I figure...

I figure, I'll post a bunch for a couple days, then go offline for a while and let you wonder ;-).

Christi had a checkup with the midwife today, everything looks great. Without subjecting you to the full anatomical analysis or details, it sounds like what we already knew - ready to go, could happen any time, make an appointment for a week from now just in case it hasn't happened.

My observation is that they really don't want to make predictions. Not that I blame them given the state of interactions in modern American medicine, but . . . I've been surprised how little guidance they seem to want to give us. Not even "30% chance of this, 50% chance of that...", just "everything good, come back in a week if you don't come back in labor before then". Oh, well.

Sorry, folks...

... but we bought an actual supply of diapers (which is to say, more than six hours' worth). So, probably the baby won't come for another ten days ;-).

Seriously - we're avoiding the heat here as much as possible, and doing the last few preparatory things we can think of. Christi's got various aches and pains, and a bladder like a chipmunk's on a caffiene overdose, but she's hanging in there. Hopefully this hot/humid combo weather will back off a bit - the forecast looks like low-eighties this week, so if we get the showers/t-storms they're talking about today we could be in better shape.

Waiting...

Well, the truth is that we've got most things that we can think of ready. So - for those keeping score - the "official" due date is August 28th, which means that we're into a time when something could happen soon, or not for two or three weeks.

I started trying to look up statistics on gestation times, but it's one of those things that's hard on the Internet - strangely, scientific articles are likely to be available in summary but not in full (which unfortunately feels like the bait-and-switch of those damn pay-for-answers sites that are so good at getting the questions indexed by search engines), and meanwhile I can't seem to find good search terms to pull out any less-formal information that doesn't look like bunk or hearsay.  Not that some of the science doesn't look the same when pressed - the standard Naegele rule of 266 days from ovulation or 280 days from last menstrual period dates from 1812, but other variations point out something like an additional week for first-time babies.  More recent studies seem to indicate that, where an early ultrasound is available with certain readings, dating based on that can be much more accurate.  I hope so - our ultrasound gave us a date significantly earlier than other methods.

However - from what I can tell and in round numbers - a few percent of babies are born premature (<37 weeks).  Including those, maybe 15-20% total are born by our current time (cusp of 39 weeks completed).  The next three weeks have  something like 20%, 35%, and 20% respectively of the total,  and perhaps 10% of first babies would go past 42 weeks without intervention (though in this country that's increasingly hard to accomplish).   So, it's a fair bet that we won't have a baby in a week - or rather, the 50-50 money is on the two weeks following.  But from my perspective, a 1-in-5 chance that something happens in the next week is plenty to think about.   The midwives we're working with have been, perhaps predictably, rather inscrutable on this topic, although the midwife today at Christi's visit said the baby was "very low" and asked "are you ready?".  Hints?  You decide...

(For the statistics, do your own searching, or check out things like: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=233200.)

In other news, we actually bought some diapers yesterday - not enough to last long, but I've been told it's like taking an umbrella out with you. It won't rain if you take it . . . and the baby will only be early if we're not ready? "Ready" is seeming like a relative term these days.  But, we've got enough diapers to survive while we cry on the phone for someone to go to the diaper store.

I was saying to Christi, I feel a bit like we're screwing up the planning because it's all "functional". What do we take to the hospital, how do we know when to go, who feeds Jolly while we're gone, do we have what we'll need when we come back? As if we're ignoring the part where, when a friend comes to visit, you decide what you'll do with them. Should we go into the city and get dinner? See a movie? Go to the Science Museum or the Aquarium?  Turns out that in this case, we don't need big plans to go out.  Oh, well.

So - the next time I post, we could be three.  Or not.  But at least it's not too likely to mess with my average time between posts . . . 

Yeah, yeah...

So, I know. WE know. Over a month since the last post . . . sorry. Somehow - we've been busy.

We did have a nice little baby shower, at my parent's new place in Cambridge. Apparently, cameras were cursed during the occasion, 'cause most of the shots taken didn't turn out well. I can only offer you the following image, with Mooo, Mommy, and Mommy's sis Myrrha:




So, if anyone has additional pics of the day, please let us know.

OK, More Photos

Hmmm, y'all seemed to like the photos thing. Have some more:

An expecting mother and a playful pup - what more could one ask for?

And, no, I can't figure out why Blogger wanted to format this in this way.

