Grandparents

Grandpa Gary and Grandma Joan arrived on Friday and have had a chance to spend some time with Riley. Despite the constant snow in Halifax this weekend, we’ve had plenty of fun taking Riley around town. We even got to take the stroller out for a drive on Saturday afternoon once the snow stopped and the sidewalks cleared a bit.
 

Thesis vs. pregnancy

Having gone through pregnancy (by proxy) and writing a thesis, as well as constantly being around people who are going through the thesis process, I found a number of parallels. Below is a top ten list of the most obvious, but I’m sure there are more.

10. Everyone has advice for what you should do afterwards.

9. Both are life-altering experiences.
8. Each starts off with something fun (obvious in the case of pregnancy and for non-science people, you will just have to take my word for the fact that data collection is fun) but both pregnancy and writing a thesis turn into an arduous process that you can’t wait to have finished.
7. You can’t party during either.
6. Both provoke a large amount of reading and online research.
5. There is a painful ending to pregnancy (labor and birth) and the thesis (defense).
4. Both take about 9 months and are a huge relief to have over.
3. People tend to take time off from work following each.
2. No one who has gone through either experience really tells you the whole story until you complete the process, leaving you thinking, “why didn’t you tell me this before I started?”
1. Both cause excessive snacking, weight gain, fluctuations in emotions and occasional vomiting. 

This isn't so tough

Turns out that being two and a half weeks old isn't so tough. I mean you have people waiting on you, feeding you, even cleaning up after you. Yup, its a pretty sweet deal.

All Clean!

What the heck is so funny?

We are having trouble uploading videos right now so I guess that means I actually have to write something.
One thing that has taken me off-guard in the last week is the Random Laugh. We have no idea what makes Riley smile at this point because she does it at odd times and almost always with her eyes closed. What is she thinking about and what experiences that she is reflecting on could make her smile? Is it just a reflex or is she actually happy? These are things you ponder at 3:30 in the morning when you are trying to stay awake and hold a baby and bottle.
Even stranger than her eyes-closed smile is the occasional time when she breaks out into laughter. Again, what is possibly funny to someone who is two weeks old? She hasn't even been alive long enough to see the new episodes of shows since the writer's strike ended. The strangest part is that on the rare occasion that she does laugh, she is staring past you or has her eyes closed, so it has nothing to do with any entertainment value we might have. Maybe she is just getting the jokes we made a few days ago or perhaps its a maniacal laugh of power upon the realization that we are at her beck and call, 24 hours a day. Either way, I'm sure it will only be one of the many mysteries we will encounter in the next little while.
-Chris

Babies are (paper)work

Having a baby in another country is not a trivial matter. Well, having the baby isn't so bad, but trying to make two countries believe that you have actually had the baby is another matter. The paperwork for Canada is fairly straight forward as Riley is actually a Canadian. However, she is also entitled to US citizenship, for obvious reasons, and that's where the problem arises. We were trying to buy flights to go home for a spell this summer and just before we hit the "purchase" button, I had a thought. "What happens when we need to get Riley on the plane? I bet she needs a passport."
Most people don't try and get a passport for a child before she was even due to be birthed (tomorrow, in fact), so the documents are not all that easy to come by in a timely manner. Now its a game of chicken - how much time do we give ourselves to get the passports (flight dates?) and which country do we go with to get her home? I think a Canadian passport will be the easiest to get for her, but are we going to have to answer questions at customs when our child has a different nationality than ours? Probably a bad idea to try and sneak her through in a critter carrier, but tempting. Regardless, we'll have to get the tickets soon and put our faith in the passport office to get the job done.

Speaking of government offices, we are having a serious problem with the post office. We have gotten a lot of cards in the last couple of weeks and a few packages. About 50% of the cards come with scotch tape re-sealing them and have clearly been opened. Its not clear if anything has been removed because we don't know what cards contain things and which do not, but obviously there are some unscrupulous postal employees. But who to complain to? Because both US and Canadian post offices are involved, plus customs on both sides, everyone can blame someone else. Even if we could find someone to listen, there is complete deniability. If anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears.
-Chris

Happy Riley!

Riley's First Words!

Day 6

How may hours of sleep has mommy had in the past few days?

I'm making something special for daddy right now :)

and I'm done!

Who hired these babysitters? I think the one with pants on is hammered!

I never thought...

There are lots of things I never imagined doing in my life. Having kids is certainly not one of them, but some of the things that come along with having kids are. For my own amusement, I put together a top ten list and I am now hoping to avoid a lawsuit by David Letterman's World Wide Pants Inc.

