A Lady In Waiting

(By the way, I borrowed the title of this post from a terrific book. I would encourage any woman, unmarried, to look it up.)

So, It's been nearly a week since I started dilating and we are still waiting for Baby Jordyn to make her debut. I have decided that she's probably alot like me - independent, a little stubborn, and enjoys warm places. Wait...that describes Jay too...plus throw in his inability to manage time and enjoyment of moving at his own pace.

I have also decided that all the wivestales about the secrets that can speed up the birth are not all that true. Example: the full moon. It came and it went. No baby.

Drinking orange juice. Drank a whole gallon. No baby.

Walking up and down steps. Do it every day. No baby.

Sitting in a hot bath. Did it....and really enjoyed it. No baby.

Sex. No comment. No baby.

The barometric pressure changing in the atmosphere....I guess we'll find out tomorrow when this thunder storm moves through the area.

I have also decided that Jesus has the appointed time and will tell Jordyn when to "go." I am still amazed at all the signs the body gives off that signal the time is getting closer. Dilating. The human body starts creating an opening that allows baby to enter the world....and just happens to be the right size opening. Wow! The baby dropping. In perfect timing, the baby sinks into the pelvic area and hangs out until pushed through the birth canal. Wow! I will spare all the other details since this is a somewhat public blog and I am a modest person. All of it...even the gross things...are blowing my mind every single day!

How can one deny that we are created by a God so big and so amazing? How can one deny that God has his hand in every detail of our existence? Never mind the fact that there is a little girl in my abdomen who has been formed by two single cells. Two hundred plus days later, those same two cells have developed into a 5 pound human being who will come out ready to breathe, eat, poop, and maintains her own body temperature. Just freakin' awesome!

Ok, so anyway, still waiting. The next doc visit is March 2, which happens to be the due date. I'll update then...or type out the story of the whole event. I'm sure it will end up being comical since Jay will be heavily involved. He keeps me laughing and I have decided that my water will probably break while cracking up at a joke or comment he makes. Stay tuned...

And We Wait...

I'm not sure how long we will be waiting, but I'm growing more anxious and more excited as the time draws near. I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday and found out that I have dilated 2cm and Dr. Mitchell could feel her head. Holy Cow!
When I went to this appointment, I figured it would be the normal routine - pee in a cup, check my weight and blood pressure, ask me if I have any pains, measure my belly and listen to the heartbeat. When she asks me to undress from the waist down so she could check my cervix, I thought "sure thing, but I'm not having any contractions and my due date is still 2 weeks away. Do whatever you need to do there Doc." So, needless to say, I totally did not expect to find out that my body has started the process and I'm considered in "early labor."  I know I'm completely new at this. I know I have no clue about how my life is about to change forever and how I'm about to go through the ride of my life. I hear it all the time. For me to learn that my birth story is closer to unfolding was so exciting! I had the same joy and excitement as when Jay and I went to the first appointment on July 15, 2010 and saw her tiny little pea body for the first time. I had the same joy on Thursday as when we saw her little face on October 7, 2010 and learned that this baby was a baby girl.

I think for Jay it was a slightly different feeling. He was working somewhere in Taylors, SC looking for a fine young man or woman. You know, those outstanding citizens in our community that he chases around each day? Anyway, when I called him, I forgot to take into account that he was driving and snacking on something. I told him that I was 2cm dilated and he nearly wrecked...and vomited. I wish I could have read his mind to know all those thoughts that raced through in that first 30 seconds of hearing that kind of news. Ha! I can only imagine! We hung up, but not until after I gave him all the details of the appointment. That's how Jay rolls. He always wants to know my blood pressure, my weight, and every word the doctor said. He's not always able to make the appointments...and there's really no need for him to attend to most of them. So he plays 20 Questions with me until he's got all the info.
We  hung up and Jay proceeded to call me every 30-45 minutes for the next 4 hours. I guess he was checking to see if I had given birth yet. Maybe he was slowly coming to grips with the fact that his daughter might be arriving sooner than he expected. He kept asking me if I had dilated anymore, like I can see inside my body or do a self-check to know.

