Michael Alexander

Our son was born on Sunday, January 18 at 11:33 pm. He weighed 5 lb. and 15 oz. and measured 20.25 in. long. He was born at week 37 plus 1 day. He was sweet enough to wait to be a term baby but not too long so that mommy wouldn't have to be on bed rest for much longer.

Here are lots of pictures.

"Hello world!" - 2 hours and 6 minutes of life.

Throwing gang signs in the nursery.

Getting checked out by Noodles. Check out the calf muscles on my son - future soccer superstar!

Baby's first dress. Actually, it's a Christening gown that was first worn by the husband's grandfather.

Tummy time!

Being a mom is quite amazing. I need to keep this entry short but I hope to continue adding pictures and blogging about parenthood in the coming weeks and months.

It's a ...

Boy. By a narrow margin you voted for a boy. Thanks for voting.

I think I'm close. My "menstrual cramps" are getting more intense, but they are still quite bearable.

Lazy Update

So I've gotten through a week of doing nothing. Mostly. My doctor could tell I had been resting because I lost 4 lbs. in a week - all muscle mass. Great. These couple of weeks will erase all the effort I put in working out and doing pilates. Oh well. I guess it's also preparation for life with kids - things don't always go the way you want them to.

I've actually accomplished quite a bit these last few days. The first 2 days of this week were easy, the next 2 were emotionally challenging, and today it's a little better. I've practiced typing with 1 hand quite a bit. I read The Other Boleyn Girl (waiting for the Netflix movie to arrive). I've watched 1/2 of the first season of Dexter. I've done a lot more research on cloth vs. disposable diapers and am now really happy with our decision - we'll do a diaper service for the first month and then we'll buy our own cloth diapers. And I've talked on the phone and texted a lot. The kitties have been ecstatic to have me home all day. And a couple of days I actually napped and really enjoyed it.

In other baby news, my sister-in-law and her husband got picked to adopt a baby. The baby will be born any day now, just like ours, so I'll become a mom and aunt at the same time. Exciting!

So I've started to develop cramps. They are not contractions, just menstrual-like cramps that are more annoying than painful. Contractions, my doctor told me, will be a lot more painful. Next I wait for my water to break or contractions to start. Bring it on!

Help. So. Bored.

So I got put on bed rest. My last day at work was Friday. Here are the doctor's orders: lay on your left side, get up to use the restroom, eat, and take a 3 minute shower, and you can take a 5 minute walk if you need to stretch your legs. Excuse me? Needless to stay, I have not been following orders completely. I tend to linger at the table after eating for a little while and I get up often at least to stretch or to get something to do. I've also been laying on my right side a lot, trying to switch it up. The doctor said I should keep myself busy with DVD's, books, and a laptop. But it's actually hard to use a laptop when you don't have a lap to prop it on (I'm trying right now).

I talked to my uncle who's a doctor and he thought the orders were a little extreme. He empahsized the importance of rest, but he said I shouldn't feel guilty if I need to sit up or get up to stretch.

Tomorrow I'll start watching some DVD's - I'll probably start with Sex and the City and Dexter. I've also got loads of books to read; I'm starting with The Other Boleyn Girl and How Soccer Explains the World.

I cheated big time today and attended a lovely shower hosted by two friends. It was a ladies-only shower (the husband decided he didn't want to attend), with lots of great games. My favorite was "Ooops, my water broke": everyone got assigned a baby (a plastic soccer figurine) frozen in a cup of ice and everyone had to guess which baby would break free of the ice first. We also played a "name the baby food" game which consisted of items such as prunes, mac and cheese (yuck!), green beans, and vegetable risotto with cheese.

One good thing about the high blood pressure and the bed rest is that unless the baby comes before, we are inducing in 3 weeks (a week ahead of schedule). So we'll be parents in 3 weeks. Yay!! We really can't wait to meet the baby.

Vote!

So I discovered the poll feature on blogger. Please vote and let me know what you think the baby will be.

Dr.'s Orders - Go to Work!

I may have mentioned that the last time I went to the doctor, about 8 days ago, my blood pressure was a little high. A second reading 5 minutes later yielded a much lower blood pressure. When a pregnant woman's blood pressure reaches 140/90, they start to worry. High blood pressure could cause stroke among other bad things. My first blood pressure reading was 130/90. The second was 117/76. But I was told that if at my next visit (this Friday) my first blood pressure reading was still high, I might get taken off work. Of course I don't want that. Not because I would miss work but because I would have to lay around all day on my left side. That's not for me. And second, the time I took off work before the baby was born would deduct from the time I would be able to take off from work once the baby arrived. Not only do I feel great right now (haven't felt better throughout the pregnancy), but I don't have any other preeclampsia symptoms - headaches, protein in urine, dizziness.

