Spoke too soon...

I'm posting from my Blackberry. This is a first for me, but there have been a lot of firsts this week.

The last few days haven't gone as expected. We took Juliette to her pediatrician for a check-up on Wednesday (the day after Christmas) and she was diagnosed as being dangerously jaundiced and requiring immediate treatment. So we have been at the NICU at Texas Childrens' Hospital since then. She's been receiving IV fluids and phototherapy and the treatment has been very effective so far. The doctors are very optimistic that she wasn't at sustained high levels long enough to cause permanent damage and neurologically she seems fine. They discontinued the phototherapy this morning and we'll see whether her bilirubin rebounds substantially. If not, she'll probably be discharged tomorrow.

The experience has been stressful, certainly, but we're thankful for so much. I've been able to stay at the Ronald McDonald house here which is on the same floor as the NICU. So I can get an hour or two of sleep between feedings at night.

We're lucky to live only a few miles down the road so Sean and the boys can come and go (although the boys aren't allowed in the NICU, it allows Sean and I to rotate out).

The Ronald McDonald house is so wonderful and the kids can watch tv and read books and play in there during the day which is so much better than being bored and stir crazy in a hospital lobby.

Seeing all these sick kids in the NICU makes us so thankful that our Juliette was born at 36 weeks, and not 27. Despite this recent episode, we know that ultimately we'll get to take home a healthy baby and there are so many families who can't say the same.

We're fortunate to have such a great medical staff here who responded so fast to her condition and seem to genuinely care about every baby they treat. And we're so lucky to have the insurance and financial means to get her the treatment she needs and not worry about how to pay for it (well maybe Sean worries, but really, it isn't a hardship to us).

Wishing you all many wonderful things in the new year. If I ever leave this hospital, I'll try to post some pictures from Christmas.

Not exactly as planned...

Well, things didn't go exactly as planned last week, but the outcome was good just the same.

We went to the hospital first thing Thursday for the amnio. First of all, never get your amnio done by a person who is doing the procedure for the first time in their ENTIRE life. I might as well have had Sean hold the needle. The instructor (i.e. real doctor) was actually yelling at the guy doing the procedure the entire time. Things like "butterfingers" and "what are you doing?" and "can't you feel that?" were angrily directed towards him as he helplessly tried to draw up a vial of amniotic fluid. But overall, I don't think you could have a worse amnio, and it still wasn't all that uncomfortable, more tragic comedy than anything else.

But an hour later, we got the results: the baby's lungs weren't mature enough to proceed with delivery. So the hospital threw me out, sending me to my doctor for a Rhogam shot (I'm Rh negative, Sean is positive, so any time there's a possibility the baby's blood has come in contact with mine, I have to get a shot). I get to the doctor's and he says "What the hell are you doing here?" and I say "The hospital sent me" and he says "They're supposed to hold you for 24-hour observation in case the amnio broke your water or something". So he proceeds to call and yell at the hospital and sends me back there. So I sent Sean home and sat there twiddling my thumbs for 24 hours while they monitored the baby's heart rate and my contractions. Nothing too exciting.

The next morning, my doctor comes to visit me and says that he's sending me home and we can schedule my delivery for next Friday (the 28th). So we chat for a bit and he's about to leave and I say "don't you want to check my cervix, just in case these contractions have actually become productive?" So he says "yeah, sure, let's do that since we're going into the weekend". And then about 60 seconds later he says "OK, go ahead and call Sean because it looks like we're going to have a baby today after all." So by some miracle after 2 months of continuous yet non-productive contractions, I had dilated since my office visit on Tuesday and was in real labor after all. So mature lungs or not, it was time to go. Things went pretty quickly after that.

Juliette Claire entered the world at 2:02 pm on Friday, Dec 21st. We got a little suprise during her delivery when the doctor discovered that her umbilical cord had a complete knot in it. I'll post a picture at some point. Needless to say, the doctor was relieved we delivered when we did, since that knot could have cut off her blood flow and killed her at any time. And we were thankful too, since we know someone who lost a full-term baby to a knotted umbilical cord and can't imagine the grief if something like that happened to our precious, long-awaited angel. Juliette needed oxygen for an hour or so, but didn't have to go to the NICU at all, thus disproving the "not mature" lung test results of the amnio from the previous day. She was fully baked and ready to roll.

