Whew!

Aaron and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into! Parenthood is awesome and we are both so in love with this kid. I think there may even be some push and pull as to who gets to hold the baby and/or hang with him. I think it is great that Aaron is so involved in being a Dad. We've pretty much adapted to a system at this point with me taking care of input and Aaron taking care of output. We are even getting a fair amount of sleep. The baby sleeps between us and maybe because he feels safe when he half awakes during the night he doesn't fuss or demand to be fed that much. I usually have to feed him twice or three times a night. I feel like I should knock on wood after saying that. I don't want to jinx things. Ian seems to be a mellow soul with little fussing. He just crys when he is hungry or needs to be changed. This kid knows how to go through diapers too! He thinks it's really funny to bomb whoever is changing him too. When we went to see the pediatrician the nurse almost got it in the mouth. You would think a pediatrics nurse would know better than to bend over a naked boy baby. I was kinda proud of him at that moment. Today we had our first adventure outdoors. It's a beautiful fall day with lots of sunshine and it seemed a waste to stay indoors. So we ventured down to Zingerman's to let Aaron's coworkers oooh and aaah over the baby then we headed to the mall to pick up a couple of things for me with no luck. It was nice to get out of the house briefly. Our friends, family and neighbors have been great to us. The support we've been getting is incredible. We only moved into our apartment complex a couple of months ago but the couple down the row made us dinner last night and our downstairs neighbors brought Ian a present. It gives me warm fuzzys about our new home. Well... I don't want to waste all my nap time so I'm off to sleep while I can.

He's Arrived!!

Ian Forrest Stek was born 10-20-06 at 12:29 am at the University of Michigan Birth Center. Ian, Mom and Dad are all healthy and very happy but exhausted. He weighed in at 7lbs 14.5ozs and is 20in long. More later.

No Real News

Not much to report. Yesturday the contractions were more spaced apart and much milder. Aaron and I took the opportunity to relax and clean up around the house some. We went out for breakfast at our favorite classic american diner "Flim Flam" and the headed over to see Rachel, our doula. She was nice enough to do some body work/massage therapy with me to try to get my energy flowing and the body to relax. I think that helped a lot in terms of acceptance and not fighting the pain. Later I vacuumed and took a nap. Aaron beat up some digital bad guys, made dinner and then we went out to see a movie.

The doctor gave me a script for Ambien which is a fairly strong sedative so that I can get a good night sleep in spite of the contractions. I had been fighting using any meds but a lot of good friends whose advice I sometimes heed including my sponsor, my doctor and my doula - all thought the best thing I could do was to get a good night sleep. I gave in and it helped although sleep wasn't without interuptions. I think you would have to be dead to sleep through some contractions.

Today Peanut and I had a little one on one. He and I and his Daddy are going to have this baby today - right, Peanut? Whether we let them induce us or he decides to work with us. I think he takes after his daddy a little and he just kinda gets lost on the way. A little bright shiny thing distracts him and labor slows down. Can babies be ADD in the womb??

50 Hours and Counting

No body mentioned that labor can go on for days. I checked all the liturature and books I was given and they only mention slow start labor as taking 12-13 hours to get to active labor. No where does it mention days... yet my doctor tells me this isn't that unusual. Is this a conspiracy? Is there anything else I need to know that has been obviously "not mentioned"?

Ok so after my parents went back home after driving from the other side of the state thinking I was going to have a baby (because that's what happens when people go in to labor, right?). I really started to have strong contractions - this is about 3 pm. They kept up and were getting seemingly closer together. So about 8 pm last night, Aaron packed up the car and we headed to the hospital. They checked me out in Triage to find out that I am still only fingertip dialated - same as I was at 1:30 when I saw my ob/gyn!! The good news is that I am 90% effaced and the baby's head is engaged. So all I need to do now is dialate. Peanut's knocking and telling me to open the door!! I have the option of having them give me meds to dialate me but I am still hanging on to letting this happen naturally. But I'm not so sure I will be so determined if this goes on another day.

As you can imagine sleeping is a little difficult when you are having contractions every 5 minutes or so. They do seem to slow down during the night which is a blessing. Aaron is getting restless. He may go to work today just to get out of the house. If I let him. If my contractions are as strong as yesturday I may need his moral support. It's been rainy and nasty outside for the last couple of days and I think we are both feeling a little couped up. Well that's all the news I have to report. Hopefully the next entry will be more exciting - like about the little pea's arrival :)

Labor

Yesturday morning about 6 am I woke up with a bad backache and just had to sit on my ball. (see earlier pics of Aaron). As I was answering email and thinking about a blog entry I realized that this backache was coming in waves. After looking at the clock I saw they were every 5 minutes and lasting about a minute each. Exciting - I thought this is it! And it is , was, still is... 24 hours later and nothing has changed. I am still in early stage labor. I still am having contractions, a little bit farther apart and milder but this I am hoping is because I have been lying in bed for most of the night. Eventually this will have to progress... my back hurts and the rolling discomfort is a little trying. Especially when you are trying to sleep. My Mom and Dad came down last night and planted themselves in the hotel down the street in case of any nighttime hospital adventures. My doula is out of town until today so I'm thinking the peanut (there's one) was waiting for Rachel to get back. Jaime, who was our doula sub, told me that potentially this early labor can last a couple of days. Yuck!! This is not what I had pictured. But I guess the saying goes "Want to make god laugh, tell her your plans!" Aaron has to go in to Zingerman's to place the bread order and attend a morning meeting but is going to take the rest of the day off. If I have to put up with this - then he has to put up with me! :) I do have a scheduled ob/gyn appointment today at 1:30 so if things are still status quo we'll be able to see what she has to say. Although it will probably be a hardy "hang in there". Well that's all the news that is fit to print. I hope that you can check in here in a couple of days and see a picture of the little Pea! And find out the real name...

5 Days +/- 5

It's 7 am and I am up and about. My Saturday meeting is having a breakfast today so I thought I would make an apple cobbler. I should of made it last night but for some reason didn't. Now it's going to be hard to do it quietly so as to not wake Aaron up. Oh well.

I had a lot of dreams last night some of which involved labor. I think Aaron and I are both getting nervous as we realize with each passing day that the day is getting closer and the chance of going in to labor any day is getting higher. Aaron went and practiced a little retail therapy yesturday and bought himself (and me) a used Playstation 2. He was all sneaky about it and didn't consult with me before purchasing it which I thought was funny. Aaron really doesn't make a very good sneaky guy. I can't exactly get mad at him when he's so cute about it - and we have the money so no harm done. I think it provides him (and me) a way to check out and not think about this impending birth thing. As they say a watched pot never boils. So now we can play games obsessively rather than think about baby obsessively. It's sure hard to focus on anything else right now. Right, Mom? My mom has called me everyday for the last four days for some reason or another, although I know the real reason is to find out how I'm feeling and whether or not we are in labor. I promise I will call when it starts!! She's not very good at sneaky either. Ok, I'm off to bake.

Benign

Good news. The pathology report came back and the results showed the lesion as being benign. Mom, you can start sleeping again... That was good to hear.

No, I still haven't had the baby and would everyone please stop asking. Trust me, I will get the word out when the big event happens. :) We should really just be starting to anticipate this week or next. Everyday I get at least 10 people asking when I'm going to have the baby, or what am I still doing at school, etc. It's nice that everyone is excited, and I would probably be bummed if no one was asking, but I'm impatient and anxious enough all on my own!! Really, as of this week I am nervious and my belly is getting huge - I do think this little boy is going to be over 8 pounds.

I have a little break from school this weekend - we are on fall break which means I get Monday and Tuesday off. Well, I don't normally have classes on Mondays, so it's not such a huge deal but still I'm going to take some time to relax. Aaron and I have the day off with little or no plans, just a lot of sleeping and lounging going on. It's cold here so a good day for hot chocolate and a good book.

Me Again

The biopsy went well. They think that the lesion is filled with fluid which automatically means that it is benign, however they weren't able to draw any fluid out to confirm this so samples were sent to the lab to be checked. I find out the answer on Tues or Wed and will post the results then.

The baby dropped Thursday during the night so we are still right on schedule. This usually happens about 2 weeks before the birth for a first child. Having the baby lower in my abdomen makes things a little more difficult. It feels like I have a bowling ball sitting on my pelvis and bending has become much more difficult. The good news is that the heartburn has lessened although it hasn't gone away completely.

My Mom and Dad came down for a brief visit today to deliver a rocking chair they had fixed up for me with a new paint job and cushions. They also brought clothes and bottles that a friend of mine sent along from GR. This baby has more clothes than I do!! They also brought a breast pump that I had bought from Ruth (same friend) before Aaron's Dad came along with a new one for us. Now we have two. That's ok - I can probably bring back the new one as we haven't broken the seal on it. It is just amazing to me the generosity of friends. Matt and Maria provided us with most of the big gear such as bouncy chairs and swing, car seat, carriers and a whole lot more. So many people have given us gifts or hand me downs that I am a little overwhelmed with unpacking the bags and boxes! It's a nice situation to be in.

Who would have known that such a small little person would require (or acquire) so much stuff!

Awake @ 4:30 am

Good Morning! I have been awake since 4:30 am for no known reason - well, except that I am pregnant and life isn't normal. So I balanced the checkbook and paid bills and now I am catching up on the blog. It's been a busy week. Monday we had a little scare because there was some concern that I was leaking amniotic fluid. All turned out well and we haven't had the baby yet. They did tell me that I am starting to efface and that the things my body is doing puts me right on schedule. I assume that means not sleeping as well. Just love those coursing hormones!!

