1 year birthday

Today, Annika is one year old!!! It's a bright, sunny, spring day.

A year ago, I was still being monitored. I had talked the nurses into allowing me to eat something, and around 7am, I had a veggie and hummous sandwich - really, I didn't care at that point. I just wanted to eat anything. We were told that we would be discharged at noon so we were waiting, waiting, waiting ... I had to go to Immigration the next day for an interview, and called my office to say that I would be in the next day, and asked someone to prep the client for me. I called my mom and said that we'd be leaving the hospital soon.

But we were getting mixed signals from the hospital. The nurses seemed to think we were leaving at noon. However, whenever a doctor would come in to check on me, he/she seemed concerned about the pattern in which Annie's heart rate would drop whenever I had a contraction. I wasn't sure what this meant. Would I have to sit and be monitored forever? What about my hungry stomach?

At 10:30, all doubts about my staying at the hospital were dispelled. I was sitting in bed, talking to Jim, when Annie's heart rate number literally dropped in half. I wasn't sure I was understanding the number correctly, so I put on my call light and asked the nurse to come in. The next thing I knew, the room was filled with doctors and nurses. There was a anesthesiologist looking down my throat to see if he could put a tube in. They put me on my side and put an oxygen mask over my mouth. Annie's heart rate came back up, but I knew that I would not be leaving the hospital any time soon.

Over the next hour, the doctors tried to figure out what to do with me. For a while, they considered making me stay long-term for monitoring. They spoke with a senior doctor who said that, given that I was at 35 weeks and the baby would probably be a good size and would survive, it was time to deliver the baby, and the delivery would have to be by C section because Annie was not tolerating the contractions. The risk of leaving her inside, without knowing why her heart rate was dropping, and without knowing the status of the placenta, was too much. They told us their decision, and we agreed, pretty shell-shocked. We spoke with the NICU to find out how difficult this was going to be for Annie. It sounded like there could be complications, but she would probably be OK.

They gave Jim scrubs, prepared me for surgery, and wheeled me into the operating room about 20 minutes after they told us that they had to deliver the baby. That's how fast it was. Annie was born at 1:26pm:

Annie spent the next 2 weeks at the hospital, but she recovered relatively quickly. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Here's the birthday girl (and her daddy) today:

Happy birthday to our big girl!

Birthday prep

For Annie's birthday, I asked all the relatives to bring a photo of themselves when they were 1 year old (or so). The hope is that I can then scan all the photos and put them in Annie's "first year" photo book. I also want to add copies of them to this poster, while we'll use as a decoration at the party on Saturday:

I'm lucky enough to already have a lot of photos from my side of the family. Of course, a couple of the older photos are not necessarily of 1-year-olds .... I believe my grandma and Aunt Betty were probably 2 or 3 in those photos, and my dad and Grandma Betty were slightly younger than 1 year in their photos (I think they were both 10 months). But close enough. You do with what you can get.

I'm not a very creative person and the birthday party will probably not get Martha Stewart's approval, either for decorations, fun little games, or food. But this piece will be a little different than most first birthday parties, I think, so who cares what Martha Stewart thinks! :)

One year ago...

One year ago, at lunchtime, began Annika's birth story. It's amazing how much can happen in 1 year. So let's see, a year ago this morning, Jim and I went to look at a day care in Marina Bay. Then Jim dropped me off at work. I was supposed to have a hearing at 3:30, the end of a very long, contentious asylum case. This hearing was the last one I accepted before my maternity leave - I had decided that April 15 would be the cut-off day. I would request a continuance for any hearing beyond that date.

I worked through the morning, and then stepped out to pick up a sandwich at my favorite sandwich shop, Cosi. They have one sandwich there that literally got me through my first trimester - it was one of the only things I could stomach. I was supposed to meet with my boss after lunch to discuss my maternity leave. Since I had announced my pregnancy, my boss had been telling me that they didn't know if they would be able to take me back after my maternity leave, but would try to keep me around until I had the baby. So this would've been an interesting discussion. I was not expecting Annie for another 5 weeks. My baby shower had been 1 week before, and gifts were strewn all over the room that would become Annie's room. Jim was putting the finishing touches on the cradle.

Coming back from lunch, I was crossing the street and a car was coming. The car stopped to let me pass, and as I stepped off the curb, somehow I lost my balance and fell into the street, right on my stomach. I stood up, brushed myself off, and realized that pregnant women aren't supposed to fall like that. In fact, I had been terrified of falling all winter, and had bought special clamps to attach to my winter boots, so I wouldn't slip on the ice. The gravity of the situation sort of came to me in slow-motion. I walked back to my office and called Jim, and then I called the doctor and they told me to come in right away for monitoring. I asked my boss to cover my hearing, and then I took the T to the hospital - it was two stops from where I worked. I still had my lunch in hand. I figured I could eat it at the hospital. I was wrong about that.

The monitoring that was supposed to only last 4 hours extended to 8 hours, then 12 hours. I was having contractions (although I couldn't feel them). Each time I was nearing the end of the monitoring period, Annie's heart rate would drop dramatically. The doctors also began to notice a pattern in which Annie's heart rate would drop during a contraction. They didn't know what was going on. They decided to admit me and have me spend the night. Here's a photo of Jim I took at the hospital, as I was being monitored:

It's so obvious from this photo that we had no idea that we would become parents the next day!

And that is what happened a year ago today. Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of the story!

Coming back to the present, I've been sick this week, fighting a throat infection that has had a variety of uncomfortable symptoms. I started the antibiotics yesterday. I hope I'll be feeling somewhat like myself again by tomorrow, so that I can celebrate Annika's birthday. I'm really tired of lying on the couch, but there's not much else I can do. I'm glad we decided to keep a couch in our porch - it's so nice out there in the afternoon, with the sun and the sounds of the neighborhood all around. It's the perfect place for a cat nap, especially if a cat joins me for the nap! Let's hope for good weather and good health this week.

Freyda Siegel's tips for living a long life well.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/needham/2009/08/freydas_18_tips_for_living_a_l.html

It's not as easy as it sounds.

Fly Me Away

Lately, Jim and I have been addicted to this song:



It's "Fly Me Away" by Annie Little, and currently is the music for the commercial for the Kindle. We also like the commercial, but the song is very catchy.

It's party time

Let the celebrations begin.

The magnolias and daffodils are in bloom and there are tiny leaves on the trees. It must be almost time for Annika's birthday! (I remember coming home from the hospital and feeling like spring had suddenly arrived while I had been in! Everything was suddenly in bloom and it was amazing). We have 1 birthday party per weekend for the next 3 weekends. How cool is that? Tomorrow, we are going to Dedham for a birthday celebration for all the babies in the second new moms' group that I joined (and the one in which I'm still in touch with all the moms and babies). Imagine a birthday party for 10 babies, all turning 1! That will be tomorrow.

Next Saturday is Annika's actual birthday party. We invited some family, all the neighbors, and some other friends. I believe there will be 11 kids coming to the party, not counting Annika. Should be interesting. :) Hopefully the weather will be nice.

And lastly, we will have a party the following weekend for all the babies in the first new moms' group that I joined - back when Annie was only 5 weeks old! I haven't seen most of these people since last summer, so it'll be interesting to see how everyone turned out. It seemed like in that class, all the babies were a lot bigger and more advanced than Annie.

Birthday season is going to be exhausting, I think.  We'll want to do this:

But mostly, it'll be fun.

Weekend

What an amazing weekend. The weather was out of this world. Sunny, blue skies and 80 degrees both Saturday and Sunday. It is amazing how more hopeful about life and the world I am when the weather is nice. Yesterday, we got a ton of things accomplished. The house is actually somewhat organized. All of my cold weather seeds are in the ground (radishes, peas, and 4 kinds of lettuce). I have gained control of the laundry situation again.

Today we relaxed. Annie took a monster 3-hour nap this afternoon - I kept checking on her to make sure she was still breathing. I took a nice nap too. :) We also prepared what turned out to be a pretty nice, if unconventional, Easter meal. We had shish kabobs - Jim cooked lamb for himself, and I marinated portabello mushrooms for me and our friends, who call themselves "flexi-tarians" (but generally do not eat meat). We also had tossed salad, grilled flatbread with hummous, and our friends brought a grapefruit tort type thing, that was quite yummy. We ate in our backyard. No kidding. On Easter!

The weather is supposed to be warm all week. I'm sad that the weekend is over, but glad that it's spring and we have lots more to look forward to.