mom2binnyc

We're moving to:

averyosphotos.blogspot.com

We'll try to update often!

Our son.

Avery L. O.
8lbs. 8 ozs. 21 inches long

Born Sunday, June 24, 2007
11:23am

We think he's pretty charming.

A few pics should get you by until we can follow up.

Rebecca and Avery will be home Wednesday.

This is carolyn writing on my silly blackberry. We are at roosevelt hospital because rebecca's water broke last night at 2:30am!!!! Before it happened poor rebecca was very uncomfortable and emotional. She calmed down and we laid down to go to sleep. Just as she got comfortable (pillow nest, all tucked in) when GUSH her water broke!!! We jumped out of the bed and all around and called the doc and our moms...and then we got in a cab and told him to (gently) bring us to roosevelt. And here we are. No major contractions yet, but this baby is coming pretty soon!

38 weeks, full-term. We're walking a lot and I'm bouncing on my silly birthing ball, trying to coax the baby to hurry up (hey, it can't hurt). I feel enormous and am down to about 2 different outfits that fit: this blue striped shirt or else the purple shirt I wore to our baby shower (or a big tee-shirt, preferably one of Carolyn's) and either these black pants or else black sweat pants. That's it. And my feet are so puffy that only flip flops work. But I've been wearing these nasty Adidas exclusively and they just feel gross, so this afternoon we made a DSW stop to get new sandals. This was after a stop to see our lawyer to sign our wills, guardianship papers, power of attorney, health proxy stuff, etc.

Avery has been squirming a lot and moving a lot (probably he's trying to get comfortable in a cramped space), but I haven't felt much in terms of cramps or anything for the past couple of days. I REALLY hope when we go to the doctor on Thursday, she gives us a better idea of when we can expect to go into labor AND I hope I'm at least slightly dilated so she can "strip the membranes" and I REALLY hope she can tell us more about his size and position (is his head engaged in my pelvis yet??? Does she think I'll need a C-section??? Can we induce early since he's a big boy???).

I'm tired of being pregnant. Mostly we're just so excited for him to arrive that we don't want to wait anymore. Physically I feel okay, just my feet and ankles are so swollen that walking for long periods of time is hard. Also my lower back hurts when I walk for a long time. But I've been sleeping fine and I can't say that I'm miserable.

BTW, I read that there IS a connection between heartburn and the baby having hair -- it apparently isn't just an old wives tale!

We saw our OB this morning . . . she hadn't gotten the report from the ultrasound, but when we told her about his size, she just said "Wow, he's going to be a big baby!" and "Eh, you're tall, it'll be fine."

So that's that.

I have gained more weight . . . I can't believe how much weight I've gained . . . I don't want to say here, but it is significantly more than I wanted to gain . . . we know it's a big baby, and we also know I'm retaining water since my feet and ankles are so swollen. But I don't think all the weight can be attributed to that. I'm sure I'll be able to lose the weight after Avery is born. I'm planning on trying to breastfeed, and that is supposed to help the weight come off . . . but it is a shock to see the numbers register so high on the scale . . .

Some hope: my cervix is not at all dilated yet but it is "softening" so things are happening slowly but surely . . . and when we listened to the heartbeat, the OB said that Avery's base-line heartbeat has slowed down a bit, it's in the 120s now, and that is a sign that he is "maturing" and getting ready to be born. I don't know if I have had any contractions, but I have been getting menstrual-cramp like pains on and off for a few days. This morning, the pains woke me up from sleep, they were so painful, but as soon as I got out of bed, they went away. so SOMETHING is happening. All this is fairly vague, but the OB DID say that we might see him be born a day or two before July 2nd, whereas before she has consistently said we should expect him to come after July 2nd. She also said that next time, if I'm at all dilated, she can "strip the membranes" to help me go into labor quickly.

Carolyn's aunt said I should drink tons of water, bounce on my birthing ball, and walk a lot to hurry things along.

Hurry up baby!

At the very beginning of my pregnancy, I had intense cravings for oranges and pineapple (and normally, I don't really like to eat oranges -- it's too much work, but during my first trimester, I couldn't get enough of them). I also wanted very cold cans of regular Pepsi for a couple of months at the beginning of the pregnancy.

The second trimester, I wanted tons of carbs and ate way too many bagels with cream cheese (also healthier carbs like cereal and oatmeal), and I also craved plain chocolate ice cream (especially soft serve ice cream - NOT frozen yogurt - which is hard to find except in the summer. Now that the weather is warm there are Mr. Softee trucks everywhere, and I have definitely been indulging in chocolate ice cream cones). But for the most part, the cravings were not super strong, and I think I ate pretty normally and consciously tried to eat healthy foods.

