Happy Halloween!

clark's first halloween! he completely slept through our trip around a friend's neighborhood, so i don't know if it technically counts.

henry was a farmer for halloween. georgia was a cow. elise was a puppy. clark wore the head part of a teddy bear costume. they all looked super cute.

we bumped into one of the i.c.u. nurses from the hospital while we were out this evening. she not only helped take care of clark recently, but she was working in the i.c.u. when henry was there because of the abuse he suffered. so she got to see henry again, this time looking happy and healthy.

the kids collected a little bit of candy-- we wanted to let them have the experience of trick or treating, same as all of the other kids they were watching as we walked around. they don't get to eat the candy though. husband and i will just have to take care of that for them...

Second Home Coming

clark was discharged today! yay! so good to be home. :)

Keeping My Fingers Crossed

clark has been off the oxygen pump all day today. he just has to make it through the night in order for the doctors to discharge him from the hospital tomorrow. nighttime is the worst time for clark's oxygen saturation levels because he sleeps and gets all relaxed and his breathing gets more shallow. then he has less oxygen in his blood.

i'm hopeful that clark will make it through the night without needing to be put back on oxygen, but i don't think we're at all in the clear. tune in tomorrow to find out what happens with this cliff hanger!

Out of the ICU (Again)!

clark stopped needing the high flow oxygen pump today and was able to switch to the regular oxygen pump. yay! that meant he no longer needed to be closely monitored and could be moved out of the i.c.u.

we moved to a regular room in the pediatric section of the hospital this afternoon. he's been weaned down to 1/2 liter of oxygen, which isn't much, really, and i'm very hopeful that tomorrow he'll be able to come off the oxygen completely.

clark's chest xray looked really good this morning according to the doctors. he's only on one antibiotic now, they're continuing to reduce the frequency of his breathing treatments, and he's no longer on i.v. fluids.

i'm hoping we'll be home in time for halloween.

Little by Little

clark keeps making slow progress in his recovery. the doctors have discontinued one of his treatments (where they thump on his chest to loosen congestion), they're weaning him off of the steroid he was being given to reduce inflamation in his lungs, and clark has finished one of his three antibiotics. he's doing well, he just needs to come off the oxygen but that's taking time.

Doing A Little Better

the doctors, nurses, and therapists today all said that clark's lungs are sounding better. yay!

the amount of oxygen that clark is receiving and the flow of the oxygen have both been reduced. the trick will be for clark to get through the night without the oxygen levels needing to be turned back up. it's hardest for babies to maintain their oxygen levels while they're sleeping. i'm hopeful, but we've had so many set backs that i wont be surprised if things don't work out.

Plateau; 3 Week Birthday

happy 3 week birthday, baby clark! i love you so much!

clark has hit a plateau in his recovery. he's not getting better but he's not getting worse, either. his chest xray looked about the same as yesterday. no real change in the amount of oxygen he's receiving. no news is good news, i guess.

Two Steps Forward One Step Back

Clark didn't have the best day today. his breathing was of concern and so even though he's still on the high-flow oxygen pump, we lost some ground on the process of weening him off of it. i feel like we'll never get to go home; this is such a slow process. i just want my little baby to get better. i feel so sorry for him.

i'm not sure why his breathing was bad today because clark's chest xray showed that his pneumonia is clearing up. i'm trying to convince myself that maybe he just has a lot of congestion loosening up in his chest and that even though that makes it harder for him to breathe, he's still getting better over all.

hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

Sunday Fun-day

clark had a much better day today. his chest xray this morning looked better than yesterday's, so his pneumonia is starting to go away a little bit. yay! then clark got to come off the c.p.a.p machine and move to a high-flow oxygen pump. the respiratory therapist is working on weening him off the high-flow pump and back to a regular oxygen pump. after clark is weened off the regular oxygen pump, we get to go home. so we're still a ways away from being discharged. but at least we're moving in the right direction.

Saturday to Saturday

another long day in the hospital. i'm exhausted. last night was awful. clark is doing better today, but he's still really sick. he's on a c.p.a.p. machine to help him breathe. he narrowly avoided being intubated this morning.

i'm totally exhausted. i'll have to write more later. i literally feel like i'm about to fall over. being in the hospital with clark for this long is physically and emotionally draining.

good news is that it looks like clark has hit the bottom of this illness and is on his way back up. (god, i hope i'm right about that...)

