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Last Saturday we went to the highland games in Ventura. Since it was his first time to see highland games, Ezra decided to don the kilt his mom made for him.

I need to write this before my memory gets even more clouded. After two and a half weeks, the birth already seems less painful and the recovery minor and pregnancy seems like a walk in the park. I guess the forgetting is why women continue to have more than one baby. For those of you not interested in birth-type things, feel free to skip this post.

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The journey to Ezra’s arrival began on Tuesday, August 28. We went in for our 40-week appointment and because I was 40-weeks pregnant, they did a 20-minute “strip” — where they attach monitors to your pregnant belly, one to monitor contractions and one to monitor the baby’s heartbeat. It was fun to hear Ezra’s heartbeat for so long and to see that I was actually having contractions on my own that felt slightly stronger than Braxton Hicks contractions. After about 20 minutes, I heard the doctor looking at the monitor strip and saying outside the door, “Are these actual dips?” (referring to the dips in Ezra’s heart rate). He came in and explained how to read the strip and explained that the strip indicated that the baby was in some stress (thus, he wasn’t passing the non-stress test) as he wasn’t “reactive” (his heart rate didn’t go much above his baseline hb/minute after the contraction). He checked me and told me I was 1 centimeter dilated and pretty soft; he must’ve stripped my membranes at that point as well since I began to bleed later. He recommended we get going to the hospital to have a non-stress test there and that likely, we’d be having the baby, as they would want to make sure we had the baby in a safe environment given he was already experiencing some stress from contractions. The doctor recommended Bryce drop me off and he then go home and get our things, but we decided we could go home first and both go to the hospital.

We left the doctor’s office literally in a haze. I couldn’t believe it. We were going to the hospital and were going to have this baby. Out went all my dreams of laboring at home for a while. (more…)

So we’ve rounded the two-week mark and on the whole, things seem to be getting a tiny bit easier. First off, I’m feeling much better and am not needing to be on pain meds every 6 hours for the c-section incision pain. In fact, I’m generally only taking Motrin once a day. Secondly, we haven’t had any absolutely awful nights like day 3 and 4 in the hospital, where Ezra was starving and was inconsolable for hours in the middle of the night. Thirdly, we got Francis back from Bryce’s parents last night and so far he’s done remarkably well.

Ezra is now up to 7 lbs. 3.5 oz. as of his last pediatrician appointment, almost a pound above his birth weight. He’s started to acquire a “fussy period” that our pediatrician thinks might be the beginning of colic, but I’m not so sure, as he isn’t inconsolable. Bryce has taken to driving him around Pasadena until he conks out. I’m thinking it could be overstimulation, cluster feeding, or perhaps he’s reacting to something I’ve eaten. Today I’m going to cut out dairy and see how that goes.

It is a very good thing that he is so adorable, because when I’m not sleeping and feel like I’m feeding him all the time, the cuteness does help. We’re having fun watching his funny little faces and his fascination with the light coming in the blinds when he’s on his changing table. Bryce has been “hosed off” a few times and even got his hands in a poopy diaper once and so feels he’s joined the ranks of “real Dad-ness.” We’re doing pretty well functioning on little sleep, but I’m really looking forward to a more consistent sleeping schedule. We’ve had two nights where Ezra has had a 4-hour stretch followed by a 3-hour stretch between feedings. Hopefully that will continue! We’ll continue to update with pictures and one of these days we’ll have something more intelligent to share.

I’ve set up a Flickr account to post pictures of Ezra. Check it out…

There’s no internet access at the hospital, so I’m posting a quick update from the mall across the street (better food than the cafeteria).

As you’ve probably figured out by now, Ezra was born via c-section after about 30 hours of labor. The bottom line is baby’s heart was slowing down with every contraction. Not exactly what we expected, but we’re thankful that both he and Ashley are healthy.

Thanks for all the congratulations. We’ll probably be at the hospital until Sunday.

Those curious about his name may want to check out Ezra and Chalmers (Jonathan, James & D Strain may wonder if he was actually named after the most terrifying room in the world in which to preach, and they may be right:) ).

And now, what you all really want to see…

Happy Baby

Our Family

Ezra and one of his Great Grandmas

Enough Paparazzi

…Ezra Chalmers Hales. He was born at 6.20 pm on Wed., August 29. He weighed 6lbs 5oz at birth and was 19.5 inches. Mom and baby are recovering well, and we are all feeling better after a few hours of sleep last night. Here’s Ezra’s first picture with Dad.

More pics at Ashley’s Dad’s blog.

There are currently only 5 of the 19 people who could still win our ExpectNet baby pool based on their guesses for Baby Hales’ birthday. Apparently today was a popular pick with 4 people choosing it. However, the lunar eclipse did not put me into labor, but I did enjoy a eerie orange moon upon one of my many night wakings.

I don’t think our house has remained this organized and tidy in quite some time. It’s really lovely. I also made a pouch sling the other day, including learning how to make a French seam. I feel rather inept at my sewing projects, but it is fun nonetheless. Today I plan to clean out the fridge, plan a lecture or two for the semester and do some reading. Hope you all have a lovely day and week!

Yes, today is my “due date.” Having hit it, it seems pretty anticlimactic since we don’t have a baby to celebrate with. I’ve found that the average birthday for a first child is about a week to ten days past the due date. I’m rooting that he comes within a week from today. Bryce went out and bought two air conditioning units, one to replace our old 1970’s version of a window a/c unit that our apartment provides, and a portable one for our bedroom. I think I can wait a bit longer as I’m not sweating profusely in our apartment now!

I’ve been keeping myself busy with trying to stay on top of the chores and sewing. I took a sewing class when I was 12 and made a dress and some Tweety Bird boxers. And probably a scrunchie cuz those things were so in. I’ve made a number of burp cloths — putting fabric and ribbon on cloth diapers — and even made a ring sling out of navy corduroy. We went to JoAnn’s Fabric last night and I bought some more fabric: some to make a sling for a friend and some to make a mei tai. I hope to get both finished before the baby arrives and then hopefully my sewing bug will lessen so I can get some lectures planned for the semester when I go back to teaching in October.

For those people who are madly checking our blog waiting for a baby announcement, we’ll post as soon as we can. In the meantime, err on the side of caution and realize I probably won’t have this baby at any second (given the statistics anyway).

Hopefully this will also be the last time I’m offering a chance to guess on the baby’s due date, weight, etc. Sorry to Katie and Manders who thought I’d go early (but you could be right about his size still).

We had a doctor appointment on Friday; everything is looking good and baby is measuring to date. Based on the ultrasound, he’s also on the smaller side, which is wonderful to hear — no 9+ lb. baby for me! We are all excited to see our baby after having not seen him for 19 weeks, but he’s so big we couldn’t really tell what part of him was what. Ah well, we’ll see him soon!

The doctor thinks I’ll go at least to my next appointment, which oddly, is making me more patient waiting for this little guy to show up than if I’m expecting to go into labor every day. It is a bit funny actually: for most of the pregnancy I was worrying if the baby would be coming early and now he’ll probably be late!