Newly Single

And by "newly single," of course I mean that I no longer violate the principle of physics stating that no two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time...

So, without further ado, DA DA DA DA!! Here she is! Our new little addition, Madeleine Macy Trainor. She weighed 7.4 pounds and was almost 21 inches long when she was born at 1:18am on the first day of November. This picture was taken on her second day outside the womb at the hospital.

For those of you that like to have all the details, I will indulge you with the story of her birth... For those of you that have already gotten all you came for, thanks for stopping by and we'll see you again soon :) Editor's note: the following entry is very long and spares no detail, no matter how tedious. Proceed at your own risk...

Here we are the day before we went to the hospital, as you can see, still very pregnant and dying for a decent night's sleep (which we have yet to get--maybe in another year or so). Because of some minor medical complications, our doctor had decided that she wasn't willing to wait for natural labor for any time after my due date. So, an induction was scheduled for Halloween at 8am. Me, Jason and my mom arrived at the hospital and they strapped on a fetal monitor for about 30 minutes, then administered prostoglandin to get the labor started. Then we were free to roam the grounds, needing only to check back every two hours to have a fetal monitoring for one hour. We went to the bistro, walked around, climbed all 11 flights of stairs in the hospital (this is rumoured to help labor along) and sat around reading. Although I was feeling contractions and they were becoming more regular as the day went on, they weren't increasing in intensity and unfortunately weren't productive contractions (on the plus side, they weren't painful at all, just like a tightening in my abdomen very similar to Braxton-Hicks contractions). At about 3pm, they administered a second dose of prostoglandin, and we pretty much repeated our morning. By about 7pm, it became clear that I wasn't going into labor that night. The staff informed us that I was to stay the night, and we would try again the next morning (and this process would be repeated indefinitely until we had a baby...) Jason took my mom home while I dozed (figuring I would need my energy later). [I'll pause here to insert a picture of me getting strapped into our friendly fetal monitor]. Jason rented a couple of movies for us to watch in the room. At about 9pm they strapped me into the fetal monitor for one last time that night, just for 30 minutes (they said). After the 30 minutes was up, they said they had to leave it on for another 30 minutes because of an anomoly in the fetal heartbeat reading. After that 30 minutes, they had me lie on my opposite side, saying that this anomoly would go away if I did that. After another 30 minutes, they told me just 30 more minutes and I could take the monitor off and go to sleep. After that time was up (this was about 11:30pm), the midwife informed us that we would be having a Cesarean section, that our doctor had been called, and the baby would most likely be out within about an hour. Needless to say, we were a bit surprised at this turn of events, and the language barrier prevented us from understanding exactly why a section was necessary at this point, only that there was something wrong with the fetal heartbeat reading (though they did go to great lengths to assure us that our baby was safe at this point). Our OB arrived about 10 minutes later and explained that, because of the aforementioned medical complication, my placenta was insufficient to safely bring our baby through labor. Basically, what was happening is every time my uterus contracted, the baby's heartbeat was dropping. And although it wasn't dropping enough to endanger her, the contractions I was having were extremely mild, and any increase in intensity would have caused her heartrate to drop further. She explained that although this was not an emergency situation, it was urgent and the c-section needed to be done right away before it progressed to an emergency situation. After this everything happened pretty quickly: they brought me a surgical gown to put on, inserted a catheter (my favorite part...), had us sign the release waivers and had me hop into a hospital bed before wheeling me to meet the anesthesiologist. He was a very nice man who explained all the risks of having a spinal block (including permanent paralysis, which I didn't realize was possible... I'm still not convinced that it is). Then they took Jason away to put on surgical scrubs while I was instructed to get into another "bed," this one an elevated blue block with brown extensions sticking out the end (one for each of my legs to go on), and a u-shaped pink pillow for my head. Then they wheeled me into the operating room and had me sit up in a little ball while the anesthesiologist administered a local anesthetic into my back (to numb the pain of the BIG needle that was to come). Then he asked me to sit very still, and it felt like he was poking and prodding at my spine with his fingers. I laid back down and in walked our OB. I told her what a relief it was to see half a familiar face (the other half, of course, obscured by her surgical mask). I was able to watch most of the prep for surgery, which was pretty neat. Over the next few minutes, my entire body from the ribs down went kind of warm, and then almost totally numb. I could still feel anything touch them, but it was a deadened kind of feeling, and I couldn't move anything. Then my arms were strapped down in an outstretched position and a blood pressure cuff was put on the arm that didn't have the IV in it. They raised a curtain in front of my head, and just when I began to fear that they were going to start operating without Jason, he walked in the room. What a relief that was! I could feel them rubbing something all over my abdomen, and after that all I could feel were nondescript tugging and pulling sensations. I just kept my focus on Jason's face and kept reminding myself that in just a few minutes I would be holding my baby girl, which made the discomfort much easier to bear. I heard our doctor say something about a shoulder, and then she exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! She looks just like Jason!" We heard a very short cry a few seconds later, and then they proceeded with the normal procedures that follow a section, and although this part only lasted a few minutes, we were both speechless with anticipation. Then they let Jason go to see her under the warming lamp, and he came back a second later with her all wrapped up in a pink towel and a space blanket. At long last, here was our little girl! We were absolutely overcome. She is absolutely the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen in my life. We were allowed to ooh and ahh over her while the OB finished stitching me up, and then Jason went back to change into street clothes while they wheeled me out and transferred me back to the hospital room.

