My Many Interests

Saturday, January 23, 2010

The Known Universe

Thanks to AstroPixie who posted this on her blog. She leads a very exciting life as an astronomer (I envy her) at Nottingham University in the UK.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Things have changed . . . forever

Just a quick blurb for everyone. Most of you knew that Carroll and I were expecting a baby sometime in the near future. How little did we know that the near future was this morning.

Due to certain events, we had planned on delivering a baby by c-section somewhere around January 19th. Baby had other plans. Thursday, Carroll and I did our thing earlier in the day. I took her book shopping and then to lunch and a movie and I think that may have stirred the kid up. We rang in the new year at midnight and were asleep around 1:30, but about an hour later Carroll yells from the bathroom that something is wrong. Without going into details, let’s just say that there was some bleeding that with her placenta previa was bound to eventually occur and in the amounts of blood there wasn’t supposed to be a lot of worry. As it seemed to diminish, we just decided to call in the morning.

As I prepared for work, Carroll was on the phone with the doctor and the doctor asked her to come on in for a look-see. We checked in at 10:30am and after some exams and blood work it was decided that Carroll would probably stay until the 19th. Then as more lab results came in, the doctor found that Carroll had indications of possible preeclampsia which is pregnancy-induced hypertension which can affect both mother and child. Not wanting to push things, the doctor ordered more blood work and said that with bad results the birth would take place that evening or with stable or good results we would do it Sunday.

Again, baby had other plans. Around 5:30 or 6pm Carroll started having contractions. And I mean bad ones. She went through about 4 hours of it before the doctor said that they may just do it a little after midnight. Carroll decided that I should go check on the cat and get something to eat since I hadn’t eaten since about noon. When I got back around midnight, plans had changed again to just let her ride it out on morphine until the morning and see then.

With the morning light, they had decided that the baby would be delivered a little after 10am. Dressed in my finest scrubs (I looked like a big blue sausage), they had me wait in a little room while they prepped Carroll. Earlier, I got to watch them put the epidural in but not up close. Thank goodness for that one. For those that don’t know, I don’t handle needles too well. Into the delivery room and not 20 minutes later, unto Carroll and I was born a screaming baby girl. At a not-too-shabby-for-being-6-weeks-premature 5 lbs and 3.4 oz, Lillian Josephine Pickering let loose. I got to hold her right away and mommy got to giver her a kiss before I escorted her and the nurse to the warmer.

She’s breathing well on her own, has already taken a bottle since Carroll can’t breast feed right away, and again has exercised her voice several times, though she was fast asleep the last time I saw her. Mommy is resting up also, and will probably be in the hospital for about 3 or 4 more days. Baby will probably be there for at least another 2 or 3 weeks, until they deem her to be able to perform as a baby should on her own.

Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes and look for more pictures and stories to come in the years ahead.

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