Family Snapshots June07

Hey all -

C's stepmom was here for a few days last week, and among other things managed to take some good pics of us (& Jolly - did I mention Jolly? One of the things that happened to us between June '04 and Feb '07 but wasn't recorded on the Blog was getting Jolly).

So, here's out current and impending family:


(Don't worry, I did get a haircut shortly after these pics.)

MultiMiniMoooMedia

OK y'all - you didn't ask for it, but you got it.

Here's the sound of MiniMooo's heartbeat, as crappily recorded with poor equipment held up near the doppler sound-a-tator.

Let me know if .wav doesn't work for you, and you actually want to hear this.

Another Photo

This here's either the other photo they gave us from the 2nd-trimester ultrasounds session, or the Babyface Nebula near Proxima Diaperon. You be the judge.



We're looking at much the same position as last time, but with a bit more of the body shown, and at a higher zoom overall. Also the wall of the uterus/placenta (I presume that's what that is) seems to be smooshed up much closer in the face, which is tilted to face a bit more straight-vertical as well.

A Personality Already

My mother has always said that babies are born with a personality. Based on what we've seen, I'd say that it might start a little earlier than that.

Friday was our 18 week ultrasound. This is the only one that most people have. (Our first was to figure out how far along we really were since I didn't really know the dates this pregnancy would be based on.) The idea for this one was to make sure the baby was growing well, had all the right parts, and no signs of anything wrong. We got a clean bill of health there. There was also the chance of finding out the baby's gender.

On the gender front, I didn't really want to know, but it wasn't a strong desire. I've heard enough stories about them telling people the wrong sex that I don't want to deal with them getting it wrong (picking a name on the fly, returning all the clothes, etc, telling everyone that "Frank" is really "Susie"). Finally, I like the idea of a surprise at the end of labor. That sounds like a whole lot of work and I'm pretty sure I'm getting a baby at the end but what kind is a complete mystery. None of these are very strongly held beliefs, so I was ready to consider finding out. Adam, on the other hand, was about as strongly interested in knowing as I was not (ie: mildly). His biggest concern was wanting to see everything in the ultrasound and not missing out because they were trying to hide the gender from us.

So, we went into Friday with the basic idea that we didn't want to know the baby's sex but would not be heart broken if we accidentally learned. It ended up that the little one didn't want us to know anything at all. It made the doctor's job hard by wiggling all over. There were flips and turns and limbs swinging everywhere. The one thing that DIDN'T change was that the legs were clamped tightly together the whole time. Even if we had been dying to know, this baby wasn't going to let anyone see its private parts!

This little one apparently has a strong personality. Flashbacks to stories of me trying to convince everyone that I was the boss since the age of two are starting to haunt me!

It's a . . .

. . . baby. Yes folks, it's a baby. We had our second-trimester ultrasound survey a couple days ago, which among other things is when they start offering to try to tell you the sex of the baby. After some complex thinking that may or may not be a topic for future posts, we decided not to find out (at least now). So, it's a baby! And more importantly, it's a healthy baby in all the ways that they can tell at this stage.

So here's the little future rugrat in his/her/its updated mug shot. This time facing to the top left, in profile. The dense (whiter) bit center-left is the lower part of the jaw and face, a divot for the eye-socket, and the bright arc from there around from 10-o'clock to 6-o'clock is presumably the skull. There's a C-shaped blur in the middle there that kind of suggests an ear, but for all I know could be some mid-brain structure given the depth of the imaged scan.

Things that we "saw" in the ultrasound:
. two arms with hands with fingers, substantially close to five fingers per hand
. two legs, with feet with toes, substantially close to five toes per foot
. a head with a face, and a brain inside (they assured us)
. a stomach, kidneys, and a liver. Christi thinks also a bladder, which was apparently hard to find.
. at least one femur, which was measured for length (a couple centimeters, if I caught it right)
. a spine and a buncha ribs, which were some of the coolest things as you (or at least I) could imagine the structure as the technician scanned deeper and shallower across them
. a working, pumping heart (straight-on 150 beats-per-minute) with multiple chambers
. an "aortic curve", I think, which is the major blood vessel leaving the top of the heart and curving down into the body cavity.

Yay parts! Apparently they all look healthy/nominal/good, which made us happy. In a growing tradition, we went for ice cream afterward.