Sadness

This just makes me so sad and want to do this:

Announcing Zoe Elizabeth

I have the wonderful pleasure of announcing the birth of my beautiful niece, Zoe Elizabeth. She was born today, 8.29, at 9:22AM CST at St. Johns Hospital and weighed a wonderful weight of 8.0 lbs. Below are pictures less than 1 hour after she was born. Mom and baby are doing very, very well. =) Isn't she beautiful?!

Zoe looking up at her Grandma.



Proud Grandparents! My Dad didn't even want to look at the camera! He just wanted to look at his new grandaughter!

Diapers

I don't know if it is a sign of things to come or just a random conversation but Jim and I had a lengthy conversation about which diapers to get for Elizabeth. You see - we are trying to stock up on things we need we'll need prior to her arrival so it isn't necessary for us to be running around like chickens with our heads chopped off. I know there are lots of types of diapers but we haven't gotten a clue which one to use! I hear pros and cons to both. So, please send me any advice. That's right - I am asking for advice. =) We're going for disposable versus cloth so any recommendations you have - just send them to me or Jim. We would greatly appreciate it!!

False Alarms

For some reason today I am getting very bad pains. I have had them in the past but usually only a couple over the course of 2 hours. Today, however, has been a different story. I had some this morning and then 3 or 4 this evening over the course of 2 hours. We're supposed to call if there are 4-6 contractions within an hour to call the doctor. I only had 2 each hour for 2 hours and then poof! They disappeared! I just need her to cook 3 more weeks and then she'll be full term. Then I won't fret as much over these odd occurrences.

Car Seats

Car seats scare me. They are a bunch of plastic put together and I have to trust it to keep my baby safe. And after the 'fun' I had just driving today, I have discovered that it isn't the car seat the scares me. It is the other drivers on the road. With all of the construction on the road, no one seems to know what a lane is. In any case, Jim made an appointment to get the car seats installed in our cars. We chose the Kirkwood Fire Department to do the installation and I have to admit, I was a little nervous. From what I understand certain people take training to become certified in installing car seats at the fire stations. My sister got her car seats installed at a fire station and they did a fine job with it. The only problem I had was that they wouldn't explain why they wouldn't put the seat in the middle of the back seat - which is the safest place in the car. So I was determined to fight to get mine installed there. I read the manual of the car and it said the car seat could be placed there w/o any problems and I knew I had something called a 'latch system' or something in my car. I felt semi prepared. Well, it turns out that I didn't have anything to worry about. The woman that installed the seat at the Kirkwood Fire House did an excellent job and answered all of my questions. She was so incredibly helpful considering she was super busy and squeezed us in. So thank you Kirkwood Fire Department!!!

P.S. The reason why the car seat cannot be placed in the middle back seat of a 2002 Honda CRV is because the arm rest does not latch and can make the car seat unstable. So there we go. =)

Baby Straight Jacket

I'm sure I will love the swaddler stuff for the baby...but for right now. All I can see is how funny it looks and the fact that it is basically a 'cute' straight jacket for a baby. Maybe it is just the baby in this hat in this picture...I dunno. But it cracks me up.

Lamaze Class #5 – Missing in Action

So Jim and I did not attend the latest Lamaze Class. We made every effort – trust me. Between me having a horrible cold for 5 days and Jim having a horrible day at work…we got in the car and then got in a bad, bad, bad traffic jam on the way and after about 20 minutes of getting stuck in one mile of road (and still being 15 minutes away from the class), we decided just to head home. We would have been about 30 minutes late to the class and I would have spent the entire time coughing – just like I did in the car (poor Jim!). But, I had called the lady leading the class ahead of time to find out the topics and since we had the books, we taught ourselves last night.

• Child Illnesses and medicine to keep on hand
• Some common medicines that should be kept in the medicine cabinet are:
• Thermometer - digital
• Tylenol "infant drops"
• Rubber Nasal Aspirator - Bulb Syringe
• Diaper Ointment - ex A&D Ointment
• Nail Scissors, Nail Clippers, or Emory Board
• 70% Rubbing Alcohol
• Cotton Ball or Cotton Swabs - Cord Care
• Pedialite or electrolyte solution - ask physician
• Medicine Spoon or Dropper for Measuring Medicine
• Saline Nasal Drops
  
• Inductions
• There are several reasons to induce labor:
• the mother and/or fetus are at risk
• the pregnancy has continued too far past the due date
• the mother has preeclampsia, eclampsia, or chronic hypertension
• diagnosis of poor growth of the fetus
• C-sections
• I am going to get more information on this next week when I go early to the class so I will post more then.
  
• Positions in labor
• I will also get more on this after I go to class early to make up what we missed.
  
• Epidural
• I am very sad to miss this discussion and video. Mostly because if I want to have one of these wonderful shots, I have to watch the video ahead of time. I plan on watching it next week or making it up somehow with the leader of the class.

Next week is the last class...I'll post anything extra I learn there on here next week.

Call Center Funnies

My Aunt Rita just sent me these and I have to say I really enjoyed this. So instead of forwarding them via email, I am just going to post them here. They are call center conversations. Enjoy!

