Wedding Weekend

My good friend from grad school got married yesterday. We had a great time celebrating  and catching up with friends. Baby got lots of love (aka belly rubs) from his YSPH aunties. We even did a little dancing : ).

About halfway through the reception it hit me that I was at about the same point in my pregnancy with Julian when I was in another good friend's wedding last year. I got the same questions and comments this time as I did then ("When are you due?" "Aren't you cute!" "Is this your first?"). It's just so much more emotionally complicated to respond to these questions now than it was last year. I did receive one comment that warmed my heart. I hadn't seen the mother of the bride in a couple of years. She not only congratulated me on this new pregnancy, but also took the time to share her condolences about Julian. It was so nice to hear her say his name.

Vermont Weekend

We spent last weekend in Woodstock, VT at a B&B on a small farm. We had a great time and learned a few things about farming from our hosts.

 I didn't realize how curious chickens are. This one (and some of her friends) just had to investigate the freshly-cut hay that had just been stacked in the farm truck.

Morning view of the hayfield from our room.

Taison helping out in a sheep-shearing demonstration...

...and again when a few bales of hay needed to be moved.

Nosy chickens again-this time looking for goodies in the garden.

I did some Saturday afternoon yoga in this barn on the property-it was quiet with a nice flat wood floor and a fabulous view.

Taison peeking into the chicken coop

Sugar maples on the property. We ate syrup from these trees on our Sunday morning waffles!

Big red barn on the property. It's almost 100 years old and was originally used for dairy cows.

Early fall views from the hills behind the farm

Yesterday was the 22nd, the first day of fall and 14 months since Julian was born. Something about realizing that last night made for a tearful bedtime for me. Maybe because it was the first time in a while that the 22nd fell on a Sunday. Maybe because I had spent most of the weekend thinking optimistically about the future and focused on baby and what he was up to. In any case, I felt the sense of loss more keenly than usual last night. It was such a stark contrast to how happy I had been the rest of the weekend. I'm grateful that I can be happy and enjoy things, but it can be jarring when those moments of grief return. This is my life now, though, and all I can do is embrace it, both the sweet and the sorrowful parts.

Getting Excited

It's a mostly-cloudy, chilly day today, and that's making me excited. The seasons changing means we're getting closer to meeting baby. It's been almost two uneventful weeks since Labor day, and I'm now in the 3rd trimester! I've calmed down from the stress of that scare and adjusted to a slightly slower pace. I slept in this morning, and as baby kicked around and wondered why we were still in bed, I daydreamed about seeing his "mad face" when he's born. You know, that scrunched-up, red, "what have you done to me" face that a lot of newborns make when they first emerge. I also daydreamed about:

-apples
-apple cider
-Food Day (I stumbled across this event in Harvard Square last year)
-Rach's wedding (aka Yale School of Public Health reunion)
-eight more weeks of work, I think
-hanging Christmas stockings for our family of four

Update to Labor Day

I've felt fine since Monday-no more contractions. This week's theme has been "taking it easy". No brisk walks, no carrying groceries and laundry up the stairs, no standing for long periods of time, etc. After being out of the office on Monday and Tuesday, I went back to work on Wednesday, but only for half days. It was actually really nice to come home in the early afternoon (ahead of the commuter crowds), put my feet up, and do the rest of the day's work from the couch. Nice and quiet-a drastic contrast to the hustle and bustle of the office during the first week of school.

I have another checkup with my OB on Tuesday, and will re-evaluate my work schedule after that. There's not much I need to re-evaluate in my life schedule, luckily. We didn't have any travel planned for the fall besides a weekend in Vermont later this month (although I was thinking about going to VA for a long weekend next month). I didn't request to sing in any concerts this fall in anticipation of being very busy at work and very pregnant. So, as much as I'd love to resume my regular pace, I'll be fine if my "take it easy" orders are extended. Anything to give baby plenty of time to keep growing : ).

"Labor" Day

I planned to spend Labor Day they way someone who works in higher ed usually does-laboring at work to prepare for the start of the school year. Instead, I ended up spending most of the day in labor and delivery. Baby and I are fine, just tired. I started having mild, painless contractions around midnight, and by 2am they were frequent enough that I decided I needed to call the doctor. The OB on call told me to come in to get checked. I knew this was the right thing to do, but a part of me really didn't want to make another early-morning trip to labor and delivery. But this time was much different, luckily. I knew baby was fine. He was consistently moving around between, and sometimes during, contractions (I think they made him mad-he's very protective of his space). So, I woke Taison, tried to explain the situation without alarming him, and we headed to Mt. Auburn hospital.

Walking into the labor and delivery unit for the first time since last year wasn't as hard as I feared it might be. It helped that they've remodeled a little since last year, so the triage rooms are completely different. It did not help that our nurse couldn't find baby's heartbeat at first. Another nurse came in and found it pretty quickly. We breathed sighs of relief (and shed a few tears), and settled in to try to figure out what was going on.

In triage around 5am-waiting for answers but glad to hear baby's strong heartbeat on the monitor (don't I look glad?)

They did a bunch of tests and gave me some IV fluids (even though I'm pretty sure I wasn't dehydrated), and the contractions continued but didn't strengthen. Our favorite nurse from last year, Kathy, came on shift around 7am. It was nice to see her, even if it wasn't under ideal circumstances. Around 8am they decided to transfer me to a bigger hospital with a NICU that could care for a 26 week old if the worst-case scenario came to pass. Taison and I decided on Brigham and Women's, and drove over (I'm glad they didn't make me go in an ambulance).

By the time we got to the Brigham, the contractions had stopped. They did an ultrasound to make sure my cervix looked okay. It did, and the ultrasound tech gave us a printout of baby's measurements. He's big! 85th percentile for weight (a little over two pounds), and measuring closer to 28 weeks. I felt like he'd grown a lot over the last few weeks. That explains where all this food I've been eating has been going. Since the ultrasound looked good and all of my labs came back normal, they decided to discharge me. I was so glad not to have to spend the night there. By then it was after 1pm, and all I wanted to do was get some lunch, shower, and take a nap.

I was just told to take it easy-neither the doctors nor Taison and I are particularly concerned about this turning into preterm labor, and I'm not on bedrest or anything like that. A lot of today's testing had more to do with my OB history than the severity of symptoms I was actually having. This was fine with us-we would rather over-test than leave things up to chance. I did decide (with Taison's help) to take tomorrow off from work to rest up some more, and to give myself time to process any emotional effects of this whole ordeal. Luckily, my regular prenatal appointment is tomorrow afternoon, so that will be an  opportunity to debrief. I'm hopeful and cautiously optimistic that we won't have to go back to any labor and delivery unit until much closer to baby's actual due date. In the meantime, I'm enjoying still having baby inside as we continue week 26: