I haven't bothered relating the details of Dawn's pregnancy until now. "Now" is when we have received the first ultrasound images of a squirming little proto-human inside my wife's womb. After a good greasing up with whatever jelly is used by these seers into the mother pocket, our technician descried the images herein scanned.
To the left is the gender-defining "money shot" of ultrasounds. A small arrow points to the faint outline of our little nascent girl's labia or whatever mommy parts those may be. It didn't seem definite to me, but the lady seemed to think it was, asking us if we'd thought of any girl names.
I told her yes, we were going to name our baby Sheniqua.
We took the AFP triple-screen test, and came out with a 1/126 chance of Baby Got Downs. If the baby had an open spine or some weird genetic death curse, we could have made a relatively easy decision to "abort, retry," and hopefully not fail. However, this isn't a death sentence. It's a mental handicap.
I'm a very mental/intellectual person. So's Dawn. How would we deal with a "retarded" baby? One expects a child to be a conduit for his own immortality.
In any case, we decided to do the amnio. Results in 10-14 days.
The tests came back, and the baby is fine. She has the correct number of chromosomes, no spinal problems, and she's definitely a little girl! It's a huge relief. I'd left the Week 18 entry commented out of befuddlement as to how I'd deal with everything, and laziness at not even researching Down's children, not knowing whether she'd be a happy kid, a human pet, or what.
Well, she's genetically healthy. We know that now, at least.
We went for our periodic check-up. Arrived at 9:45, called in at 10AM (on time, wow!), Dawn had her blood pressure checked, we waited for another 15 minutes or so in the inner waiting room, then were called to the exam room, then waited another dime, then the doctor came in and we left 5 minutes later.
The moral of that paragraph: a doctor visit is 10% doctor and 90% waiting.
The notable point of this entry is that the heartbeat is slower now (since the girl is more developed), more like a "real" heartbeat. The arrhythmia seems to have reduced its frequency. Doc rubbed my wife's greased belly, indicating the whooshing "beat" of the placenta as that organ pumps blood into the baby through the umbilical cord. She hovered over the cord, as well, which was a much more even-sounding flow.
Dawn seems shocked that she's entered her third and final trimester. Me, I'll believe it when I see it! Show me the baby!
First time I managed to grab Dawn's belly as she called me over to feel the baby kick-- and I actually felt the little buggerette! It was a nice little bump from beyond the birth curtain, but I still say show me the baby.
I am, of course, an observer of this pregnancy process. Would I have been carrying the child, you'd hear more from me. That said, after six weeks of relative nothingness (from my observer POV), I saw the little bugger moving around inside Dawn. She nudged me as I grogged in bed a few morns ago, and asked "if I could see [that.]"
Well, I could see "that" -- a motile bump creeping across her bulging belly. That's my girl!
I defy any former Fangoria geek to see that and not think of Freddy Krueger's choir of tortured faces roiling under his flesh, or that pillar of lost souls in Hellraiser. Dude!
Pretty cool.
We attended the first session of our chosen birthing class this week. "Hypnobirthing" intends to make epidurals and such unnecessary, by enabling the mother to focus her mind on pressure rather than pain during the birth process.
The speeches were a bit hokey, but I believe in the "mind over matter" principle of it all. Our first night included a simple exercise wherein I followed a script in a first attempt at memserizing Dawnie. She couldn't stop cracking up when I got to the "I am dreamily waving my hand in front of your eyes" part, so we skipped that. We did pretty well.
Saturday morning we met with our pediatrics practice. The nice nursing assistant went through the baby basics for us. We waited twenty minutes for the actual doctor, but he was out on rounds at the hospital that day, which begs the question of what an "appointment" means to him.
Afterwards, we had breakfast at Mel's Diner, then went baby shopping with the $700 the government gave back to us. We did pretty well money-wise, with the bulk of our required purchases done and totaling less than $300. Kudos to Dawnie for researching the best products and prices.
She'll be such a wonderful mother.
