Thursday, September 29, 2005

Family Update Roundup

Sorry that I haven't posted lately, but the good news is that the time has been spent getting ready for Baby.

I realized that the only reason I have not posted pictures from Natalie's shower, previous mentioned here, was because I had not cropped them. I decided that I did not want to wait any more. So they are uncropped, but available as a new FlickR Set. If you have pictures from that day, please email them to us.

Speaking of Shower pictures, I added a few more to the set from Mariann's Shower a while ago. Take another look if you are interested.

The most recent Obstitrician appointment last Monday confirmed that Baby is very comfortable inside Andrea's tummy. You never can tell when it will happen, but those who guessed on or after October 10th have better odds at this point.

Baby has spent most of the last few months on the right side of Andrea's stomach. However, on Tuesday Baby decided to poke out on the left side. As I was trying to capture the movement on video, Baby jumped to the right. I didn't see it very well out of the LCD, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge movement that was very fast. I'll have to check the video to see if I caught it. After I'd put the camera away, Baby jumped back over to the left in another big movement! I couldn't believe how fast and pronounced these movements were.

That's all the Family news for now, stay tuned...

Monday, September 19, 2005

Katie says hello


Katie says hello
Originally uploaded by CordovaCaddes.
I snapped a quick photo of Katie from my sidekick this weekend. If this post comes out decently, I'll feel good about posting a picture of Baby this way while we're still at the hospital

Friday, September 16, 2005

Do Not Disturb

I don't know where my head has been this week, but I forgot to post details about our latest OB appointment. The appointment was on Monday, which I kept confusing with Tuesday.

The doctor said that everything looks good, but that Baby is still pretty high and Andrea has not started dialating or effacing, which means that Baby is pretty unlikely to come before the October 10th due date (as determined by the first ultrasound). Of course, there are no guarantees, but if you guessed an early delivery, you might want to have another conversation with Baby...

Baby seems comfy in Andrea's tummy!

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Special Thanks

I want to make a special post to thank some people who are so generous:

Thank you to Ron & Mariann Cordova for the baby furniture from the Baby's Dream Infinity Collection.

Thank you to Harrison Latta & Lya Cordova-Latta for decorating the Nursery with our colors and jungle animals.

Baby says thank you for making the Nursery so cozy!

Breastfeeding is old news

Last night was the Breastfeeding class that was supposed to teach us more about breastpumps and storing breastmilk. Although we haven't made a definite plan about Andrea returning to work or school, we thought that at some point we would want to have the information so that Andrea could be away from baby for several hours without worrying about Baby's feeding schedule. We had already learned about positioning, feeding frequency, and problems to watch for from the Baby Express class. Unfortunately, yesterday's class was about 90% review. The new information on breast pumps and breastmilk storage pretty much matched what we had already read on the subject. Neither Andrea or I felt that we learned anything new, although review can be useful. However, the best part of class was a new video showing newborn babies put on their mothers' chests. The babies had a natural instinct to climb towards the breast and begin feeding. It was amazing to watch and shows how much nature really does know what it's doing. Not only do babies know where to go, but the instructor mentioned that babies crawling on mommy's tummy would serve as a uterine massage, which is done by nurses in our "modern" world. Once again, nature shows it's smarter than we are...

A wonderful excuse to get together

Last Saturday our friend Natalie hosted a wonderful Baby Shower for our friends. We were once again spoiled! I have gotten as far as transferring the pictures from the camera to the desktop, but I have not uploaded them to FlickR yet. As soon as I do I will update this post, as well as put a new post with a link. Thank you to everyone who came and made it so special. A huge thank you to Natalie for hosting this wonderful get together. Also a huge thank you to Natalie's parents who allowed us to gather at their beautiful home. Stay tuned for all the evidence...

Friday, September 09, 2005

Catch-up not Catsup

I have been quite remiss in not mentioning that we selected our Baby Furniture this week. On Sunday and Monday (this last Monday was Labor Day) we looked at the stores in our area and on Monday decided on a brand, Baby's Dream. The store we found it at is Baby and Kid's World in San Dimas. On Monday, we decided on the Infinity Dropside Crib. Unfortunately, this model is no longer shown on the Baby's Dream website, but it is a Dropside Crib version of the Infinity Crib. If you can imagine the styling from the second, but with the symmetrical look of the first, then you have pictured it. Or you could be patient and come see the crib in a few weeks. Ours was the last Infinity Dropside Crib in the store and they are not getting any more because it is a discontinued product. We picked it out as the store was closing for the day (early hours for Labor Day), but another baby furniture store was still open for an hour, and they were selling the Infinity Combination Dresser and Changing Table at a special Labor Day sale price. However, when we arrived we learned that they did not have the Honey color in stock and to order it would take 8 to 12 weeks. We left the store dismayed, but called Baby and Kid's World to see if they had the Combo in stock. We were ready to pay a little more to have the Combo now. It turns out they had one of them in stock (2 for 2!). When we asked for the price, we found out that their regular price matched the Labor Day Sale price we were so eager to get. The bad news was that they were closed for the day, but the good news was that I was able to pick it up Tuesday afternoon AND it was discounted 10% more because of a coupon from Pomona Valley Hospital's Maternity Orientation tour. So much for holiday sales!