Top Ten things I never imagined that a child would make me do:

10. Share my wife's boobs with another woman.
9. Rush home to spend time with something that weighs less than my laptop.
8. Constantly say "what?" when I hear Megan talking in another room only to realize that she isn't talking to me.
7. Be excited to clean up poop and interested in its color and texture.
6. Use different voices to talk to different people in the house.
5. Have no idea what day or time it is for a full week and not particularly care.
4. Sleep less at night than I did during senior week, without a beer in sight.
3. Consistently refer to myself in the third person.
2. Get twinkle twinkle little star stuck in my head to the point of wanting to stab myself with a spoon.
1. Stare at a sleeping person for long periods of time without being served with a restraining order.

-Chris

First Adventure!

Today we took Riley out and about in Halifax since it was quite warm and sunny. She travelled along in her sling curled up in a 6 pound little ball totally happy. Truthfully, half the time people don't even notice that there is something in the sling since she is so tiny.  She also got a chance to try out her shaky chair which I think shook her a little too much since she never quite settled into it.

Photos Finally

Alright, we have been meaning to take some pictures, but the flash scares the begeesus out of her at this stage, so we had to wait until day time. 

We're trying her in the various pieces of equipment we bought, such as the shaky chair, sling and swing. 

Things are going quite smoothly though and we have no complaints so far other than how much of a pain it is to upload pictures to this blog.

-Chris

Home

With no complications and both Mom and baby doing well, we were set free at our request today around 2:30. After a quick cab ride home we are now organizing all of the stuff we brought back and figuring out where to put everything. Its certainly nice to be back home and in our own space. We will post more pictures once we get settled in and the cats stop fleeing at every noise Riley makes.
-Chris

Perfect

Well, I thought I’d check in with everyone just to say, things are perfect.

I’m sitting here looking at my husband and little Riley sleeping soundly and feel such peace. The last 3 days all kind of mesh into one of the strangest adventures I’ve ever encountered and I feel so filled with joy that it’s hard to explain. I find myself staring at Riley’s every little feature and just thinking about how perfect everything seems. It’s funny, I remember the nurse saying to me in the delivery room, “Are you ready to start pushing, she’s just about here?” and Chris and I looked at each other completely overwhelmed with this heavy question in the air knowing these were our last moments as just a couple and truthfully, we were unsure how to answer; overwhelmed from lack of sleep, this question seemed so crazy and bizarre at that very moment.

All I can say is, Riley has now filled a piece of my heart that I never knew existed. We are still gangly new parents, but we now make up our own little family – I couldn’t imagine things being any more perfect.

Late Posts

Its been a bit tough trying to update this over the last couple of days, sorry to those who were hoping for some more up to date info. The hospital doesn't have internet access in the maternity side of the building and my attempt to update the blog earlier today was defeated by google having a server down. I have been writing along the way and the posts below are from the last couple of days and the epic journey it took to get here. The results are excellent, though, and everybody is happy and healthy. You only have to suffer through me posting for a bit longer before we get home tomorrow and Megan checks in. Thanks to everyone who has written in with comments, we appreciate the support.
-Chris

Delivered.

In our original birth plan we were hoping to go “all natural”. Of course, this was complicated by the fact that we had to come in and get antibiotics as soon as the membranes ruptured, and then get on the induction drugs so that we minimize the time that the baby was unprotected by the membrane. The oxytosin pushes the contractions to a higher level than they would be naturally so that few women can manage a pain med-free induction birth. Between that and the long ordeal we had gone through, there was a real concern that Megan would be completely wiped out by the time we got to the pushing stage. We decided to go with the epidural for a suite of reasons and I have to say that I am really happy that we did.
One of the many nurses we had, said to us at one point that she always found it funny how much people focus on the birth and how they have the baby when the only thing that really matters is having a healthy baby and mom. I wouldn’t argue with anyone who wanted to have a natural birth, it was we were hoping to do, but going through this changed how I think about it. The difference in the before and after epidural was amazing and Megan kept it so that she could still feel the contractions, but only very lightly. It allowed her to get some rest and made the actual delivery shockingly “easy”. The contractions slowly moved the baby down while Megan rested and eventually she said “I think we’re getting close”. Well, she was right. When the nurse checked on her we could see hair. We got everything set up for the delivery and Megan made great progress with each push. It probably took less than ten minutes before they were placing our new baby on Megan’s stomach. The reduced stress on the baby and on Megan that the epidural afforded them was amazing to me and made me really reconsider everything I had read leading up to the birth. I have a hard time thinking of a downside right now.
Anyway, I don’t know if it was because we had gotten only a couple of 15-30 minute naps in the previous 40 hours, but I’m not sure that there is anything that can prepare you for the surreal experience of being handed your baby. Neither of us were previously able to imagine walking out of the hospital with a baby that was “ours”. We were talking about it as soon as an hour before the birth, how we still couldn’t picture us as parents. Then in a span of 10 seconds it all makes sense. Even with the overwhelming emotions of the entire experience, it wasn’t strange to hold the baby and know it was ours. I don’t write well enough to put it all into words.
Riley Taylor Lane - 6 pounds, four ounces and I have no idea how long she is because as the doctor was telling me the details, I wasn’t really listening to much. All I could see was a tiny little girl trying to open her eyes and see what was around. We spent the night in the delivery room and actually managed to get some sleep. At one point she slept for about 4 hours, allowing us to get enough sleep to feel human again. Around 11:00 we were moved to a private post-birthing room on the 5th floor. We were concerned that we would be moved into a multi-family room after all of the births in the past two days, but I think the nurses took pity on our two day plight and made sure we got our requested private room. Anyway, after a bath, some feedings and some diaper changes, everything seems to be going well as we settle in to being a family.