But the strong cravings have returned with a vengence. I recently walked WAY out of my way to get a Slurpee from a 7-11 in Midtown and I was so mad because the consistency just wasn't quite what I wanted. Then earlier this week, all I could think about were Original Glazed donuts from Krispee Kreme. I had seen them before at a little Asian market 2 blocks from where we live, but to my horror, they don't sell them there any more. And I NEEDED one (or three). There is a Dunkin Donuts within walking distance of our building, but I knew in my heart that a glazed Dunkin' donut just wouldn't be right. And it was a really hot day, and I was feeling sore, tired, with swollen ankles and not in the mood to trek way over to the East side or down to Penn station to find a krispy kreme there. So I just figured the craving would go away. But it didn't. In desperation, I went to the supermarket, but there was nothing but gross Entemmen's which isn't the same thing AT ALL, so I resigned myself to no donut.

Then yesterday as we were driving along route 1 in Connecticut (which by the way seems to be dunkin' donuts land -- there was a DD every couple of blocks in every town and city we drove through!), Carolyn spotted a Krispy Kreme, immediately turned into the driveway, and I finally got my Original Glazed donut. I didn't even have to say anything. But it was the best thing I ever ate in my life EVER. So were the 2 we brought home that I ate for breakfast this morning. mmm donuts (drool).

We had our ultrasound at the hospital this afternoon . . . the technician measured Avery as weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces which is big considering we are just today at our 37th week! We also saw that he is definitely a boy, has hair, and it looks like chubby cheeks (cute!!!!!). We'll see what our regular OB says about his size on Thursday. The technician didn't seem to think that Avery is ENORMOUS, but he called him "good sized."

My ankles look like there are water balloons inside. Bending over is a huge challenge. I no longer walk, I waddle slowly. But we are so excited that our son will be born soon!

We sent off all our paperwork to our lawyer, and we're going to set up a meeting with the social worker. We feel very good about that.

This weekend we were huge church nerds. We went to our church's end-of-the-year party on Friday. It was really fun. We realized that whereas normally we would try to find people we know and like to sit with and talk with, this time, people came up to us to talk and eat with us, which means that we are known and liked! We had a good conversation about the word "church" also. We were remembering that after we joined 4th U, we would NEVER use the word church, because we had negative connotations with that word and felt embarassed to use it. We'd say "4th U" or be very vague . . . like "We're going to Connecticut this weekend for a sort of getaway . . . retreat . . . thingy." and now we just say "we're going to church, we're going on a church retreat" without thinking about it. It's sort of like reclaiming the word for ourselves, but it made me remember that the associations we formerly had with "church" are what a lot of other people also think about, so maybe we need a new word or definition to explain Unitarianism to folks.

On Saturday, we had our infant-care class. It was fun, we got to play with baby dolls and practice changing diapers, changing them, burping them, nursing them, holding them, etc. I don't really feel like we learned anything totally new -- parts of the class reminded me of the episode of the Simpsons when the kids go live with the Flanders (their foster family) and Marge and Homer have to take a family class where they learn things like "Put your garbage in a garbage can people . . . don't just throw it out the window!"

But we had to get out of the city so we got a Zipcar and yesterday afternoon took a spontaneous trip to Connecticut. We stopped at a Target to get some last-minute baby things and a Trader Joe's to stock up on some pantry items so cooking our CSA vegetables will be easier and we won't have to run to the store every time hopefully, AND we ended up in West Haven to go to the beach and eat seafood. It was evening by the time we got there and no one was swimming, but we walked along the beach which was lovely, and then got a lobster roll and crab cakes for dinner which was perfect! Sometimes it is so nice to get out of the city, even just for a little while.

Avery is moving all about. I can't believe how big he is! We saw him squiriming around, blinking, moving his mouth, and waving his hands and feet about in the ultrasound and it was fascinating. I imagine that after he's born we'll be enthralled with his every gesture and facial expression.

Our CSA (Crop Share Association) started today. We've been so excited about it! We bought a share in a local farm, so from now through the end of the year, every Thursday we get to pick up a bunch of organic, locally grown fruits and vegetables. We also have to volunteer a couple of hours at the distribution site.

Today was the first day, so we were very excited to head over to the church on the next block where the crops are delivered. We got:

apples

kale
beets
white radishes
arugula
salad mix
brocoli rabe

It's a lot of fruits and veggies! For dinner tonight, we made really good salads with the arugula and some of the salad mix (and also walnuts, cheese, Craisins, and grilled chicken) and then Carolyn cooked a Portuguese sausage-bean-kale soup, using a Rachel Ray recipe (and my lil' sister's suggestion), so we'll have that tomorrow. It smells amazing.

Every Thursday we'll get different veggies and fruit (whatever the farm has produced), and I imagine it'll be a challenge to use everything (I'm not sure what we're going to do with the radishes), but we feel healthier and more socially and environmentally responsible already! Hurray!

Because we'll feel obliged to cook and eat all of the veggies we get, we are confident that the CSA is going to make us healthier, thinner, richer (because we won't ever eat out again), and basically improve all aspects of our lives . . . perhaps we're putting it on a pedestal a bit too much, but in any case, so far we feel like this is a very good thing.