When we both got home that evening, he kept looking at me like I was an alien; like I had three heads. He was pretty standoffish. He probably thought that if he touched me, he would cause the birth to happen. He acted this same way when we found out we were pregnant. He kind of walked around in a zombie state-of-mind and didn't really have much to do with me for a day or so. He was in shock, and I knew that. I was too. He thought something similar then... that if he touched me, another baby might suddenly form in my womb. (Would he really black out and forget what we had to do....TOGETHER....in order to make this child?!).

It was a similar state-of-mind on Thursday evening. I finally told him, "Um, no Babe, I'm still the same woman who kissed you goodbye earlier this morning and my body is still the same body you hugged earlier this morning."

So here we are....2 days later and waiting. I could be sitting here next Saturday morning still waiting and still at 2cm. Or, I could be sitting here next Saturday morning telling you the rest of my birth story and how eventful the week has been. Only Jesus knows the exact time and day of her birth and for that I am so thankful. He is in complete control of our daily lives and holds all of our details in His hands. Whewww....

New Daddy Humor

1) This conversation happened tonight:
Me: Jay, look at all these onesies we have. You reckon we'll be alright for a while?
Jay: Yeah, until she turns 2, then I guess we have to get rid of 'em and make room for twosies.
And he was dead serious. I laughed about this for the next hour. Bless him.

2) We got our stroller/car seat system this weekend - thanks to all my wonderful college roomies! We were installing the car seat base in my car tonight each of us hanging out either side of my back seat car doors. I was reading the directions from the car manual and from the carseat manual trying to figure out how this thing works. We get it all strapped in and put the car seat into the base. We took a moment to relish in our accomplishment. Jay then tries to get the carseat out of the base...for the next five minutes. Thanks to my friend Jamie, who gave me a quick tour of the carseat on Saturday, I remembered that you have to pull out this red plastic handle at the head of the seat. I didn't tell him that and just enjoyed the humor...for a little while anyway.
By the way, we are having it inspected tomorrow morning by an expert with the hospital to make sure it's installed correctly. We certainly don't want Jordyn to go flying around the backseat while driving her home for the first time.

3) Another friend of ours, Heather, is a nurse and gave us one of those ear thermometer and some fever medicine as a shower gift. It had been lying on our kitchen table for the past day or so waiting on me to decide where to put it, along with the other "healthcare" stuff. I look over and catch Jay playing around with it...and then he puts the tip of the thermometer in his ear checking his own temperature. Hehe...

*Sigh*...I love my life.

Childbirth 101

There's no way anybody could prepare us to experience something as radical as childbirth, parenting, and caring for this human that will completely trust and depend on us. However, we certainly signed up for a class that we thought might help. We are hungry for the information and anxious about the experience. So, starting back on January 18, we entered a classroom of about 15 couples and began our first childbirth class. It was nothing like I thought it would be. I pictured us sitting around on pillows or mats, legs crossed, eyes closed, breathing strange patterns and listening to whales make love over the speakers. Nope. It was a normal classroom setting, full of tables and chairs all lined up conference style. We watched videos and slide shows on the big screen and we aimed to get on the back row every week, only to fail every week. We actually sat on the front row most of the time.
If you know us, you know that Jay is probably one of the funniest guys you'll ever meet. Combine that with me, who laughs so easily and often uncontrollably. Combine both of those with the two of us on the front row of this class, watching videos of births and talking about mucus plugs. DANGER.