We spent the usual sleepless nights in the hospital and despite some mild jaundice, came home today to spend Christmas Eve with our newly expanded family. Juliette has been awake for less than 5 minutes since we've been home. She refuses to open her eyes to see her new room, but maybe later. Updated pictures can be found on the McLaughlin family KodakGallery page (link on the right).

May all the blessings of Christmas be as abundant in your house as they have been in our home this year.

The end is near...
I am officially now more pregnant than I have ever been in my entire life. Having two pre-term babies wasn't fun, but being more pregnant than you ever expected to be is kind of annoying too. But I'm thankful to have made it this far and it looks like today will be my last pregnant day ever. So I had to preserve the moment with a photo. I'm going into the hospital in the morning for an amnio and if the baby's lungs look good, we should have her sometime later in the day. So think good thoughts for us and we'll keep you posted.

Down for the count...

Sorry belly fans, no pictures this week, or any time soon probably. I went to the doctor last Tuesday because I was having pretty frequent contractions. He checked me out and determined my cervix has already softened and effaced, which is a big no-no at 27 weeks. So he checked me into the hospital and I spent last week on a nice combination of magnesium (to stop the labor) and phenegran (for the nausea, but it puts me in a nice near-comatose state). I've been released from the hospital, with a pump that puts terbutaline into my leg 24/7 to try to keep my contractions under control. I get 2 hours per day hooked up to a contraction monitor which then transmits data to a nurse who calls and hassles me about how many contractions I'm having (if it's more than 4/hour, I get an extra dose from the pump and have to monitor for another hour). The rest of my days for the next 8 weeks will apparently consist of bedrest and occasional trips to the bathroom, maybe even a shower once in a while.

Decorating the baby's room? Not gonna happen apparently. Halloween pictures of the young Alex Rodriguez (Hayden) and Derek Jeter (Trevor)? Not gonna happen. Family Christmas card pictures? So sad, not this year. I'm trying to keep positive about this. The goal is to have a healthy baby GIRL who gets to come home from the hospital with me. So if that means 8 weeks of complete and utter boredom, sign me up. I'm with the program. How much I wish we had a laptop computer though. The doctor did tell me Monday that I get a few minutes per day of upright time sitting at the computer. I've just about exhausted that though, so goodbye for now.

Whatever...
I'm just annoyed today. Can't find anything, too dark to take pictures, backdrop stand is broken. 15 minutes late for a block party and Sean and the kids aren't even awake. Optimism about selling the old house in the first week is fading fast. Skin stretched to the point where it hurts. Boxes EVERYWHERE still. Trevor got first stitches this weekend (metal baby gate fell on back of head); questioning legitimacy of pediatrician who sews skin closed using child's own hair. Ready to throw out everything that isn't unpacked yet. Not interested in meeting new neighbors. Blech! One of those days.

Still experiencing technical difficulties...

The Comcast guy finally came, but apparently wasn't the right guy. He can only activate existing cable jacks, not install new jacks. Well, we told the person on the phone we needed new jacks. "That's a separate service call. After they install the jacks, I can come back and activate them." Arrrggghhh! Well, with a 1971-vintage house, you don't have cable jacks in every room. We did have one in the den behind where we put the entertainment center, so we were able to watch the disappointing Yankees loss to the non-PC-named team from Cleveland. I especially liked game 2 where they had some bizarre insects swarm the field and attack the players.

ButI digress. The lack of internet at the house, coupled with the massive amount of work to get the old house ready for listing, means that we went another week without the belly pics. But trust me, there's still a belly, and it's darned big. Once I unpack my stand and backdrop and have 20 minutes of free time during daylight hours, I'll take a pic for posting, I promise. The other issue with the pics is that since I include my head and face, it seems like I should shower and dry my hair first. That makes the whole thing a much bigger hassle when you're doing cleaning, moving and unpacking. I think that's why I did the decapitated pictures my first pregnancy. No primping required.

Oh well, off to parent-teacher conference at Hayden's school. Wonder what they'll say about him?

Disconnected...

That's what I've been. We made it to NYC and back successfully and closed on the new house and moved in. But the @#*&##'s at Comcast still don't have our cable or internet hooked up so I've been completely offline except for my Crackberry. I haven't done pregnancy pics for the last two Sundays but just take the last pic and adjust the width by 200% and you'll have a good idea of what I look like.