This morning Aaron and I go to have my biopsy done at 9:45. I will keep you updated with the results when I find out what they are. I'm sure it will take them a few days. Then later in the day, Rachel, our doula, comes over to give me a reflexology session which will just make it all better. For those not in the know this would be a foot massage/accupressure type thang. Mmmm... did I mention that my doula is a massage therapist by trade. Gotta love it!

The staff and faculty of UM Civil Engineering Department gave me a shower on Tuesday. That was very kind of them. I was thinking a little party with some cake and they went all out. The peanut got a a bunch more gifts (like he needed any more!!) and they also took a collection and gave Aaron and I a little $$. Or I suppose I could put that in the peanut's college fund, nah, diaper fund would be more appropriate at this point. I really picked a good place to go to school. We have a great department who are really supportive of my efforts to educate myself and my advisor is awesome. He just had a little boy a couple of months ago named Gabriel. It's nice because he is very understanding of where I'm at.

I was talking to him a couple of weeks ago about grad school and internships for next summer because now is the time to start planning these things. Also I was struggling with trying to get my GRE taken and thinking it just wasn't going to happen so I wanted to see what the reprocussions of me not taking it would be. I should be honest here and say retake it - because I took it once and did very well in the verbal and writing sections and bombed the math. Not good for an engineering student :) (I didn't figure I needed to study for the math part, whoops! ego). Anyway, I'm staying at UM for grad school, so they told me no biggy on the GRE, they know me and will except me as is. As for funding they will take care of me internally and I can try for external fellowships the following year. So that worked out good. Whew, one load off!

I got a little off track there. I was meaning to talk about the whole internship thing. Well, at the time my advisor had asked me where I wanted to work and not being prepared for this question I blurted out what would be my dream. Working for a company called ARUP in San Francisco for the summer! Aaron had mentioned that he could do an internship as well, Zingerman's encourages this, so I was thinking that would be a lot of fun. Prof Parra was open to this and although he didn't know anyone in ARUP SF, he mentioned other cities and businesses that sounded equally exciting. So I brought this whole crazy idea to Aaron and we talked and talked and thought about what really would be the logistics of working in SF for the summer with baby and all and threw out the idea as a little less than practical. Since the earlier conversation with my advisor, I hadn't really talked to him until yesturday. In between that time he had gone to a conference/meeting in Japan for a week. So yesturday I told him that Aaron, the peanut and I had decided to stay local. His response was "are you sure, because I talked to some people in Japan and you could probably work there and I talked to gentleman from a company in San Francisco and he said he had a position for me." YIKES!! Ok, so Japan is out. I'm not transporting husband, baby and me with all the gear to Japan. But, San Francisco sure is appealing. I think I have to follow up on this and at least find out what the offer is. If they provide housing and a good salary and we could subrent or something... It sure would be a good experience. See, I am really interested in seismic design and where better to learn than with a company who does it everyday! And well, San Francisco... I love it! I lived there for maybe 4.5 years and it sure is beautiful. And what great food. Aaron would be in heaven!

Ok, so there are at least a couple people in my family shaking there heads and thinking I'm crazy but... well you know me well enough to know that I have always been a risk taker. And shoot - Tokyo pregnant worked out well, so why not San Francisco with the baby and husband too? Anyway nothing is close to settled, I haven't even talked to the company yet. I just thought I would share... Life is a lotta fun.

Good Morning

It's becoming my ritual, or at least for the last three days to wake up around 7:30 and come in here and post to the blog. I sorta putts around on the computer until Aaron wakes up. I'm the morning person - he's not. Although since he stoped working until 1 or 2am at San Chez he seems to a least wake up around 9 rather than 11 or 12. I sorta envy this ability of his to sleep in on his days off. I'm one of those people whose body clock gets set and stays set so during the school year I'm up whether I am going to school or not. I guess this may come in handy with the little Pea. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and I wake up early and if I am woken up in the middle of the night I usually fall right back asleep with little trouble. I guess I'll see how well this works out soon enough.

I scrubbed the kitchen table yesturday. I was told that one of the signs you will go into labor soon is that you get a burst of energy and start cleaning like crazy. I told Aaron I scrubbed the table while he was at work and his comment was "legs too?" when I answered yes he said it was a good thing we were ready. I also got about half my homework done, but I got my nap in too so I don't know. The diaper service delivers the first supply tomorrow. That'll make it all real. Since Thursday afternoon I have had relatively constant contractions. Layale said I should be glad of that. The more I have before I go into labor the less I'll have to have during labor. She's a good source of info as she worked for years as a nurse on the ob/gyn ward of UM Women's Hospital.

Peanut is squirming around in my belly so I guess he wants to say "HI" and "see ya soon" to everyone. Enjoy your Sunday.