Another Week, A Bigger Belly

My apologies for the lack of updates lately. We've gone from thinking Brenna was going to be evicted in a short period of time to being told now that things are progressing normally and Emily will be allowed to carry to 40, maybe 41 weeks.

These were the immortal last words of her soon to be ex-doctor. Yes, I said ex-doctor. We handed over Emily's birth plans and after hearing "no, I'm not going to do that" more than a dozen times, Emily decided this doctor doesn't need to buy another country club member ship from the proceeds of her delivery.

Some other humorous comments from Dr. Know-It-All (and you typically would think the doctor would know best)

- No, we won't be doing that
- No, you have to have that
- I'm not here to support you through a labor that lasts four days
- This is not a home birth, I'm not here to be all cuddly-feely with you
- You will be asking for pain medication before it's all over

Rather self defeating for someone that's wanting to deliver as naturally as possible.

At any rate, another doctor was immediately located, one that's open to alternative birthing methods and Emily has an appointment on Friday to discuss her desired plans. More updates regarding the new doctor will be forthcoming, be sure of it!

Before I forget, one of the ladies in the birthing class that Emily and I have been going to had a little boy two days ago, and her due date was the same as Emily's! She brought him by class on her way home from the hospital, if you can believe it!

I'll be posting some more pictures of the nursery, which is nearing completion, but considering the last four or five posts have consisted of the nursery and nothing else, I give you Opus the penguin in a grass skirt.

Opus was picked up in Hawaii during a family vacation in 1989, and is a personal favorite of mine. Enjoy.

Brenna Update

Emily and I were expecting a drag out beat down conversation with her c-section happy doctor today about not letting her go past 38 weeks, but were pleasantly (?) suprised when he advised her that he wanted to wait another week before we discussed delivery options. Emily is still measuring at 38 weeks, so the baby must have shifted since last weeks measurement. The doctor advised that Brenna is still riding pretty high in the belly and hopes that she drops between now and next week's visit (Emily, get going on those jumping jacks!).

In the meantime, Emily and her mom are almost finished with the nursery, below is a near completed mural of Lilo and Stitch, and another picture of the crib and rocking chair, which I painted (a test of my patience, for sure).

Looks like Brenna may still be an October baby! More to come next week (maybe sooner).

Final Preparations


We're almost there... pictures below of our bedroom and what the nursery is looking like. Tazi made sure we didn't take his sleeping spot!

Brenna's Coming! (Sooner Than You Think)























This is probably the last "inside the mama" shot of Brenna before she arrives! Emily found out at the doctor's this past week that baby is already weighing in a tad shy of 8 pounds, and she's not going to be allowed to carry beyond 38 weeks. As of tomorrow she's at 37, you can do the math! We find out this Wednesday on what day she'll be induced (we're being told around 9/23) and from there, who knows how many Brenna photos will be plastered all over this site! Why am I shouting!?!?!?

Anywho, below are a couple of ultrasound shots of baby from mama's last visit. Her belly was measuring 39 weeks, so I guess they took these to make sure Emily wasn't smuggling an illegal immigrant in there or something (my apologies, without you our neighborhood landscaping would look atrocious).

The first shot is of baby's foot (one of them anyway, we're thinking she has two of these) and toes. The other is an under the nose, Brenna is head down (load the torpedoes!), so they couldn't get a good shot of her entire face. I briefly saw a pair of eyes, but Betty the ultrasound lady was slow on the trigger taking these shots.








<-- Look! Five toes, glad that foot isn't coming out first!












<--- Where's Waldo? Can you see
the mouth and nose? I can! And no
one had to point it out to me!










Stay tuned, lots of baby pictures will be posted under the photo link on the right side of this page.

Link to Emily's Shower - Slideshow


One of Emily's relatives put together a niftly slide show through NERO, of her baby shower.

Follow the following link and enjoy!

http://www.photoshow.net/watch/IH5sv2un

The Streets Of Bakersfield

There are other things going on here at the house besides Brenna's imminent arrival... not that my trip to Bakersfield is earth-shattering news.

The silver lining in all of this is that I left in the middle of the week, so security at the airport was a piece of cake. Matter of fact, I was the only one in line to go through the metal detectors, which is unusual for Sky Harbor. I took a flight to Burbank, to avoid LAX, into the world renowned Bob Hope airport (insert sarcasm here).

The pollution in the LA area continues to be horrible. Flying into the area, you could barely see the ground for all the smog. Traffic also was horrible on I-5 heading north out of town, and about half an hour into the mountains I spent an hour driving through smoke from a fire near Pyramid Lake.

For once I decided to leave town without my camera and am regretting not bringing it, as I've never seen so much smoke in my life. The fire was probably within a quarter mile of the interstate, you could see it creeping along one of the ridges, and helicopters were circling it, dropping slurry. The sun was setting through the smoke, casting an eerie amber glow on everything, and the lake itself looked like it was on fire. Coming back on Friday through the same area I experienced my lone Captain Obvious moment. Approaching this thick wall of black smoke, there stood a lone Smokey the Bear sign that read "Fire Danger For This Area is HIGH". I really wish I could have taken a picture of this ridiculous sign with the fire and smoke behind it.

In the end, getting there was more interesting than the destination itself. I spent a few days in Bakersfield back in June of 2000 and the only memory I took away from that trip was the a/c going out in my hotel room at 2am and me standing around in the hotel lobby with about 50 strangers in their pajamas, glaring at the front desk clerk (like he had anything to do with the apparent power outage that caused me to wake up in a pool of my own sweat). The best part about that trip in 2000 was meeting Emily on the way back to Birmingham, and I suppose that was the best part of this trip, getting home.

Baby Shower!

Emily's baby shower was today, about 70 people showed, and although I was not on hand for most of the festivities, it sounds like it was a resounding success. We're now within a month of the due date, I think Emily mentioned she's in the 36th week now. Lots yet to be done around the house, now that I'm back from my trip to Bakersfield, hopefully we can get things squared away during these coming weekends.

Brenna Update!

Mom is still doing well, she's visiting her doctor weekly now, only 4-5 weeks away!

Lots of progress was made this weekend on the Lilo and Stitch mural, and the glider rocker that's going in the room has been painted.

I've been off work since last Thursday, and have one day to work tomorrow before I go to Bakersfield to visit a customer the rest of the week. Not the best time to go on a trip with Emily so close, but we'll hope that Brenna will wait for Daddy before she decides to come out!

I did a lot of work in the yard, trimming our Chinese Elm in the front yard back, and general clean up in the back. We had a nice half inch of rain a few nights back, which was nice, and supposedly more is on the way from what's left of Hurricane John.

That's it for now!

Tom