Terrible Horrible Day

today was unbelievably bad. bad bad bad. clark is back in the i.c.u.

he's been diagnosed with pneumonia, along with his r.s.v.

clark's currently on 4 liters of oxygen through a high-flow pump (bad news). he's getting three different antibiotics. breathing treatments (with albuterol) every two hours. the respiratory therapist has to pound on clark's tiny chest every six hours to loosen the congestion. clark can't breastfeed right now because he's having so much trouble breathing and so he has an i.v. of hydration fluids. he has wires and tubes running everywhere.

last night clark was so close to getting completely off the oxygen tube. i thought we'd be going home tomorrow.

on top of all the drama and tears that have gone on today regarding clark, my cat who already has been diagnosed with chronic kidney failure was sick today. husband had to take her to he vet. everytime she gets sick i wonder "will the vet tell us it's time to let her go?" fortunately the cat just had an infection this time. something we can fix.

i miss the older kids, i miss the cats. i'm sick, depressed, lonely, worried about clark, still trying to recover from childbirth. this sucks. i just want clark to get better so i can go home with my sweet little baby-man and have my whole family together again.

Another Day in the Hospital

the hospital staff is working on weening clark off his teensy little oxygen tube. they're progressively lowering the amount of oxygen getting piped up his nose. so far it's going well. he's on a super small amount right now-- 50 ccs, which is practically nothing.

my little bubba is getting better slowly. i'm so glad he's making improvements.

Year 100 in the Hospital

it feels like we've been here forever. clark's still not ready to come off the oxygen. his chest sounds less congested, which is good. he's coughing up a lot of mucous, which is good. but he can't keep his oxygen levels high enough on his own yet.

maybe tomorrow. you can do it, baby clark! and until then, mommy will be right here with you.

Clark's 4th Day in the Hospital

clark was taken off oxygen at a couple of different times today, but his oxygen levels always ended up too low and the nurse had to turn the oxygen back on. he had a lot of mucous in his nose, throat, and chest. hopefully that mucous is loosening up and tomorrow he'll be able to breathe well enough that he can stay off oxygen.

Hospital Day 3

clark is still on oxygen. he's making some progress, but the pediatric doctor here in the hospital said that the first 3 to 5 days with r.s.v. are the worst and then most kids start to get better after that. so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

when clark was in the emergency room, the nurses and doctor took blood, stuck a tube in his weenie and took urine, and did a spinal tap. both clark and elise had spinal taps done when they were newborns. poor babies. but anyhow, the results of clark's cultures came back today and he does not have a bacterial infection. just that respiratory virus. so we wont be stuck in the hospital for a week while he does a round of intravenous antibiotics. we're just waiting for him to come off of the oxygen.

i miss my family-- husband, elise, henry, georgia, even the cats. i'm glad i get to stay with clark while he's sick, but i look forward to having my family back together soon.

Hospital Day 2

Clark is doing better today, but he wont be going home tomorrow. he's still on oxygen. his fever has stayed away, though, so that's good. and he's eating well. starting at 2am last night he decided he was ready to nurse again and he's been eating regularly ever since. we're moving in the right direction, we just need a little more time with all these nice nurses.

my poor baby.

Clark Is In the Hospital

clark woke up this morning with a fever of 100.8. since he's only 11 days old, we took him to the emergency room. by the time they started checking his vital signs, clark's lips and mouth were turning blue. he wasn't getting enough oxygen. the nurses rushed clark to the back and put oxygen on him, then they started running all sorts of tests.

it's been a long day. i'll share more details later. but basically, clark has been diagnosed with r.s.v., a respiratory virus that is no big deal for adults and kids but is hard for newborn babies to deal with. right now clark has an i.v. in his scalp that is feeding him fluids and antibiotics. he has an oxygen tube under his nose. he has wires on his chest and monitors strapped to one leg and one of his toes. its sad to look at. my poor baby.

Sick House

Everyone here is sick. Henry just got over a fever, but he still has a little bit of congestion and a cough. Georgia is about a day behind Henry with regard to her illness. Elise just got a fever today, although she's been congested and coughing for a few days now. And poor baby Clark has congestion and an elevated temperature, although it's not a fever yet. Even Husband is feeling crummy. With all these sick people, we're blowing through bottles of baby Tylenol and ibuprofen like you wouldn't believe.

