kirsten's sister is here to pitch in a little, and prevent Kirsten from going stir crazy.

I Hope I Don't Jinx Anything With This Post

Thanks for all the comments :^) My self-esteem is at an all-time high. Which is helpful, because I've been, shall we say, riding a bit of a bummer for the past few days. First, the good news: Sigrid comes home today!!!! News previously thought to be bad, but was really just caused by a false alarm: she's still a patient here at the hospital (for another hour or so), which you may have guessed already, unless you thought she was coming home today from her first Caribbean cruise or something.

Because Sigrid really can't get enough drama -- she got addicted to it with that first preterm contraction -- she decided to test positive for a blood infection on the evening of the 21st. It was a lovely scene; I was watching Jeopardy with Chris, holding little Sigrid as she snored and squeaked, and then an RN came in, told us she would have to stay in the NICU for a week due to a positive blood culture, and TOOK HER AWAY. There was more sympathy and explanation than I'm recording here, but that's mainly what I remember. They took a second blood sample to rule out contamination in the original culture, but were going to start her on IV antibiotics and put her on monitors until Friday the 28th. I was, shall we say, a wreck.

The next morning, after some sleep and a few visits to the nursery, I felt more sane and was able to look at the positives. First, Sigrid was not showing any signs of illness, so they clearly caught whatever-it-was early. Second, even though I was being discharged, the hospital was going to allow us to stay in our room as boarders, FOR FREE. Plus, it turned out, they were going to continue to give me meals. They'd move us or kick us out if a patient needed the room, of course, but wow -- what a generous policy. I guarantee that we wouldn't have had that option if we'd ended up at Women & Infants' (as we'd planned before the whole "birth plan" went out the window). Third, there was a chance -- a small chance -- that the second culture would come back negative, and she'd never really had an infection at all. We tried not to get our hopes up too much on that front.

So, in short, I prepared for a week of nursing Sigrid in the NICU and pumping and storing milk so I might be able to come home for a night or two (also as insurance in case they had to kick me out of my free room).

In the end, obviously, the second blood culture still hadn't shown any growth after 48 hours, so she's been given a clean bill of health! And we get to go home! To a different kind of madness, I'm sure (since we'll suddenly have to start taking care of two kids at the same time), but it will be our own sweet family madness, and Sigrid will finally be allowed to wear cute clothes. And isn't that what's truly important?

The Birth Story

Thanks for all the well-wishes! Sigrid, Chris, Soren and I are doing well, and I'm currently awaiting Chris' return to the hospital with the new big brother, who will finally be meeting his sister for the first time. In terms of Soren's level of interest in Sigrid, I'm guessing it will be somewhere between "I want some crackers" and "Can I push this button?" We'll see...

So, let's get down to business. The Birth Story: Timeline Form. If you're squeamish, or male, I assure you that the only slightly gross word in the story will be "placenta," and I won't be describing it or anything, so you should be able to handle this.



Yesterday morning, 8:30: Drop Soren off at daycare, then return home and read the paper. Consider taking nap.

9:00: OB's office calls to reschedule my 3:15 appointment, since the doctor's going home early; can I come in right now? Sure. I suppose the nap can wait.

9:30: Routine appointment; I'm 3-4 centimeters dilated, but still haven't felt any major contractions, so we'll just wait and see what things look like at my next appointment on Tuesday.

11:00: Return home; take nap.

1:15: Awaken from nap; remember that I have to send out a platemaking file for an invitation client.

1:16: Stop to use the bathroom on my way to my office, whereupon my water breaks. Hmmm. Well, apparently I'll be having this baby sometime in the next 24 hours.

1:17: Start putting together the platemaking order.

1:20: Finish order, call Chris. Inform him that my water has broken, but I haven't gone into labor yet, so I'll let him know when he needs to come home.

1:25: Decide it might be a good time to shower, since I won't want to do it while I'm in labor (based on how it went last time).

1:34: Shave legs. Why not?

1:35: Get out of shower. Chris calls. I have a contraction while talking to him, and it's kind of owie, so I tell him maybe it's a good time to come home.

1:50: Having gotten dressed, I decide to head downstairs, since the contractions are getting painful enough that I won't want to use the stairs pretty soon.

1:52: Call my mom; tell her I'm in labor.

1:53: Call my dad; tell him I'm in labor. End call abruptly with "I have to go," since I don't want to scare him by yelling OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAGGHHHHH into the phone.

1:54: Start contracting and making loud noises in earnest.

2:03: Maybe I should start timing these. Move into the dining room to lean against a chair.

2:04: Get back on the floor.

2:10: OH MY GOD CHRIS WILL YOU PLEASE GET HOME NOWWWWWWWWWWWW

2:12: I might call 911 if I could get up and get the phone. Alas.

2:15: Okay... there's no way I'm having the urge to push. It's way too soon for that.

2:16: This is insane. It's not time to push.

2:17: Perhaps I should think about removing my pants.

2:18: Yell like an extra in a slasher film.

2:19: Perhaps I should prepare to catch the baby.

2:19:30: That seems to be a head.

2:20: Hey, there's the rest.

2:20:01: HOLY CRAP I JUST HAD THE BABY BY MYSELF ON THE DINING ROOM FLOOR.

--

Whereupon I took a few minutes to reflect on the fact that the baby was a girl, pink, crying a little, apparently had all her parts, and would probably pass the Apgar test. Then I had some time to think about how the baby was probably kind of cold, but all the clean towels were upstairs, and I really didn't think I should start wandering around when I still hadn't delivered the placenta. So I held her close and started wondering what exactly Chris would think when he got home. When he walked in at 2:30, he was a little.... surprised.

We called 911 and the rescue truck came immediately (helps that the fire dept is right down the street), and they helped deliver the placenta, covered us in blankets and various wires and sensors, and took us to the hospital, where a curious group of nurses was waiting to ogle us and say "AWWWWWW" as we came in. After some warming up, Sigrid was pronounced Just Fine, and now we're just hanging out and waiting to be discharged tomorrow (we could have left today, but we wanted to make sure her temp was stable overnight).

Makes me tired just thinking about it all. I'm going to take a nap. Go look at pictures, why don't you?

Intro-Deuce

We are pleased to introduce Sigrid Isabel, the newest member of our family. She was born at 2:20 this afternoon. She is 6.6lbs, 19 3/4 inches long and wispy, curly hair. Mom and baby are resting happily.

There is a birth story that is Kirsten's to tell. Suffice it to say that I am awed to silence by my wife.

The Changing Tables Turned

While Soren is usually very good about going to bed, he does often resist donning his PJs. Sometimes, this necessitates the counting to three routine, as in "Daddy's going to count to three, and if you're not standing on the P [on the police station of his play mat] so I can put on your PJs, then [undesirable consequence that results in wearing pajamas and losing dignity]." Tonight, I got as far as, "Daddy's going to count to three..." when I received the reply:

"One, two, three, four. I'm going to put you on the changing table."

Yeah, I'd like to see him try. 3T PJs won't fit over my forearm.

Two Good Reasons Not to Pick Up a Quarter in the Grocery Store Parking Lot

1. You are nine months pregnant, and the ground is inaccessible to you.

2. Even if you did manage to pick it up, you would feel like a jerk for not giving it to the Salvation Army person you'd just passed, since you'd made eye contact and given her that we live in a plastic society and I don't carry any change look, and it was kind of far to walk back there with your heavy cart, because you are nine months pregnant.

OH $@!% IT'S THE FUZZ

Hey, I do my best to be a responsible parent. But it's never enough, is it? Someone ALWAYS has to go and call the cops.

I somehow found the stamina to go on a walk with Soren the other day, so we went a few blocks to the town athletic fields, which feature a gigantor hill that Soren enjoys running up and down a million times. He invited me to come run with him, which I politely declined, so I sat on the bleachers while he did his thing. Incidentally, just think how much healthier we would all be if we never lost that urge to run at top speed up and down hills just for the hell of it.

Anyway, he was running, I was sitting, and all was well. I did notice a policeman talking to some people outside the church down the block, and wondered what kind of mischief was afoot. Soren spent some time exploring the middle and perimeter of the baseball field, then brought me a dandelion (awwww), which I suggested we bring back home to Grammy (AWWWWWW) as a subtle ploy to get him moving willingly toward home (genius!), and we set off. Just as we'd crossed the street alongside the field, someone called out behind us... how did you guess? It was the police officer.

"Did you just come from the field?" he asked.

"Yes." Did Soren vandalize something while I wasn't looking? Did I somehow accidentally leave my pants on the bleachers?

"Oh, okay. I got a call from some folks who saw your little one running around, but they didn't see anyone with him."

"Oh no! Sorry! I was sitting on the bleachers watching him! I can't keep up with him the way I used to! Ha ha! [etc]" Please don't arrest me omg omg omg

"Tell that to the boys down at the station."

OK, not really.

There's actually no satisfying denouement to the story, which ends rather abruptly with me not getting arrested and Soren enjoying saying hello to the policeman. Heck, I didn't even get a stern reminder to make sure I'm always in a position to catch my son before he runs out into traffic. Must have been my lucky day!

Finally diffcharged!

How many awesome C. diff puns can there possibly be?!?!?! Okay, the answer may be none, but I'm trying my best.

