Wednesday is the big day. We'll be heading to the hospital very early in
the morning for the amnio. Once those results come in, we should be
doing the C-Section about 1:30 pm. I'll send out a text message as soon
as I'm able. (If you want to get that, make sure I've got your number!).
If you want to follow what's going on in more detail, I suggest you
follow my twitter stream. You can either got to twitter.com and sign up
there for an account. At the top you can search for "morydd" and then
select "follow" below my avatar. You'll then have to set it up to update
to your phone (or you can just view them on the website). Or you can
text "follow morydd" to 40404. You'll then get a confirmation request to
respond with your name. You can use whatever you'd like to be your
twitter account name.

I'll send an email with full details at some point that evening, and
pictures will follow. We won't have web access in the room (I think) so
updates will probably only happen once or twice a day at most, and cell
phones aren't supposed to be used in the hospital. We'll have to use a
phone card to make calls out, so we'll send the room's phone number once
we have that too. Feel free to pass this information on to others who
may want to keep up to date.

2 more days!

So, we've got some cleaning and such we want to do this weekend, so we're declaring it an open house. Come over and help us clean! Yep, we're taking advantage of our friends and family (if any of them are silly enough to show up) for free labor. If you'd like to come by on Saturday, Sunday or Monday and help throw a few loads of laundry around, rearrange some furniture, or other equally un-fun things, give us a call. We'll probably even feed you.

Oh, we'll probably do some actually fun stuff to like take Wii breaks. Or just sit and chat.

We had an appointment with the OB this morning. Everything is still normal. Nicole has been having some issues with sinus pressure and headaches, which resulted in a just-in-case visit to L&D. The medical people are all watching this like a hawk on meth, so while everything that happens gets us tense, we're lucky that we know that everything possible is being done to insure that this baby arrives healthy.

This afternoon we got a call from the OB saying that appointments have been set up for Wed. May 28th. We'll have the amnio at 7:30a and then (assuming that the lungs are ready) the c-section will be at 1:30p. In 3 weeks, the peanut will be here!

*

Sunday afternoon, our friends Chris & Steph threw a baby shower for us. It was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of people that we don't see nearly often enough. Nicole's mom was able to fly in for a few days, and my parents both drove up, along with other friends and relatives, all in all about 20 people were there. We played the "baby" game, in which each person is given a diaper pin, and if you hear someone say the word "baby" you get to take their pin. Matt and Sarah were the masters of this one. Like ninjas they were. We also had a crossword puzzle base on things about us and the baby. I offered to sell clues for a dollar each, but I only had one taker. We also had great food, a cake, prizes and some rousing games of bags (a Chicago tradition). Oh, plus gifts. But really, the gifts, while fun and useful, were minor compared to getting to spend time with all of our friends and family. Thanks to all of you who were able to make it. We will have to get together more often with you all (and those who weren't able to make it, we still want to catch up!)

Thank you all!

*note us unwrapping a Cubs outfit at the home of our die-hard Sox fan friends.

We had our first non-stress test yesterday. It's a test to check fetal response and, thereby, placental function. Basically, they hook up a heartbeat monitor and a contraction monitor, and give the mother a button (like on Jeopardy!). When the mother feels the baby move, she's supposed to push the button. What they're looking for is for the baby's heart rate to accellerate with the activity and then settle back down to the resting rate. This is to make sure the baby is active and responsive.

The nurse told us that what they look for is a resting heart rate between 120 and 160, and the rate to go up 15-20 bpm upon activity. When she turned the monitor on, the peanut showed a lovely 140. It was actually a bit early in the day for him, as he seems to generally have his first dance party around 9:30 and our appointment was at 8:30. We did get a couple of good readings. He would shift around, the heart rate would climb to 160ish and then settle back down. The nurse told us that the data was a textbook example of a positive reading. She also showed us a tool they use to stimulate the baby if he's sluggish early in the morning. It was an electronic voicebox, such as is used for people with damaged larynxes. It basically makes a somewhat loud buzzing noise. She said they'll put it on the belly and that usually will wake a sleeping baby. However when she pushed the button and made it buzz, she was a good 3-4 feet away rom Nicole and the Peanut apparently did not like it. He squirmed quite a bit and the heartrate went up to 170! (which, incidentally, is the exact tempo that I associate with the clicking of train wheels on the track). So, that was entertaining.

All good so far!

True, our definition of "busy week" is shortly to undergo a major shift, but this is the first week that baby-related things have gotten to be a major part of our day-to-day life. We had a checkup on Wednesday (all still normal). Then Thursday we had our first pre-natal Class. It was the first of two "Caring for Newborns" class. We also narrowed our list of names down to nine:

• Cadel
• Dean
• Dylan
• Ephraim
• Ethan
• Langston
• Liam
• Maxwell
• Rhys

For middle names we're thinking about Aiden, Thomas, Paul and Dean.
We probably won't give another update on names until we meet him, as we won't make a final decision until then.
Next week is even busier, as we have the first Non-Stress Test, another session of "Caring for Newborns", a meeting with the pediatrician, and a Breast Feeding class. Plus Nicole has a "regular" doctor appointment. Whew.

Hey, if you read this site, you probably want to know when the Peanut arrives. If you want to be on the e-mail list and/or phone tree, post a comment and let us know if you'd rather get an e-mail, phone call or text message. Don't post your e-mail address or phone number in your comment! If we don't already have that, we'll get in touch to get it. I'm sure you don't want spam or crank calls from the people who wander though the internet. Like my brother.