I'm taking Clark's temperature every time I change his diaper. I'll need to call my doctor right away if his temperature goes above 100.4. What do you do for a newborn with a fever? Poor Clark. I hope that my breast milk can help protect him and give him lots of antibodies that help to keep him healthy. I have a little bit of a sore throat, but no congestion and no fever. I think my body is mostly fighting off the toddler illness, and I hope that I can keep Clark safe, too.

Poor sick babies. :(

Notes from After Clark's Birth

* Clark had a short umbilical cord. That's what everyone told me.

* I felt a piece of the umbilical cord this time. It's thicker and stronger than you might imagine.

* After I delivered the placenta, everyone commented on how big it was. I guess you need a giant placenta if you're going to have a giant baby. My belly was really stuffed full! No wonder I got stretch marks this pregnancy.

* Clark came out with bruises all over his face and down his left forearm. Apparently that's common with big babies. They scrape past the pelvic bone during birth and get bruised up. He had bruises on his forehead, nose, and chin. The bruising on his forearm was because he had his left arm up to his chest when he came out and it rubbed past my pelvis. That arm being up was also the reason I tore a little bit and needed stitches, according to my midwife.

* Clark had very mild jaundice but it never became an issue. It was probably at least partly due to the bruising, according to Clark's doctor. As a person's body deals with the bruises it raises the levels of bilirubin in that person's system and high levels of bilirubin lead to jaundice.

* Due to the fact that he was "large for gestational age," Clark was tested for diabetes right after he was born and then again the next day. Negative. Negative. He's just big.

* Clark was born at 9 lbs 5 oz. His weight was 8 lbs 14 oz when he left the hospital two days later. His weight was 8 lbs 13 oz at the doctor's office the following day. Then 3 days later at the doctor's office (when Clark was 6 days old), Clark weighed 9 lbs 6 oz, one ounce above his birth weight.

* Newborn clothes never fit Clark. He barely fits into newborn diapers.

*Just before being discharged from the hospital, a nurse hurried into my room. "You didn't circumcise him!" It sounded more like a statement of alarm rather than a question. "Right," I said. I guess she thought I'd forgotten. "Okay. Just making sure you didn't need me to arrange something before you left..."

My Baby Cloning Machine

clark looks a lot like elise. i was surprised. his features are a little more masculine-- his nose is a bit bigger, his lips a little thinner, his eyelashes shorter. but they have the exact same color of hair, and the shape of their facial features is very similar. maybe that will change as clark grows. we'll see. right now i'm betting that they'll be the kind of siblings that you can tell are brother and sister just by looking at them.

clark definitely has husband's feet. long and narrow with long toes. those long toes were one of the first things i really noticed about clark after he was born. i think husband likes that clark has a feature that is so definitively his. aside from the weenie, of course. clark's weenie looks nothing like mine.

Clark's Birth Story: Broken Water through Birth

I think I got some of the times a little bit wrong in previous posts. My midwife must have returned from her office around 2:00pm and then raised my pitocin dosage. After that, I labored for about an hour and a half before she broke my bag of waters.

I don't remember if I had a few contractions first or if it was the very next contraction after my waters were broken, but the next thing I remember is being on all fours on my hospital bed, rocking my hips, moaning, and being in a lot of pain. And it just kept getting worse. Once my waters were broken, I was in LABOR. Hard. It hurt. Clark weighed almost 3 lbs more than Elise did when she was born, and believe me, I could FEEL it. It felt like my pelvis might break in two.

As the pain got worse, I developed a way of coping by focusing my attention away from my pelvis during the contractions and trying to think just about my breathing and what was going on inside my head. That helped a little. Then I got all loopy and during my contractions I kept thinking, "I'm a deer in the forest. Hold your head up high! Watch for danger!" So I guess your totem animal is the deer, Clark. Pain does funny things to a person's brain.