1. Customer: "I've been calling 700-1000 for two days and can't get through; can you help?"
   Operator: "Where did you get that number, sir?"
   Customer: "It's on the door of your business."
   Operator: "Sir, those are the hours that we are open."
2. Samsung Electronics
   Caller: "Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?"
   Operator: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about."
   Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack? "
   Operator: "I think it means the telephone plug on the wall."
3. RAC Motoring Services
   Caller: "Does your European Breakdown Policy cover me when I am traveling in Australia ?"
   Operator: "Does the product name give you a clue?"
4. Caller (enquiring about legal requirements while traveling in Europe) "If I register my car in France, and then take it to England, do I have to change the steering wheel to the other side of the car?"
   No words.....
5. Directory Enquiries
   Caller: "I'd like the number of the Argo Fish Bar, please"
   Operator: "I'm sorry, there's no listing. Are you sure that the spelling is correct?"
   Caller: "Well, it used to be called the Bargo Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off the sign."
6. Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven.
   Operator: "Woven? Are you sure ?"
   Caller: "Yes. That's what it says on the label, Woven in Scotland ."
7. On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: "I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on."
8. Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop."
   Customer: "OK."
   Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
   Customer: "No."
   Tech Support: "OK. Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
   Customer: "No."
   Tech Support: "OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"
   Customer: "Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'."
9. Tech Support: "OK. At the bottom left hand side of your screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?"
   Customer: "Wow! How can you see my screen from there?"
10. Caller: "I deleted a file from my PC last week and I just realized that I need it. So, if I turn my system clock back two weeks will I get my file back again?"
    Again... No Words...

Week 32

I haven't done a week in review in awhile so I thought I would mix it up and write one this week. A lot happened during this week, some good and some not so good.

Tuesday was lamaze class. While I was hopeful of the class would be good and informative because we were learning how to bathe the baby and also get a tour of the hospital, it did not turn out to be as great as I thought. I learned a little bit about bathing the baby. Some of the basics noted below:

• Use a wash cloth or a cotton ball first to wash one eye from tear duct to the outside of the eye. Use another corner of the wash cloth or another cotton ball to wash the other eye.
• The second thing to wash is the ears but you are not to stick anything in the ear that is bigger than your pinky finger. So that means no q-tips.
• Next she suggested washing the other parts of the baby (minus the bottom) using a wash cloth.
• Finally when you are done washing the back, head, feet, etc, it is time to wash the baby's bottom and girl/boy parts.

The best thing to note is you are just to sponge bathe the baby until they are able to hold their head up and then you can place the baby in a baby tub. She also said to keep the baby wrapped in a towel as much as possible as they will get cold. That (apparently) is why hooded towels are so great. =)

So next up was the tour of the hospital. I was very excited about this but all it ended up doing was making me very, very scared. Seeing the room and the environment where Elizabeth will be born made it all too real. It didn't help that we had more videos to welcome us back to our normal class. They were a bit disturbing and then we had the 'pleasure' of talking about women ripping during delivery. I won't go into detail and I know there is no good way to approach the topics....but still. Honestly, by this point, I am now somewhat immune to watching/hearing about this stuff. I think that is the main goal of the class to show you so much stuff that it won't even affect you anymore.

Erin had her doctor's appointment on Tuesday and found she is progressing even more. It really could be any day now for her little one to come. We are very excited!

That was Tuesday and then came Wednesday. We had our doctor's appointment on Wednesday and while the baby is doing fantastic, momma is not doing so hot. My blood pressure was very high and the nurse was very alarmed by it. Sadly, I was not shocked by this but was trying to do the best I could to keep myself calm. In any case, the awful words 'bed rest' came up but I fought it - only because I want to try to get it down and my blood pressure went down a little (I stress little bit) while at the office. So to try to get it down the doctor ordered me to not work more than 8 hours per day / 40 hours total per week. For those of you that know me and know my job, that is really hard to do...but I am determined to make this work. I do not want to on bed rest. But I stress again that the baby is doing great and her heartbeat was wonderful. We have our next appointment on the 29th. So, we'll know more whether this relaxing and not working as much is working by lowering my blood pressure. That will also be our last every 2 week appointment and then we go to weekly. I'm very excited about this because that is when we start to see if I am progressing and have a better judge on when Miss Elizabeth will be joining this world.

Needless to say going out on Tues and Wed really wore me down so unfortunately I woke up sick on Thursday. It was just a mild sore throat so I wasn't concerned and took a quick nap before joining some friends for dinner. Naps are truly wonderful things that I never realized were so important until now. On Friday I woke up early to work and unfortunately could barely talk. It progressively got worse as the day went on and I actually took the day off from work in order to take care of myself. I ended up taking a 3-4 hour nap and just relaxed. By Saturday, my throat no longer hurt but I still sounded like a frog because the cold had taken over my sinuses. Sadly I haven't gotten any better the last 2 days but I am hoping to magically wake up tomorrow and feel better.

That summarizes the week. Next week I hope to have news about my sister's baby. So stay tuned!

Nursery Progress

With really only (officially) 8 weeks to go, I have been bugging poor Jim to help me finish the nursery. So today we worked on hanging some items and got everything except for the toy hammock put up and away. We didn't get to that because I messed up and threw away the directions. Who would have ever thought that a toy hammock could be oh so confusing! In any case here are some pictures. =)

Lamaze/Infant Care Class: Class 3

So we had our 3rd Lamaze and Infant Care class on Tuesday. It is half over and I can't say that I am saddened by this. This week we talked about a lot of interesting things so I enjoyed the class more than last week but they did show us the big 'birthing video' that I have heard so much about. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought and sadly, I cried through it. Not because I thought, "Oh my goodness, this is going to hurt" but that is how I am going to get to meet our little girl. Mushy - I know. But hey, I am almost 8 months pregnant so give me some credit. =)

Topics for the evening:

• Feeding
• We got to watch a video about breastfeeding. It was actually really awesome and didn't make it look hard. From my friends, I have learned this can be an easy or a hard processing.
  
• The next thing we talked about was formula. The lady leading the class pretty much said that our pediatricians will help us pick something out but we should think of them like soda. They may taste slightly different to all of us or they may not. The only difference is if the baby has allergies to what is in the formula. There are different kinds:
• