From the category archives:

Before the baby

As close as you’ll get to a birth story

by Lyn June 8, 2009

Instead of telling the birth story, I will do what I love most: give unsolicited advice. You already know we didn’t want to be at the hospital for Ira’s birth, but it turned out being at the hospital really did go OK. I still wouldn’t have chosen it, but we managed not only to avoid [...]

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Monday morning quarterback

by Gail June 3, 2009

It’s really difficult to sit down and write about something as life-changing and intense as the birth of your son. I could write down a blow-by-blow of events from my point of view, but the more I talk about what happens the more ordinary the events seem and the further away the actual experience of [...]

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He’s here!

by Gail May 30, 2009

Our son arrived very late on Wed night (May 27th). He’s a healthy 7 lbs 4 oz with a full head of reddish blond hair. We have lots of recovering to do around here, so details and pictures may be slow to appear, but know we are all doing well. His name (both on the [...]

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Readiness Update

by Lyn May 17, 2009

We’re long overdue for an update, but you won’t get anything profound. It’s all bullets around here. First, Gail is having super pumping success. She is a total milk machine. She cleared 5 ounces pumping yesterday and gets a few mL more every day. See the graph above of her output since day 2 of [...]

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It’s a good thing we have two (moms, that is)

by Lyn May 10, 2009

Pregnancy has not done much for my toddler parenting skills. Way back when, believe it or not, between the two of us, I was “the patient one.” With so many of my mental and physical resources going towards the end of this pregnancy, I have a much shorter fuse than I’d like with Leigh. It [...]

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What not to say to a pregnant lady…

by Lyn May 8, 2009

No one should ever ever say anything to a pregnant lady about how big or little she is. Really. Just don’t say anything at all. All you should say about appearance, if anything, is “You look great!” or “What a cute shirt.” I’m not someone who’s very sensitive about my body. Even for a few [...]

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“A good day in liver land”

by Lyn May 6, 2009

Two good things happened yesterday: 1) As Gail said, I got some labs back yesterday that indicate my liver could be a lot worse. We are nowhere near a level that would mean “get-the-baby-out-now,” though things can change quickly. That result was for blood drawn when my symptoms were much worse than they are currently [...]

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I am grateful for the chance to be an NGP

by Gail May 5, 2009

In part because of Lyn’s recent complications, I’ve been spending a lot of my time taking care of her. Some of that care is physical: massages are particularly soothing for her right now. Some of the care is emotional. Much of the care consists of doing the lion’s share work needed to take care of [...]

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The first drops of milk and a brief update

by Gail May 1, 2009

In anticipation of our earlier-than-expected arrival, I decided to accelerate my schedule for inducing lactation. Tuesday night I took my last birth control pill and last night, for the first time in almost two years, I used my old friend the breast pump. After pumping for 5-10 minutes I was able to produce a couple [...]

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“Is this your first child?”

by Lyn April 30, 2009

This isn’t an easy question to answer. In a medical situation, the relevant answer is “Yes” since they need to know I’ve never been pregnant before, but I refuse not to claim my first daughter, and if I don’t mention her, I miss out on all of the great bonding conversation over how cute and [...]

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The other shoe

by Lyn April 29, 2009

While neglecting this blog the last couple weeks, what we haven’t been writing about is how this pregnancy has now shifted from extremely healthy and extremely low-risk (although not necessarily easy, see the nose incident and that persistent morning sickness) to a moderately risky one necessitating pretty vigorous medical management. Great. We all know how [...]

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