I realized after about an hour of insanely painful contractions that if things got any worse (and they would because I wasn't even pushing the baby out yet) I wouldn't be able to deal with it. I'd pass out or go into shock or SOMETHING. So I talked to my midwife and Husband about getting an epidural. I was so so so sad about my decision to do it. I cried. I had to mourn the loss of my ideal labor. I did it without an epidural for Elise and I wanted to do it for Clark, too. But Clark was just too big for my little 5 foot tall body and I couldn't take the pain anymore. At the time, I felt like I was being weak. Now, I thank goodness that I did get an epidural because he was a BIG baby and it DID hurt more than with Elise and I wasn't being a wimp about it, either. He was born bigger than over 90% of babies-- it was a rough labor and it would have been rough for anybody.

Of course, the anesthesiologist wasn't waiting outside my door in order to give me an epidural if I wanted one, so it took some time for her to arrive. I had many contractions in the meanwhile before she arrived, each one worse than the last. By the time she finally arrived, I was about to go crazy. Then she started talking, warning me of the possible side effects, asking me family and personal medical history. Oh my god. I couldn't believe it was taking so long. I started yelling "It HURTS!" and "Someone help me!" whenever I'd contract. It was honestly the worse pain I've ever felt. By a mile. Worse than pushing Elise out.

Then, before they'd give me the epidural, my midwife said she wanted to do a quick exam to make sure I wasn't already at 10 centimeters. If I was, they wouldn't administer the epidural, they'd just tell me to push. I said something like, "Do whatever you have to do as quickly as possible." I pretty much wanted to kill everyone in the room at that point. I felt like no one was helping me, everyone was just letting me go on hurting.

I was 7 1/2 or 8 centimeters dilated, so they decided to let me have the epidural. By some stroke of magic, I didn't have any contractions while they were doing the epidural procedure. The contractions had been coming really fast before that, but my body seemed to know that relief was on the way. And it WAS relief. The epidural doesn't work right away, but each contraction gets a little bit less intense until it all just fades away and all you can really feel is the pressure of the baby in your pelvis.

I laid down around 4:30, right after the epidural was administered, and I fell fast asleep. My body was like, "Thank you. I think I'll just shut down now. That was way too intense." I slept for about an hour.

I woke up at about 5:30, as my midwife was walking back into my room, and she said that it was time to push. As I sat up, I remember saying, "It feels like I'm sitting on the baby's head." And my midwife or maybe one of the nurses said, "That's because you are." He was far down in the birth canal by that point.

My OBGYN arrived in the room, too. She wanted to be on standby in the room as I delivered Clark because he was so big. She was afraid that he'd get his shoulders stuck behind my pelvis and there would be an emergency, with his head out, his shoulders stuck, and his umbilical cord pinched off and not delivering oxygen to him. If that happened, she wanted to be able to step in and take over from the midwife.

I started pushing. And I could feel him coming out pretty fast. Fast, relatively speaking. With Elise I pushed for 2 hours. It was slow going. But with Clark, it felt like there was progress being made with each push.

Right at the end, just before he was all the way out, I heard the midwife say something. I thought she said, "He's flat." Just then, something started beeping. Some monitor somewhere. I lost my shit. I started yelling, "Is he okay? Is the baby okay?!?" And since no one else knew what I had mistakenly heard or realized that the beeping was going on, they just kept telling me, "Push! Push! He's fine! Push!" But I thought that maybe they were lying just to make me not be scared. I felt pretty panicked. I pushed as hard as I could.

Then all of a sudden he was out. They put him right up on my chest and I saw that he was okay. I had labored for 9 hours and pushed for 15 minutes. Despite his large size, I only needed 3 stitches, and the midwife and doctor even debated about whether or not they should put those in. Thanks, Elise, for having already tunneled your way out of my lady parts, because I'm pretty sure that if I'd have had Clark first, I'd be telling a different story.

I got to hold Clark for a really long time. Breastfeed him, even. He was born ready to eat, by the way. No problems breastfeeding at all. Perfect latch, ready for milk. With Elise, they set her on my chest for a second and then whisked her away because she wasn't breathing well. I got to hold Clark for quite a while. It was nice.

Amazing. What an incredible experience. Two babies now. Totally different pregnancy experiences, totally different birth experiences. And now that's all behind me and I get to love on them and kiss my babies' pretty little faces every day. Amazing.

Giggle Baby

Clark was laughing in his sleep last night. Oh my god. It was so cute.