The baby is now fully cooked, and Dawn is anxious to get the little bugger out of her belly and into her bosom. For my part, I sympathize with her discomfort and likewise am looking forward to having little Annika Elise out into the world. That's her name, Annika Elise. Pronounce it Ah-nikka, not Ann-ikka, or fear the mother's wrath, as have I with my occasional southern redneck drawl.
What little anxiety I experience is primarily focused towards helping out Dawn in any way possible, ensuring I'm a good husband during the birthing. Luckily for me, I push my neuroses to the background until I "need" them, so I'm doing A-OK psychologically.
Dawn started contractions this morning. Now they've been approximately a minute long and five minutes apart for the past hour, so it's time to call the doc and get this show on the road!
The doctor on call says to call him back when she's incapacitated. You know, we burned $300 in credit on hypnobirthing lessons so she wouldn't be incapacited during labor. Wtf?
Dawn's doing great, though. She's a real trooper, weathering the contractions like a middle-age Mormon goodwife. I'm very proud of my wife.
OK, so maybe we're not going anywhere tonight. The doc has a point that this is Dawn's first pregnancy, so she doesn't have the benefit of previous experience to better deduce when "it" will happen.
In any case, I downloaded a cool contraction-tracking applet called Expecting for the Zaurus. Just tap the button when a contraction starts, and again when it ends, and it keeps track of everything for you.
Beats using that dull pencil on the back of our blender manual.
Still waiting. I think I'll take a shower and call it a (sleepless) night.
8 pounds, 14 ounces, 21".
The physical labor is over, now let the psychological torture begin! Here are a few more shots of the cleaned-up baby Annika. The first few days were a struggle, wondering if we were doing things right, why she was crying so much, watching strange nurses come in and snuggle our baby.
We're tired now, but Annika is sleeping soundly most of the time, giving us a chance to catch up on the Z's lost at the hospital. Here's me holding the baby. I don't feel as exhausted (or drunk) as I look.
Dawn's "good milk" will be in soon. For now, we're dropping formula into our little baby bird after each feeding, to keep her plump. Here's a parting shot of Dawnie and the baby snuggled up on our couch.
Dawn was in the hospital all last week with a kidney infection. Her temperature finally cooled off into nonfebrility a few days before a Sunday discharge. She must continue with a PICC line in her arm and squirted antibiotics every evening, but stuck in the arm is better than stuck in the hospital.
The picture at left is so adorable, all in the world must see it and weep with joy at such wondrous terror as a baby coming at you. Enjoy.
Life has been good. Annika has been healthy. My parents visited from West Virginia and saw the baby, and of course want us to come down or permission to come back up again. Too bad we're so far away, but then if we weren't, I'd never had met Dawn and we'd not have had this particular little darling.
Speaking of which, there she is at the right, in daddy's arms, being gently smooched as she googles for the camera.
I noticed last night that she was pressing buttons on some of her toys, seemingly learning cause and effect.
She's been crying a lot, inconsolable sans boobies, teeth pressing through her gums, waddling along the sides of coffee tables. She's growing, alright.
Taking care of a baby means less time to muse about taking care of a baby. (That's not true; I'm just lazy-- this whole update took ten minutes!) In any case, here's a fresh picture of my adorable daughter.
Dawn has been teaching her "baby signs" for months. If a baby can wave hello or goodbye to you, she can sign to you. Ani's most frequently utilized sign is "again" (in our vernacular, pointing to the palm of your hand), which she uses to show approval of some apish pantomime from daddy, or the desire for another graham cracker, or in general whenever she wants something repeated.
In the past few months, she's been "using her words" more. Her first might have been "cat," then "mommy" and "daddy." Her favorite, and the one she uses to most effect, is "no." Want to go back inside now that daddy has smoked his cigarette and it's cold out here on the porch? "No." It's a cute little negatory with a slide after the initial consonant.
Of course she's walking like a champ now, and she still dances when we say "dance!" She's remarkably aware of everything around her, communicates well, and babbles constantly. I attribute her talkative nature mostly to Dawn's excellent mothering with her all day long, and partly to our playing talk radio all day instead of the TV.
I just hope she doesn't inherit Bob Lonsberry or Michael Savage's accent.