Anyway, I'm back home as of Wednesday afternoon! So nice. I managed to talk my doctors into letting me take charge of my own pill-taking and hydration (i.e. drinking stuff instead of getting IV fluids, since I'd had no trouble staying hydrated before they admitted me), so they let me out. Besides the obvious perks, such as getting to wear clothes, see my family, and not be awakened five times a night by nurses (I can take care of that last one all by myself, TYVM), my push to be discharged was mainly guided by the need to stop eating their food, because -- get this -- it wasn't boring or bland enough. I know! This is hospital food we're talking about, right? And yet, even when they put me on their most boring diet, I still pretty much only had options like baked turkey and cooked carrots and mashed potatoes with lots of milk and butter. Tasty, but not even close to what I needed, and the diet made me feel worse every day I was there. At home, I've been eating noodle soup, white toast, white rice, and plain yogurt with honey, and have felt a major improvement. While the infection has yet to clear up completely, I haven't been experiencing anything close to 5 on the pain scale, which was the point I'd gotten to by the time they discharged me. The final straw was when I asked for the plainest yogurt they had and they sent up vanilla yogurt with aspartame AND high-fructose corn syrup. Sorry, friends, that is not food.

While I eat my white food and take four pills a day and wait for the whole thing to clear up, Chris's mom is here being very helpful in the areas of playing with toddlers and keeping the place way cleaner than I ever do. However, she does not have Chris's gin and tonics ready when he comes home, so I don't know how he feels about having her here.

On a completely unrelated note, the only two decent radio stations we get inside the house have switched over to 24-hour CHRISTMAS MUSIC and I want to KILL THEM. Yes, yes, there's the iPod and the internet radio and all those newfangled things, but I can't control them with a remote while sitting around on the couch. Also, it is a crime against humanity to play Christmas music for six weeks straight, because there are only ten Christmas songs total, and doesn't that make everyone go insane? Is it just me?

I've Been Diffenfranchised

Good news: The Deuce and I are still doing OK (The Deuce, I daresay, is doing better).

Bad news: we're stuck here in the hospital at least until Thursday, maybe longer. Ugh.

Other bad news, but which turned out OK in the end anyway: They wouldn't let me out to vote. Luckily, RI is so blue that it really wasn't likely to matter, but If I lived in a swing state, I think I would have had to bust out of here and do my civic duty. I might get dressed first, though.

So, yeah, I'm still here. Whatever. Chris' mom finally gets her chance to shine, and will be flying out tomorrow afternoon to help out with Soren, which is certainly a huge help to all of us. Thanks, Grammy!

I'll write more tomorrow... Sitting with the laptop isn't all that comfortable after a while, especially with four Facebook Scrabble games to deal with.

Great to be Back...

...in the hospital! SO GREAT. Don't worry, nothing really exciting or baby-related this time (except for the fact that they're interested in The Deuce's welfare in general); they just felt the need to admit me to give me some IV antibiotics for the persistent and aptly-named C. difficile. So here I am again, watching HGTV and wearing lots of plastic bracelets. Plus I have internet, so I guess that's a bonus.

The six hours in triage (or whatever they call the crappy rooms on the ground floor where they make you sit in a gown for six hours before you get admitted) were longer and crappier than usual, however. The "bed" (blue foam thing) is a lot less comfortable at 36 weeks pregnant than it was at 29 weeks, oddly enough. And the TV was apparently permanently tuned to Discovery Health, which is normally a questionable choice in a hospital anyway, but on this particular afternoon, they seemed to be running a marathon of "Dr. G: Medical Examiner," which is a really crappy show about dead people. How uplifting. It doesn't help that Dr. G's voice is more annoying than Sarah Palin's. So there was six hours of that.

Then there was the thing with the crackers. When I came in at 11, I hadn't eaten in a couple hours, but wasn't feeling great (obviously), so I sat around for a little while not really caring. After about an hour, though, I started to feel a mite peckish, so I asked if I could get some crackers. The nurse said she wasn't sure, so I waited until after the doctor came by. She gave me the go-ahead, so I asked for crackers again. Crackers were promised, but not delivered. The next time the nurse came in, I asked again. I was getting fairly hungry by this time, after four hours of not eating anything. Basically, every time the nurse came in, I asked for crackers, and got hungrier and hungrier, and received no crackers. After four hours of being in triage or whatever, they finally told me I was going to be admitted, which did not please me, but I dealt with it and called Chris to let him know what was going on. Then time passed. Continued to pass. I suppose I could have rung the call button and asked for food, but that seemed stupid, since I'm sure nurses are busy and stuff. After one million years, the nurse poked her head in again and asked if I needed anything... and through the sobbing, she somehow made out the word "crackers". "I know," she said, "it's hard to leave a little one at home. But they're resilient. He'll be fine, and you'll be home soon." I nodded at that, because she was right, it IS hard to be in the hospital and hope Soren will be OK, however: I was crying because I hadn't eaten in eight hours and wanted some damn crackers. Anyway, my obvious concern for my family must have moved her, because I finally got my wish. And then they moved me out of the room with the blue foam bed and the marathon of shows about dead people, up to my own room with a real bed and a channel changer.

As you can see, I am really preoccupied with my grave medical situation. Hopefully, the fun new antibiotics will work their magic, and I'll be able to get out of here tomorrow and have crackers whenever I want. Oh, and be with my loving family again.