Clark's Birth Story: Pitocin

to induce clark's labor, i was given pitocin starting around 9am on october 4th. (they give you saline in your i.v., too, to keep you hydrated.) before she even started the pitocin, my nurse noted that i was having contractions every few minutes. i told her that i've been having contractions for weeks. the strange thing was that the external monitor strapped around my belly was noticing contractions that i wasn't feeling. i'd actually feel every third or so contraction, but it looked on the monitor like i was having contractions non-stop. the nurse said that is because i'm small and don't have a lot of fat on my belly, so the monitor could pick up every little movement my uterus was making.

once the pitocin started going, my midwife said she'd be going to her office to see patients and that she'd return after lunch. hopefully my labor would be going strong by then.

well, it wasn't. over the course of the morning, my nurse gradually increased my pitocin dosage. my contractions were never feeling any stronger than they did at home. which isn't to say that some of them weren't intense, but i knew it wasn't full-blown labor. they'd be strong for a while after the dosage was raised, then they'd sort of taper off, just like all of my false labor before the induction. i was getting kind of bummed out and thinking more and more that a c-section was imminent.

at one point i asked the nurse if we could up my pitocin dosage again, as i wasn't feeling the contractions anymore. she said that there was a hospital policy that you can't raise the dosage if there are 4 or more contractions in a 10 minute period of time. i said, "even though i can't feel the contractions? even though they aren't effective contractions?" she said that everything the monitor picks up counts.

my midwife returned around 2:30 to check on me. i told her that not much was happening as far as labor is concerned. she gave me an exam and sure enough, i'd only dilated another centimeter, from 4 to 5 cms. 5 hours and i was only 1 centimeter farther along. my midwife told the nurse to give me more pitocin and then they discussed the issue of the hospital policy. ultimately they raised my pitocin level up to 7 (whatever that means) and inserted an internal monitor into my lady parts in order to better monitor the contractions. apparently the internal monitor can tell how strong the contractions really are, whereas the external monitor was just showing whether or not i was having one. using the internal monitor would allow them to justify giving me more pitocin if the contractions were inadequately strong to help my labor progress.

the extra pitocin got my labor going, though. i was feeling the contractions for sure. i bounced on the birthing ball, stood by the bed and rocked my hips, and had husband rub my back to help alleviate the pain. the pain was strong, but still manageable. i must have labored like that for about an hour and a half, until 4:00. then the midwife gave me another exam, noticed that clark's head was coming down farther into my pelvis, and she made the decision that it was time to break my waters. my midwife told me that if we were going to have a successful vaginal birth, breaking my waters should make things start moving along much more quickly and that labor would get pretty intense once the bag of waters was ruptured.

everything seemed to happen really fast after that...

Fountain of Youth

weenies are so much work! i end up changing clark's clothes nearly every time i change his diaper because he pees again once i get his diaper off. first he pees one direction, next time it goes a different direction, sometimes it shoots far into the air, other times it dribbles out. he peed on his own face yesterday.

i'm slowly developing a few techniques to help minimize the number of incidents. it's trial and error at this point, though.

also, today clark crapped on my hand. babies can be so gross.

Clark's Birth Story: Check In through Pitocin Time

i was scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 7:30am on tuesday october 4th for an induction of labor due to the fact that i was past my due date and my baby was suspected of being large for his gestational age. husband and i got up early that day, he took the foster kids to day care, we left elise with relatives, and then we went to the labor and delivery section of our hospital.

once we arrived and filled out hospital check-in paperwork, my assigned nurse came and asked if we had some papers that my obgyn's office had given me weeks earlier-- a record of my pregnancy, with various test results and stuff like that. we forgot to bring the papers with us. for some reason, my scared and stressed out brain saw this oversight as my first failing in the attempt to have a positive birthing experience. maybe it was even a bad omen. so silly, but i kept thinking "crap, i've already screwed this up." of course, it was all no big deal. my obgyn's office faxed over another copy of the papers and that was that. i was just worried about how the day would go and i was disappointed that it got off to a very-slightly-less-than-smooth start.

eventually we were brought back to my labor and delivery room. i was given a gown to change into, the nurses strapped monitors around my belly (one monitored my contractions, the other monitored the baby's heart), i answered a million questions (anyone in your family prone to seizures? when was your last bowel movement?), and then my i.v. was inserted.