Nurse Shout Out

I would be remiss in not mentioning how great the labor and delivery nurses were in helping us out. In particular, Wendy got us through the tough the second round of oxytosin when the contractions really picked up. She was kind enough to know how to keep Megan comfortable, but sarcastic enough to put up with me. Wendy walked us through what turned out to be the toughest part of the labor. When her shift ended, Una came on as the “closer”. Una kept things lively and made sure we were smiling, even when a lack of sleep threatened to push us over the edge. Once the epidural kicked in she was a great source of advice for Megan and coached her through the pushing. Beyond that, she was a tremendous help after Riley was born and even offered to take her to the nurse’s station for a few hours so that we could get some sleep. It turned out that Riley slept enough that she stayed in the room, but the offer was greatly appreciated by two people who could barely see straight at 1:00 am on Saturday morning. Once we moved up to the post partum area at noon on Saturday, Annette took over and made sure that Megan was laughing, even if it hurt her stomach. All of the nurses were professional, but with a very personal touch that made the experience much easier.

Deliverance?

8:00 pm (AST) March 7
I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment because Megan decided she wanted an epidural at 5 cm and is now resting for the final stage. Since we have pretty much been up for 37 hours at this point and in the hospital for 22 of those, she needs a bit of rest so that she doesn’t tire out at the point where she has to push. Anyway, it has been a long adventure…
Megan’s water broke Thursday night at 9:00 while I was talking to our landlord (who, as of today is our former landlord, but that’s a story for another time) and it was a bit of a dog and pony show as we tried to collect enough fluid for the hospital to confirm. Although she was not having any contractions, the fact that her water broke a full two weeks before we expected sent a jolt of terror through both of us, but we reacted in completely different ways. Megan decided to call the neighbor to see if she could check on the cats while we were gone, whereas I ran around figuring out what we needed to bring to the hospital that we hadn’t already packed before deciding that it was imperative that I shower and brush my teeth. Can’t be too clean when you are going to the hospital!
We called a cab and sat silently on the way to the hospital, so the driver wasn’t freaked out that we would have a baby in his backseat, as if he couldn’t pick up on our visceral fear. We got here and checked in to have them look at the contents of a snack size baggie of clear liquid. In most cases they would confirm that your water broke and send you home to wait out the start of labor, but Megan had tested positive for high levels of a common bacterium that is present in a lot of women and has no ill effects, but has a minor risk of making the baby sick if it is exposed to it. Therefore, once the membrane was ruptured they weren’t going to let us get away. Instead, Megan was put on antibiotics and oxytosin, in order to speed up the labor. Well, that’s when all hell broke lose at the baby ward.
The IWK is Atlantic Canada’s only children’s hospital and a great place to give birth. They have 14 birthing rooms and a whole bunch more rooms for new parents to stay in post-birth. When we showed up at 10:00 they were probably half full with women in various stages of giving birth. We settled in and got the oxytosin going, which takes about 4 hours to really get the contractions kicking. We walked the halls a bit toting the coat rack of plastic bags attached to Megan and noticed that every time we made a lap, there seemed to be another pregnant woman at the check in. By the time we had been there for a bit, and had 3 hours of the oxytosin, every room in the place was full and there were six very pregnant women in the waiting area. At the IWK, every woman is assigned a private nurse who monitors you through your labor (or until her shift is up and you get the next nurse). With 20 crazy-eyed women all looking to burst, we turned out to be low on the totem pole because Megan’s labor could be slowed, simply by turning off the oxytosin. So, at 5:00 am, with Megan having contractions about every two minutes, we got the axe. Our nurse was assigned to some lady that was screaming down the hall enough to make us want to vomit and they were not willing to continue the oxytosin without a dedicated nurse. Its not like we lost our room, but we did lose the chemicals that were driving Megan’s labor. Over the next couple of hours her contractions faded while at least a dozen different people came in to let us know that we would have a nurse “soon” and apologize for setting us back in the process. Well, the 7:00 shift change didn’t alleviate the backlog, nor did the extra staff that came on at noon. As the sounds of women screaming faded into the tiny cries of newborns, the rooms around us started to empty. Unfortunately, much like a delayed airplane whose arrival is pushed back 15 minutes at a time for 3 hours on the monitor, the constant hope of getting started again meant that we really didn’t sleep during the morning and it wasn’t until 2:00 that we finally were assigned a nurse and she got us going again. Those 7 hours between bouts of oxytosin took some time to make up, and we were back at square one, 16 hours (and about 16 other babies) after arriving at the hospital. Though disheartening, no one was stopping us this time!
Over the next 6 hours as contractions picked up and we tried various places and positions to lessen them, we went through our final nurse change right around the time that Megan decided that the chemically-forced contractions were getting to be too much for her exhausted state and asked for an epidural. After nearly proposing to the anesthesiologist after he got everything set, she was able to relax enough to be comfortable. And that’s where things stand now. We have now reached the final countdown and are letting the contractions move the baby down into position. Not sure if that will happen before we see another midnight in this room or if she will be a March 8th baby, but we expect that we are in the final climb of this rollercoaster and the decent should be coming shortly. Luckily, we will be able to catch up o all this lost sleep once the baby is born… Right?
-Chris

Nevermind

Well, no need to worry about filling bottles of pee afterall. Megan's water broke at 9:00 March 6 and we are now at the hospital bracing for a long night.

Drink up!

So, it turns out that there is a lot of pee when it comes to pregnancy. I didn't know this until Megan started having to pee on everything - pregnancy tests, various strips of indicator paper, and now, the motherload.

One of the worries the doctor has when your blood pressure goes up is that your kidneys are overtaxed because they are not functioning as well to remove both your waste and that of the baby. Megan now has to test her pee every morning and today it came up with a bit of protein, so the nurse who comes to the house brought an enormous jug (3L, for god's sake) for her to contribute to over a 24 hour period. I don't know how much other people pee in 24 hours, but I think a frat party would have trouble with this kind of volume. Anyway, she gets to fill it, and due to the fact that the doctor wants her to stay put, I get "transportation duties". If you're keeping score at home, that means that she has to pee and I have to carry said urine across town in a giant yellow container (at least its not clear!). This would be fine if we owned some sort of discrete conveyance. However, we don't have a car, which leaves me the unappealing options of walking with a jug of pee, or dressing it up like a sock puppet so I can take it on the bus without getting any funny looks. Actually, I think I have seen a guy on the bus carrying pee, but I don't think it was for his wife. The 24 hour period starts tomorrow morning, so at least I will have the hung-over weekend crowd on the bus rather than the peppy students heading to class.
-Chris

Bored and Cold

Ok, today was miserable.

The flat we live in has sold to a new landlord and it closes on Friday. Our present landlords are trying to get some last minute work done on the house before it closes, so I spent the entire day without power huddled under a pile of blankets since it is freezing up here. I'm finding the more I try to "relax" the more surprises come my way. It's all good though.

I have a nurse that is visiting me at home daily to check my blood pressure and listen to the baby. She mentioned today that I'm doing well, even when I showed her my ankles that can no longer be distinguish from my legs. She suggested I was doing much better than some of her other patients. I guess it's all relative. Anyways, I may go to seeing her only every other day, which is promising since I don't seem to be getting worse. She brought me three videos ("14 steps" - sounds like a self-help program, and TWO dvds entitled "understanding birth, a comprehensive guide". I don't think I want to know 2 dvds worth about birth yet) to watch which I'm sort of frightened by - my blood pressure may increase upon viewing, so I may wait for Chris to come home to put these in.

38 weeks and Counting!

We have put this blog together to share stories and pictures of our new arrival with friends and family.  We hope you all enjoy, feel free to send comments back - we miss everyone back home! We are new to this blogging thing, so we'll figure this out as we go.

Here I am at 38 weeks! Things are going pretty well besides the fact I've been put on bed rest due to high blood pressure. This hasn't been a big deal, but it does mean that Chris gets to cook more :)  We are counting down the days now and have been trying to guess the date that she'll make her grand entrance. We were going to start a pool, but with only two of us and the same bank account, it didn't seem like all that much fun.