I'm almost glad to be back at work today because the overwhelming pile on my desk is nothing compared to the pile of boxes at the house. But, we're gradually settling in, even though Trevor keeps saying he wants to go "home". I tell him this is our home now, but I don't think he's accepting it just yet. I'm sure it doesn't help that they've been asked to just entertain themselves and stay out of the way for the past week-plus. And their diet has been almost 100% fast food and candy. And their sleep schedule is totally out of whack. But hey, they're kids, they can adjust, right?

Some things I love about the new house/neighborhood:

• Whole Foods Mkt only 3 blocks away
• "Fire Engine" park only 5 blocks away
• Great elementary school ~8 blocks away
• My work 2.4 miles away

Number of times in my life I am likely to walk or bike to any of these places: ZERO. But it's nice to have such short drives in my future :-)

Roommate update...

Bedtime was relatively uneventful last night and both boys went to sleep without much ruckus. Trevor woke up at 4 am and was crying because his nose was stuffed up. He went back to sleep pretty quickly after that. But when I peeked in at 7 am, I found Trevor snuggled up next to Hayden with his blankies covering both of them and Hayden's arm draped over his shoulder. Hayden said "He was feeling scared and wanted me to keep him company." That's what big brothers are for, right?

Apparently, I wasn't thinking ahead...

When I first did the layout on the pregnancy picture, the idea was to have them all exactly alike, so if you wanted to, you could do a slideshow of them and it would be like a time-lapse video of the explosion of my belly. But apparently, I didn't have enough foresight because I'm going to have to change the layout. If I don't make the pictures wider, my enormous belly is going to run off the page or else the elbows overlap from the front and side shots. Guess I didn't think I was going to get this big. And hopefully no issues and baby stays put for a long, long time. A few contractions were threatening last week, but they've eased off now.

What else? So much. Trevor has Fifth Disease, which sounds scary, but is really just a virus that most kids get at some point or another that has an associated rash. So no big deal, except it can be dangerous to pregnant women and causes something crazy like 5% miscarriages if you get it in your first 20 weeks. Fortunately, I'm past 20 weeks, and also apparently am immune from some earlier exposure in my lifetime. It only took 1 doctor's visit and 50 badgering phone calls to get this reassuring information. Gotta love that office staff.

We're packing furiously as the movers are supposed to come on the 26th, which is 2 days after we get back from NYC. I still need to hire a painter and a carpet company and a carpenter to work on our house to get it ready to sell. Oh, and a furniture staging company too. But we're 10% packed so it shouldn't be any issue figuring all that out in the next 4 days, right? Arrgghh! Stress!

My friends apparently weren't impressed with the tacky 70s retro flair of our new house and think I need to get HGTV on the case to rescue me. I'm open to all free renovations that are offered, but otherwise, 2 mortgages and no job (long unpaid maternity leave coming up) mean I'm putting on my polyester leisure suit and ABBA records and living the 70s dream.

Oh, and we put Trevor's bed in Hayden's room so we can re-convert our "nursery" to a closet so it will appeal to someone other than us. So today we had 2+ hours of everything but napping at nap time. Since they're going to be sharing a room permanently at the new house, I hope the novelty of sharing a room wears off quickly. But either way, they'll eventually be exhausted enough to sleep, right? Please just humor me here.

22 weeks...people are starting to feel up my belly

I guess I'm at the point where I'm so obviously pregnant that strangers feel like they're allowed to touch me. Maybe I should write to Miss Manners for some advice. Is "Get your damned hands off me?" a socially acceptable response? Or while somebody is in mid-grope and asks "Is this OK?" can I say "If it wasn't, now would be a little late to ask, wouldn't it?" I just don't respond at all.

I've been remiss in blogging lately. I never even caught up with Hayden's first day of school pictures. This whole house thing has been all-consuming and probably will be for at least another month. Right now we're scheduled to close on Sept 28th and somehow need to find movers, pack our stuff, get our house ready to sell, find a realtor, list the house, etc. etc. etc. between now and then.