i've had very little luck with i.v.'s. with elise, i had two i.v.'s infiltrate and leak fluid into the tissue around my vein-- super painful. i refused to let them insert a 3rd i.v. Then this time, despite the fact that the nurse seemed to do a really good job of inserting the i.v. and was very thoughtful about the placement, i wound up with a huge purple, yellow, and green bruise. oh well. just one of the downsides to childbirth for me, i guess.

once my midwife arrived in my room she did an exam. i was still 4 cm dilated, about 70 percent effaced, and the baby's head was at station negative 2. i asked if we could just break my water and see if that would get labor going, but since clark's head was still pretty high up in my pelvis she decided we should start with the pitocin. i was a little disappointed with that, but i knew i'd probably end up taking pitocin one way or another, so i got over it pretty quickly.

they started the pitocin around 9am. i guess that would be the official start of my labor.

Clark's Homecoming

we got to leave the hospital today around 2:30 pm. healthy baby, healthy mama and so we didn't have to stay the full 48 hours they normally require after a vaginal delivery. we got to leave a few hours early. it is so nice to be home with all the kids, the cats, my own bed. i love having my family all together again.

Monday Visit with My OBGYN

so, after the ultrasound where clark's weight was predicted to be 9 lbs 6 oz (surprisingly accurate!), i had a meeting with my obgyn doctor that afternoon to discuss the results. i was hoping she'd give me a strong recommendation one way or another as to what we should do about getting him out of my uterus. i knew, however, that she'd most likely present me with the facts and then let me decide what our next step would be. and that's exactly what she did.

i was given the choice of induction and an attempt at vaginal delivery (with the risks being that the baby might get stuck in the birth canal, leading to shoulder dystocia and possibly permanent injury or even death) or an elective c-section, which is major surgery. in reality, i probably could have lobbied to wait a bit longer to see if labor would start naturally, but the thought that clark would keep growing bigger and bigger alarmed me, and anyway i was so uncomfortable that i wanted him out as soon as possible.

i struggled with the decision between induction and c-section. i asked the doctor tons of questions, all of which she answered very honestly. she even admitted that as an obgyn she personally would feel more comfortable performing a c-section because that is a situation that she has more control over than waiting to see if something goes wrong with a vaginal delivery. she also stressed that she wasn't advocating for elective surgery and that her answer to my question was simply a response to dealing with what is mostly known vs what is mostly unknown.

husband admitted a preferance for an elective c-section, although he would support any decision i made.

believe me, it was a very, very, very hard decision. i was so afraid that choosing the induction could result in such a bad outcome that it would be a decision that i regretted for the rest of my life. especially since my sister had to have a c-section recently because her pelvis was too narrow for her baby, and he was under 7 lbs. maybe my pelvis is kind of narrow, too. we are sisters, after all. elise only weighed 6lbs 7 oz... there was nothing to prove that my pelvis could accomodate a 9 1/2 lb baby. that's a big baby for anyone, and i'm a petite person.

i cried and cried over this decision.

but i ultimately decided to trust in my body and believe that either i could do it, or if i couldn't then my body would let us know early on, before something bad happened. i told my obgyn that i wanted to try for a vaginal birth. the induction was scheduled for tuesday morning and my obgyn said that although a midwife would be delivering the baby, she would join us for the final stage of labor, that way she could step in if clark got stuck and some fancy maneuvering was needed.

needless to say, i got very little sleep monday night.

Happy Birthday Clark!!!

clark was born today, october 4th, 2011, at 5:57pm. he weighed 9 lbs 5 oz (!) and was 20 3/4 inches long. delivered vaginally! i did get an epidural, as the pain was intollerable, but he delivered after pushing for only 15 minutes. i only needed 3 stitches! i feel so happy that my pelvis was big enough to accomodate such a large baby! clark has some bruises on his face and one arm, from sliding past my pubic bone, but other than that, we're both doing great.

more details later-- i need to sleep.

Ultrasound Results

The ultrasound tech and doctor estimate Clark's weight at 9 lbs 6 oz. Which means he could be anywhere between 8 lbs 7 oz and 10 lbs 5 oz.

Big baby.

Damn it.

He's bigger than 90% of all newborns. In fact, newborn clothes wont fit him. I don't have gestational diabetes. I'm not a big person at all. I didn't gain an excessive amount of weight during pregnancy. I just grew a giant baby for some reason.

