Doctor Appointment

Went with Nichole to the doctor appointment today. The doctor said Emma is probably 5.5 pounds or more already! Everything checked out just fine.

I'm in Florida; Nichole's in pain. :(

Today Nichole called me while I was at my sales meeting in Miami. I could tell it must be something fairly urgent because my cell phone buzzed two or three times, and then I got messages on my blackberry. I stepped out from the meeting to take the call.

Nichole said she had been feeling some painful contractions at varying intervals, and they were painful enough that she called the doctor, who had her come in. After examining her there, they sent her over to our hospital (nearly an hour drive from her office) to have a monitor put on and for observation. Luckily, the contractions subsided, and were never really strong enough to be considered false labor apparently, but I was still very nervous. Nichole stayed at the hospital for 2 hours with the monitors on, and then went home to rest. They say she can go back to work tomorrow if she is feeling okay, so I guess it was a false alarm. I'm glad... I hated to be away when she is this far along anyway, and this just made that feeling worse for me. I hope I don't have to rush home... getting out of Miami in a hurry and back to the Detroit area would be very difficult with the airline schedules the way they are.

July 16

Went to the doctor with Nichole again. Everything is still fine. She's not gaining much weight, her blood pressure is incredibly normal, the glucose tolerance test came back with no problems at all, she's not having much back pain or fatigue (of course, she goes to bed around 9 or 10 at night, so she is getting plenty of sleep), and everything seems to be on track. Our next appointment is for July 30th before our planned trip up north. I wonder if we'll see another ultrasound before the baby is born?

Emma's first concert

Well, we can officially say that Emma's first concert was Van Halen! Nichole and I went to the Van Halen concert/reunion tour at the Palace of Auburn Hills tonight with Vicki and Dennis. It was loud, very loud... but Sammy Hagar was in terrific form. Nichole actually checked with the doctor on our last visit to ask if the loud music would be a problem. The doctor laughed and said it wouldn't, and then added that he'd love to go. Nichole would have probably given him her ticket, but since it was my birthday present, she got to go. And therefore, so did Emma. Wonder what it sounded like inside the womb...?

Now if I can only find a baby mobile that plays "Panama"...

Emma in 3D

We had this "photo" taken at Oh Baby in West
Bloomfield. It's a 3D ultrasound!


Another 3D picture of Emma from our
ultrasound on July 9th. Isn't she cute?

Birth Class, July 8

Went to the birth class tonight, and got a tour of the hospital. Really, it didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It's certainly a nice birthing room, and it's nice that the hospital believes in "rooming in" with the baby and the Daddy in the same room with Mommy all night, but it's still a hospital, no matter how much they try to make it look like home. (Unless, of course, you have a warming tray and lucite crib in your house. My apologies if so.) The good thing is that it seems very quiet, appears to be very new inside and out, and does seem to have the latest in medical technology. As for the non-medical technology, they say we can even access the Internet and email from the birthing room, which sounds pretty convenient. Maybe we'll post an entry from there! It's only $9.95 a day, which is about what you'd pay for the same thing at a hotel... not a bad deal as hospital prices go, considering what they charge for other items.

The hospital said they have somewhere between 25-30 birthing rooms (they actually told us the number, but my memory fails me now) and that at any given time up to 20 of them can be occupied with new mom's and moms-to-be in labor. I think their nurse-to-patient ratio ends up being like 5:1. It sounds like it will be a good place to deliver. Assuming nature cooperates and we deliver where we're supposed to!


A birthing room at the hospital

Planning for the ultrasound

Today we called "Oh Baby", a business on Orchard Lake Road that actually does what they call "pre-birth imaging". In other words, they take a 3D ultrasound of your baby before it is born, and then you can purchase photo packages complete with albums, a CD-ROM, and prints. It seems pretty cool, and Nichole and I decided that for the price (around $250 for 2 "poses") it would be something we had to do... when would we ever have the chance to see our baby before she is born?

I've posted the link to the company's web site here as well. Packages start at $180, and it feels like a day spa... they have water and fruit juices, small snacks, and they'll let your whole family (or friends) watch the ultrasound in process.

Back from up north

Back from the cabin tonight. We had a great weekend, but I think some of the hormonal changes and crabbiness that come with being pregnant reared their head this weekend. The kids and I kind of wanted to see the fireworks in both Harrisville and Barton City, but Nichole nixed that idea and we ended up only seeing the Barton City fireworks, which were pretty impressive, especially after the nasty weather we had all day. We were lucky we saw any at all, frankly.

By the time we got to the fireworks, Nichole was pretty cranky. The kids and I finally settled on a place near the side of the road to watch the show go off over Jewel Lake. Nichole stayed in the car... not sure if it was because she was mad at me or (more likely) she was just more comfortable sitting there instead of on the ground. I don't know how she manages to sit in the car for as long as we have had to this weekend, with the trip here and the trip tomorrow going back home. I guess if she can do that, we can all put up with a little crankiness. :)

Emma, if you are reading this, remember... don't push your mom's buttons too far. She's liable to turn that car right around. ;)

A busy evening

Tonight we had our doctor appointment at 5pm. Everything was just fine, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again. I never get tired of hearing it. The doctor turned the volume up kind of loud, and it sounded like elephants marching in a cartoon. Pretty neat.

After the doctor appointment we went to our second "Birth Awareness" class. Why do they call it birth awareness, anyway? It's not like we're not going to be fully, completely aware that there is a birth going on. And Nichole will be more aware than anyone! Anyway, the second birth class was basically almost the same as the first. Same video, and much of the same instruction... that's what happens when you have two different instructors, I guess. The baby in the video looks all white and slimy from the vernix caseosum, which is the coating many babies have on their bodies at birth to protect them in utero. Apparently some babies can even be born en caul, which means still in the amniotic sac. Doctors must have to learn a lot of Latin. Or maybe the videos just use these terms to sound professional.

We'd hoped to get the grand tour of the hospital tonight, but apparently that's a different night with this instructor. It's a pretty small hospital though, so I doubt we'll get lost when the time comes. And we wouldn't do anything about it if we didn't like the hospital, anyway, at this point... we certainly wouldn't switch. I think with or without a tour, we'll be just fine.

On top of everything else tonight, we packed to go up north to the cabin tomorrow, for a long 4th of July weekend. I'm dead tired. Looking forward to the vacation, if not the drive to get there.