still awaiting the stork

Okay, this isn't going to be very long, but we know it has been far too long since we have added anything new.

We still don't have a baby, but we are beginning to grow ever more impatient. These pictures are a demonstration of one of my favorite tricks: in the top pic, not pregnant! In the bottom pic, very pregnant!

These were actually taken 1 or 2 weeks ago, so if you can believe it, I'm actually bigger than that now.

We are pretty much finished making out final preparations as we move into the home stretch. Our crib arrived yesterday and is set up, and the nursery is pretty much complete (we will include a picture in our next blog, promise!)

Grandma Morse (wow, that's weird! I'm talking about my mom, for those of you that are as confused as I am...) is coming at the end of October to lend a hand with the new arrival and spend some bonding time with her (and of course with me and Jason).

From the number of people that have asked recently, I realize that we may have forgotten to include the answer to one very important question on this blog: it's a girl!! (unless our doctor is just messing with us, which I really hope isn't the case, otherwise we're going to need a good quantity of blue dye for all of the pink outfits and accessories we've managed to acquire...)

August Showers

Much to my surprise (well, there were several attempts to ruin it, but luckily for all I am generally totally clueless...) several friends got together and threw a baby shower for me the day after Jason's parents and niece arrived for their visit. Here I am on the way to the party (I was under the impression we were on our way to the grocery store to get BBQ supplies):

Several days later we were off on our last pre-baby adventure with J's family, first to Rome and then to Barcelona. There was way more to see than we ever could have crammed into seven days, but that didn't stop us from trying to see everything anyway.

Here we are nearing the top of the cupola on St. Peter's Basilica (271 steps down, only 322 to go!) On the way up we encountered several middle-age women that had had enough and were attempting to make their way (against traffic) back down the narrow winding staircase. When they saw that I was pregnant, they chimed in with "Oh, bless your heart!" and "She really shouldn't be up here." I was tempted to tell them that if an 8-months pregnant lady could make it to the top, then they certainly had no excuse, but I held my tongue!

Some of you may recognize this lovely lady--while in Barcelona we had the chance to see my old friend from high school, Elisenda!! She's currently working on her PhD in international law, and was married last September. It was so wonderful to see her after so many years (has it really been a decade?!) We had a great time catching up and she showed us some really cool spots in Barcelona (such as this cafe on a mountain overlooking the whole city--very nice!)

Here's a parting shot of Jason with his mom from on top of the cupola at St. Peter's.

The latest

Hi everybody (Dr. Nick voice), hope you all are doing well! Things here are moving right along as you can clearly see from the photos! Sadie is onto the third trimester and we are getting ready for the final leg of this short journey. The research I have done into pregnancy says: in the third trimester a woman can expect to see her appetite grow but Sadie has seemingly been satiated. I was shocked today when for breakfast all Sadie ate was a four-egg omelet with jalapenos, bacon, cheese and mushroom, a small (large) pancake, French toast, two bowls of fruit a croissant and a whole grain sesame roll ;) This may sound like a large meal but when you consider the fact that making a baby expends over 200 calories an hour a meal like this is merely a snack. Mom, Buzz and Rebecca will be here next month and we are getting excited for that! Paris/Rome/Barcelona should be a great time. I am excited to go back to Paris and equally excited to discover Rome and Barcelona. We will be sure to get some good pictures! Love to all of you and take care. Enjoy the latest set of photos : Sadie looking gorgeous (as usual), Jersey sleeping (as usual) and Ziggy looking rather regal (as usual)

Okay, so after a long, long, loooooooong absence, we are back on the radar. It's been a couple of months since we've had the opportunity to post here, so I'll reward your patience with lots of photos. First, here's the most recent belly shot:

We're just shy of 23 weeks (for those of you "normal" people that still count time in months, that's about 5 and 1/2 months), and the big news from our last visit is: we found out we're having a little girl! Not that a boy would be any less exciting, but it's nice to know which it is; we both like being able to call it "she," "her" etc. instead of the generic (not to mention slightly distasteful) "it."

I went to Japan in late May to visit my brother Tristan and his wife Shizuka, and (most notably) their new little tyke Enzo! He turned two months old while I was visiting and is possibly the cuuuuutest baby I have ever seen! Here's a picture so you don't have to take my word for it:

You can follow their adventures into parenthood here. For those of you that are into that whole instant gratification thing, they are much more punctual about updating their blog than yours truly. Here's the three of them on a little walk around the neighborhood:

The more observant among you may have noticed that I no longer have long blond locks cascading down the length of my back... I finally grew enough hair to send to a wonderful organization called Locks of Love; any of you out there, who, like me once, have more hair than you know what to do with, now you know what to do with it :)

Well, with all things being equal, and a picture being equal to a thousand words, here's several thousand words for you to ponder:

These are from a little walk we took on the farmlands near our house the other day. The weather has been rainy and miserable for the last month, but it's never enough to keep us indoors during the summer months!

First Portrait

As you can see, I am starting to get a little bulge that looks more like a burgeoning baby than that I just ate too much ice cream. I still just feel more chubby than anything, though.

After several weeks of coming home from work only to put in several more hours of work on the travel book I've been writing for Heidelberg, I finally finished! To celebrate Jason and I left early the next morning for an impromptu drive to Gay Paree. Such fun! We did it up right, escargots and tours of both Marie Antoinette's lavish digs and the cold, dank cell where she spent the last two months of her life before being publicly beheaded (ouch!). And I finally got back to the Louvre, which lives up to it's reputation as one of the finest art museums on the planet.

After we returned, we had our first appointment with the Obstetrician, and guess who we got to see for the first time:

I know, s/he is not much to look at yet, but just wait--this baby is genetically blessed... Seriously, though, I'll be psyched if it gets Jason's curls (or my mom's, or Jason's mom's or somebody's! I need someone else to live through vicariously...) Looks like s/he's inherited Jason's ability to just relax and take it easy.

Don't get excited, this one isn't ours... We still have about 6 more months to go (six looooong months without caffeine, I might add :)

This is Enzo, my brand new nephew born to my brother Tristan and his wife Shizuka on April 2. He's sooooo cute!! I'm going to visit at the end of May, and I just can't wait to meet the little guy!

Thanks so much to everyone that sent their well-wishes and congratulations. I'm sorry not to have been able to respond to most of you individually--I was nursing a nasty cold last week (only my second week at my new job!) and have been playing catch-up ever since. I am feeling much better now, and although I finally started to feel a little nauseous now and then, that seems to have passed (whew!)

We'll post our first ultrasound pics as soon as we get them, probably sometime in the next two weeks. There's a small chance we'll find out whether it's a boy or a girl then, but that probably won't happen for a while yet.