I meet with my OBGYN this afternoon to decide what we're going to do. I've done some research before going in to talk, so I have lots of questions. But I know that the truth of the matter is this: there's no way to predict how labor and delivery might go if we try to do it vaginally. My body may do a great job of delivering a large baby. I might rip all to hell and need lots of repairs to my lady parts. Clark's shoulders might get stuck and he could even die if they can't get him out through my pelvis quickly enough. And of course, a c-section is major surgery. Vaginal delivery and c-section can both possibly lead to complications. There are risks to both me and the baby due to his size, and I'll have to figure out what is safest and best for both of us.

This sucks. I'm honestly mildly devastated at this point. I thought that my second delivery would be easier than my first. So much for my "easy" pregnancy!

The Rest of Friday

During my doctor's visit on Friday I had a lady parts exam and my OBGYN stretched out my cervix a little bit, in an effort to jump start labor. This is the third time that I've had them do this for me-- for the past 3 weeks at each visit I've had the midwives and then my doctor perform this mildly uncomfortable procedure. It supposedly helps some women. Not me, though. No labor.

There's normally a little bit of blood later on in the day, from having them mess with my cervix. Well, on Friday it seemed like sort of a lot of blood. Not gushing out of me or anything, but enough that I said, "Maybe I should go get checked out at the hospital." So I did. I went to the hospital Friday night (Husband and my mother-in-law stayed home with the kiddos, as they were already sleeping). Clark was fine. My contractions weren't close enough together to be official labor, and I was still dilated 4 cm. So they sent me home. The nurse was really cool about it-- all "better safe than sorry! you did the right thing!"

The nurse that I saw kept telling me how "cute" I am. I'm certain that she didn't mean cute as a synonym for attractive, but cute like you call newborn kittens cute-- all helpless looking and kind of pathetic. She even called another nurse over just to look at me. That was weird. I said that it was a very nice thing to hear at 40 weeks pregnant, as I haven't felt anything close to "cute" in a while. Especially by a woman who just had her fingers up my hooha. But I didn't say that part out loud.

Also, while I was in the waiting room, a hospital patient walked by and talked to some of the nurses at the front desk. The nurses had apparently heard about her delivery the other day-- an 11 lb 3 oz baby boy delivered vaginally and delivered very quickly. The nurses kept calling her Superwoman.

Dear Clark, Please don't weigh 11 lbs. I am not Superwoman. Not even close.

Clark-o! (Polo!)

Clark, if you don't come out soon, we're coming in there to get you.

I met with my OBGYN on Friday. (Friday was my due date, FYI.) She's concerned that Clark is maybe too big. I'm going for an ultrasound on Monday to determine if Clark is happy and healthy and to see how big he is. From there we will decide what to do next: emergency baby removal if he's in distress; induce labor if he isn't too big; or plan a c-section if he is threatening to rip me a new one if we try to deliver out the lady parts. I'm scared. I'm sick of being pregnant, but I know now that this delivery probably won't be an easy one. I'd imagined that my second delivery would be easier and smoother than my first, but now that doesn't seem likely. I'm kind of emotional about the whole thing, and I just hope that it won't be as bad as I'm imagining.

My doctor said that I'm dilated 4 cm now. The only thing holding labor up is the baby. She said that maybe he's too big, or maybe he's not in the right position yet. Medical science isn't sure what makes labor start when it does, although the prevailing theory right now is that the baby has some input into that process. It's not just the mom's body that makes labor happen-- the baby is part of the feedback loops that get the whole thing going.

I'm having contractions like crazy. Still losing mucous. Bleeding, even. But no labor. What I imagine is happening is that my body is trying DESPERATELY to make labor start. It keeps sending out the signals to Clark. Contractions begin, my body gets everything ready. But for whatever reason, Clark isn't sending back his part of the signal that will officially start labor. So the contractions fade off and I get all disappointed. I don't know if that's really how it might work or not. That's just how I imagine it. That's what it feels like is going on.

No matter how it's SUPPOSED to work, it's not working for whatever reason and it looks like Clark will end up being forcibly removed from my uterus within the next few days. One way or another, my pregnancy will be over soon. I'll get to hold and kiss my son. And hopefully it will require a minimal number of stitches.