In other Baby news, last night was our last Childbirth Education class. There wasn't very much information left to cover, more than there would have been had last week's class not ended early. However, even with some information left over to finish, the class ended early after a very long break in the middle. I'm not sure why the first and last class had so little information, while the middle two were dense with content, but I guess that's how the course is designed.

This weekend is our co-ed shower. Two men from my work both seemed very confused that they would be invited to a baby shower (one of them explained to me that Bachelor Party invitations go in one pile, all shower invitations go in a pile for his wife). I am definitely looking forward to this event and you can expect a Picture Set to be posted here after the event. TGIF!

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Picture This

Pictures from the Baby Shower are available on the Cordova-Caddes Flickr Page. You can click on a single picture to see it enlarged, or you can view a slideshow by clicking on "View as slideshow" or clicking that link.

Friday, September 02, 2005

TKO

So last night's Childhood Education class was... well it was... um... it was!

The majority of the class was a review of the stages of labor: how to differentiate the stages, how long contractions will be in each stage, how long they last on average, what to do (and not do) during each stage. We also went over what to pack in the labor bag and some general reminders about the labor process. We went over medication in more detail and talked about the different options.

Then we started talking about caesarian section procedures. Even though we are planning on vaginal birth, I agree with the our instructor that it's important to know what to expect in case plans change. After talking about the procedure and what to expect we watched a video that showed an actual caesarean section. It started with some introduction by 3 women who had all had C-Sections. Then we followed a couple who was having a planned caesarean. They showed what goes on in the Operating Room during the preparation, and then we watched them make the incisions and bring the baby out. During this whole thing I was surprisingly unaffected by what I was watching. I thought maybe I'd watched enough ER for this to not effect me.

Then after the surgery was shown, the other women came back into the video and were giving concluding comments. My mind started to wander, and I started thinking about how I would feel if Andrea needed to have a C-Section. And then I started thinking about how I would react if something was happening and we had to decide if she was going to have a caesarean or continue naturally. And that indecision stayed with me, like I was frozen in that moment of not knowing what to do. My legs started feeling weird, then my stomach got upset. I was going to stand up and go to the restroom, in case I needed to vomit, but I didn't feel like I could hold myself up or even talk, so I just leaned way back in my chair. It was getting hard to breath, so I took off my necklace. Next thing I knew I felt like I was waking up from a nap and there was a crowd of people around me. My first reaction was to fight back, like I was being taken for a swirlee at Mudd, but I didn't really have the strength to fight back at that moment (and thank goodness). They set me down on the floor and it started to become clear that I had passed out. Then I got really embarrassed because the whole class was interrupted for me. Andrea told me afterwards that I started breathing really heavily and my body was limp, then it sounded like I stopped breathing and that's when she called out to the instructor that something was wrong. I guess I was unconscious for 30 seconds to a minute. Of course, if you're going to pass out, it's very efficient to do it in a classroom at the hospital. They sent about 10 different people from all over the place to come and check on me. At one point they were sending two different gurneys. But I knew that I was not in an emergency. They offered to take me over to the ER anyway, but I could tell that I was OK by this point. They took my pulse a few times and checked my blood sugar. I thanked everyone profusely and they left before I actually crawled under any rocks.

So I hope that any readers could gather from the fact that I am writing this, that I am in fact OK. I had an upset stomach for the rest of the night, but that was more because every time I would feel better, I'd started thinking about what I had done, and then a tiny bit of nausea would return. My hats off, and huge thanks, to the other class members and to the Pomona Valley Hospital staff for helping me.

So Baby, if you are reading this, many years in the future, it's true. Daddy passed out during the Childbirth Education class, and he did it to HIMSELF! Andrea said last night that maybe it's better that I went through this now. Perhaps I will be able to deal with any uncertainty that comes up during labor better now that I've already gone through that mind-numbing uncertainty in advance. I think that's an interesting idea, but honestly I won't have time to ponder it all during the actual labor. I'll be so focused on what is happening, that I won't have time to think too much about it, which is what caused the episode last night. Maybe after it's all over, and we're back at home with baby, then I'll start thinking about the whole process. I'll make sure to stay in a padded area then!