We've cut the Northeast vacation short, which probably works out for the best since we didn't have anywhere to stay and don't need to blow any extra cash right now. I'm still trying to find accomodations for while we're in NYC for the Yankees games. I'm seriously considering staying in New Jersey at this point. Gotta love the Garden State, right? I can show the kiddos the cute little Cape Cod house I lived in on River Road in Piscataway. "Look kids, here's where Mommy's car got stuck in a snowbank and people she knew just drove past while she was digging herself out like a dog using nothing but an ice scraper." Oh, the fond memories.

Oh well, need to jet off to Lowe's to see if I can get some cute, cheap light fixtures to make this townhouse say "BUY ME NOW!!!"

Happy Labor Day...no, I'm not in labor

I'll keep this post short so as not to distract you from the shameless solicitation attempt below (please see post from Sept 1st). So here's a picture of my newfound enormousness.

It's Fundraising Time....

Hayden has a fundraiser for his preschool (a very worthy cause if you ask me) and we're looking for people to order some goodies. I'm especially trying to get lots of help because if we sell enough, I don't have to participate in the Spring fundraiser. We're on a short deadline (all orders by Sept 11th) so here's what to do:

1) Go to www.kathrynbeich.com before 9/11/2007
2) Shop from their great selection of personalized items, chocolates, and more!
3) Enter 87346 under Option 1 after selecting an item.

By entering number 87346, you'll credit Hayden and Poe Co School with a large percentage of your purchase price.

If you live locally, and don't want to spend the money on postage, you can pick out your items on-line, e-mail your list to me, and send me a check for your total purchase made out to Poe-Co Nursery School.

Happy shopping!

Conversations in the car...

Since I missed the first day of school yesterday, due to a business trip to Virginia, I decided to drop Hayden off today. I asked him who he wanted to take him to school today, me or Erika? He said, without enthusiasm, "I guess you could take me if you really want to Mommy." Good to know he wasn't scarred for life by my absence yesterday. So we're driving in the car and out of nowhere he says:

Hayden: Mommy, when I get 42, I'm going to work at the plant, for Chevron Phillips. When I get bigger, when I'm a daddy, that's what I'm going to do.

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from his first day, Sean was so sweet to capture the moment for me.

Oh, and the sellers accepted our offer on the house. The inspection was yesterday. It looks like we'll be moving at the end of September. Yikes! Time to start clearing out a massive amount of crap.

20 weeks...that's halfway by everyone's standards...

I had quite the humbling experience today. We had the introductory family picnic at Hayden's school. There are 4 other pregnant moms and only me and one other mom are wearing maternity clothes. And we're all on our 3rd pregnancies at about the same gestation. So why isn't everyone popping out like me? I couldn't dream of wearing regular clothes anymore. Oh well, I guess it just means I get more usage out of my ridiculously-priced but poorly-made maternity wardrobe. Which by the way, includes something other than a black tank top and black pants in case you are misled by the photos.

We wrote a contract on a house this weekend. Now we're just hoping for a little compromise from the seller. They've only been willing to come down 0.9% from their asking price so far and we're asking them to bend a little more (twice that much, to be precise). So I'm not sure what we should all be hoping for, but we may soon be the proud owners of three kids and two mortgages. Won't that be fun? Especially given my plan for an 8-month, mostly unpaid, maternity leave. I'm sure we won't have any trouble selling a dime-a-dozen townhouse in Midtown, right? Ssshhhh, don't let reality spoil my little fantasy of 2,700 sqaure feet with a backyard in a good school district.

Anything for a Jelly Bean...

You'd think by the title that I'm talking about myself, right. Nooo, there's a bigger jelly bean fiend in my house than me. It's Trevor. He's always been a terror when we try to cut his nails. When he was young, I would just cut them while he was nursing, since he'd be all distracted and relaxed. But after that stopped, it took one of us to hold him down and the other to try to hold his hands steady and cut while he's screaming bloody murder the whole time. It's like trying to put sunscreen on a Salvaggio. A few weeks ago, I decided to give him a bag of jelly beans to work on while I cut his nails. Lo and behold, I have an angel on my hands. Speaking of angels, how do you think I got him to pose with those wings for Valentine's day? Jelly beans, of course. So last weekend he actually brought me the nail clippers and said "Cut my nails Mommy? Jelly beans, please?" He looks forward to having his nails cut!

I know, I know, it's wrong to bribe your kids. But you can live in parenting fantasy-land if you want. I found something that works and I'm running with it. Is 10 jelly beans a week going to kill the kid? Ten pounds of jelly beans a week hasn't killed me yet. Oh shut up, I've cut back on account of the gestational diabetes and everything. I even turned down a cupcake last week so I should win some pregnant woman medal or something.

Would you hire this woman?
Not that I'm looking for a job, I've got a perfectly good job, but I'm wondering about how wise this is to post these graphic photos of myself on the internet. I heard this article on NPR the other day quoting the percentage of employers who screen candidates by looking up their names on the internet. So if you put my name on a search engine and saw these pictures, would you hire me? Or would you write me off as a nutcase? It's certainly not the mental image I would want a prospective employer to have in their mind when they were interviewing me. But you know what they say, once you've posted something on the internet, it's out there forever, no matter if you delete it or not. So for better or worse, I'm out there, in all my glory, for the world to see.

A visit from the teachers...
I could write a long list about the things I love about Hayden's preschool, but one of my favorites is that the teachers come to visit the students at home before school starts. That way, the students already feel like they have a personal relationship with the teacher when school starts, and the anxiety is eased a bit. And they take pictures of your kid at home and have them displayed in various spots in the classroom so they feel like they already belong on day 1.

Here's Hayden looking out the window waiting for his teachers:
Trevor was pretty excited about their impending arrival too, even though he has another year before he'll start school.

"They're here Mommy! I see Miss Linda and Miss Beth!"

Here's my soon-to-be Apple (his class is the Apple class, last year was Acorns) mugging for a photo with Miss Beth and Miss Linda:

I think our Apple year will be just great. Hayden can't wait for school to start.

18 weeks = Halfway there????

OK, I know I'm only 18 weeks, and a normal pregnancy is supposed to be 40 weeks. But since Hayden and Trevor both decided to enter the world at 36 weeks, I'm not holding out much hope this little one will last till January. So by my math, I'm halfway through.

We went into an old-timey local grocery store today and they had a big old-fashioned scale. Hayden weighed himself and it came within 2 lbs of what I think he weighs (based on his last doctor's visit a month or so ago). I weighed myself and came in 15 lbs less than my last visit from a few weeks ago. But these pictures sure don't look like I've lost 15 lbs so I'm thinking it was just a very kind scale.

Messy Day, Fun Day...

I was home with the boys on Friday and actually let Trevor finger-paint. Very out of the ordinary for me. I usually defer the messy undertakings to Mon-Thurs when the nanny is watching them. But I was in a sporting mood and was pleasantly rewarded with a very messy two-year old who painted himself more than the paper. But there isn't anything a little soap can't cure.

Then, I put the boys down for early naps so they could get ready for our night at the ballpark. My workgroup had planned for us to all go with our families to watch an Astros game. A behind-the-scenes tour of the ballpark was arranged ahead of time, which meant that we had to be there at 3:45 pm. It was loads of fun, but the game went into extra innings before the Astros finally lost. I was proud of my little troopers for staying till the bitter end and even watching Friday-nite fireworks afterwards. Of course, staying up till almost midnight meant they slept till 10:30 on Saturday, but that's what weekends are for, right?

Negative...and that's positive...The doctor's office called me today with the results of my triple screen test and said that everything was negative. Which is good news. My OB had me convinced that due to my "advanced maternal age" I should expect a positive result indicating the potential for some type of chromosonal abnormality or neural tube defect. So he wanted me to go ahead and schedule an amniocentesis so we could follow-up. There are varying claims on the %age of amniocentesis tests that cause miscarriage. Some stats say 1%, others say 0.5%. My doctor claims 1 in 400. Still, I wasn't totally bought in on taking the risk. And the stupid perinatologist's office where I was supposed to schedule the test couldn't fit me in for 3 weeks anyway, and you're supposed to have the thing during your 17th week. So anyways, crisis averted. No doom and gloom. No 8 inch needle into my abdomen. Only one downside: the amnio would have given 100% confirmation on the baby's gender. But I don't need the amnio to tell me. I believe the ultrasound. Oh, didn't I tell you yet? You'll just have to wait in suspense a little longer. :-)