So for the past 8 days I've been resting a lot, eating healthy, and trying to get lots of exercise in (pilates and walking). I've been eating lots of oranges (vitamin C might help) and taking 1 tablespoon of olive oil every day (also heard it might help). I've also been monitoring my blood pressure and it's been fairly consistent in the high 130/80 ranges. In general I have high blood pressure. My husband has low blood pressure. We balance each other out.

Well, now I have a good argument for not getting taken off work. It seems like I'm more relaxed at work than at home. When I first got up this morning, my blood pressure reading was 136/88. I've taken my blood pressure 3 times at work today and the readings have been 130/80, 127/82, and 136/83. So the diastolic blood pressure (second number and of bigger concern) has been going up consistently, but I am at the end of the day and it hasn't increased that much. I'm going to measure again tomorrow and take this data with me to the doctor.

As a side note, a preeclampsia story...my friend was telling me that when she delivered, her blood pressure spiked to 210/150. Yikes! She was immediately given some heavy metal (can't remember which one) to equilibrate her system. The doctors actually lost her once and her daughter twice during the delivery. That must have been scary.

Outsourcing - Because Everyone's Doing It

Right before Christmas our friend Tim came for a visit. He stayed with us through the weekend and we had a fun time driving around the area and taking lots of pictures. Tim is our camera expert and we consulted him for advice before we bought our SLR.

I had been meaning to post about his visit, but I am way behind on posts. So, since Tim has a nice post about it on his website, I will link to that instead. He has a play-by-play of our weekend together, in addition to lots of great pictures. But I have a warning, some of the pictures make me look like a beached whale, which is actually the way I feel sometimes. You know how the camera adds 10 lbs., well, I think that's 10 lbs. per person - 10 for me and 10 for baby - in addition to the pregnancy weight I've added. Enjoy!

Mmmm

I'm craving some fish & chips. Unfortunately, the only ones that would do the trick are from Greenwich Village in NY. Someone please go to A Salt and Battery for me. I only recommend these because it would be a lot harder to go to the UK for authentic fish & chips.

Happy New Year

I'm still alive and not in labor. I've just been busy with the holidays, organizing our place, and resting. Yup, me who hates naps in the middle of the day and can't wait to get up to get stuff done has to slow down. My blood pressure is a little high and it's of concern to the doctor so she suggested I try to get more rest. If it's still high in a week, they might put me on bed rest. Aghhhh! That really is what it sounds like...I would lay around on my left side (and right sometimes to switch it up) all day. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that so I've been busy laying around as much as I can these past couple of days. On to better news...

My parents came to visit for the Christmas holiday. On Christmas Eve we went out for lobster. There's a local place that flies in lobster from Maine and it's sooo good.


Here we are enjoying our Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Day we baked lots of cookies and lounged around. My mom and I baked pistachio cranberry biscotti, peanut butter cookies, pistachio sugar cookies, and cranberry oatmeal cookies. They all turned out yummy and when my parents headed home, they took most of the cookies with them to give to my aunts and uncles.

The kitties had a pretty good Christmas. I put all their favorite things in their stockings. Monkey got a bag of treats, Major got a bag of catnip and a furmination, and Noodles got some grass. I'm not sure who had a better Christmas - Major rolling around in catnip, getting brushed, or Noodles chomping on his grass under the tree.

The only other highlight of our long weekend was watching the Patriots play a very good game against Buffalo. Despite their win, they didn't make the playoffs and are only the second team in recent NFL history to finish 11-5 and not make the playoffs. The clincher was Brett Favre playing a terrible game causing the Jets to loose to Miami and allow Miami to stay in 1st place. While we watched the Jets game as Favre fans for 3 hours, we caught glimpses of the Eagles vs. Cowboys game. Ouch! Poor Cowboys fans - sorry Pablo and Jaime. Maybe next year.

We've been playing around a lot with our digital camera. It's been fun. Here's a good Monkey picture that initially looked like a mistake because it was all washed out but is actually pretty nice.



Happy New Year!!