The video did not contain healthy-looking people. It also did not contain anybody from the current generation. It had a very large woman and her very large husband - naked, pregnant, and doing everything she can to alleviate the pains of labor. She moaned, she squatted in strange positions, she stood in the shower saying things like "oh yes, rock and roll." These people must have been every bit of 300 pounds and dressed from the early 1990's. She had a boy hair cut, RPGs (Rape Prevention Glasses - Jay's term for the type of glasses the guys in the military must wear - the brown, square frames), and we saw more of her unclothed body than we desired to see. Her husband was this quiet, soft-spoken 300 pound man who narrated the entire movie. It could have been worse, I suppose. The husband could have been a 50 pound redneck from a trailer park wearing his belt buckle and boots. Nah.
Anyway, we were watching this movie and Jay was trying his hardest to avoid seeing this lady's vagina, but his efforts failed. He looked up from his word search just in time to see a nice glance at her expanding not-so-private parts. All of a sudden he turns his head towards me and says "Oh shit, I just saw it." I laughed quietly at first, but that slowly became a chuckle, tears flowing and shoulders bouncing. Mind you, we were on the FRONT FLIPPIN' ROW. Thanks Jay.
Thankfully, we had no more of those movies to endure and we continued on to class the next two weeks to learn about relaxation techniques. We did sit on the floor these weeks, while the instructor (who was great, really) led us through guided imagery. She's talking about walking along beaches, sand between your toes, waves crashing in the background, and seagulls squealing. Again, Jay says in my ear "Where's Chloe! Where's Chloe!"

 Let me explain. Several years ago we went to the beach with 3 other couples and their kids. One of the couples, Bill and Crystal, had two daughters at the time - Gracie and Chloe. Chloe was a baby - crawling age. We were all playing around on the sand, in the ocean and having a good time...until we realized that Chloe was no longer asleep on her towel. Crystal jumps up and yells to Bill, who's splashing around in the ocean with Gracie "Bill, where's Chloe?" Bill turns to her, not hearing anything, and keeps splashing around, waves and makes this goofy grin. Again, Crystal yells "Where's (pause) Chloe?!" We later found Chloe on the sand dunes behind our set-up and all was well. Looking back, it's one of those funny moments that wasn't nearly so funny at the time. If you know Bill and Crystal, you know why this is probably funnier than it sounds.

So, back to the floor. Jay whispers this in my ear during this quiet, peaceful moment in class with a couple sitting on either side of us....inches away. Again, I get tickled and start crying. The next week, he did this again. We were on the floor - leaning into each other - and Jay starts making comments about body parts. Our exercise this time was tensing and relaxing the muscle groups in our body. He's behind me talking about his toes, his butt, his abs, and holding in gas. I had to honestly pretend to be mad at him or I would have been disrespectful to the instructor by my laughing. I could feel myself almost erupting in laughter.

Along this month-long journey, we met some cool folks and enjoyed getting to know other couples who are going through the same thing we are, at the same time. Jay made a friend, Brandon, who loves Tennessee football as much as he does (well - no, not nearly as much, but they sure talked about it alot). We also met a couple from our church that we had met 5 years ago at a financial planning class. Small world huh?
In the class, as there is in every community classroom, were also some oddballs  - like the girl who has experienced every sign and symptom possible and let the whole class know. There was also the two single moms-to-be, the Hispanic couple, and the obese couple. There was the girl who is a school teacher and apparently reads lots of studies about education-related stuff. She felt the need to compare all the material to some study she had read somewhere sometime. She also seemed to critique the guest speaker we had tonight. Negative Nancy, as I like to call her. Not a very positive person - or at least not that I ever saw. There were the Know-It-Alls and the all-star pupils who strived to answer every question, every time.

I would not trade taking this class for nothing and it was more than worth the $65 we paid to enter it. I learned ALOT about birth, interventions, and how to care for a child when all the labor and delivery is done. The night that made me most thankful was tonight when a Pediatrician came and spoke with us about various newborn issues - fevers, rashes, hospital tests, caring for girls/boys, and shaping the baby's head. She was excellent and covered great materials! She was also down-to-earth and seems compassionate about her patients. She may turn into our Pediatrican in the near future. I thanked her for the information that while it was scary, it was informative and good stuff to know. Otherwise, I think Jay might have flipped out at the birth since he apparently didn't know the head comes out looking like a cone. He's all about shaping the head and took intense notes on ways to prevent any permanent damage.

As of today, we have 21 days left until our due date. Maybe we will get through this a little smarter than we would have 4 weeks ago. I'm looking forward to it and think this ride will be awesome!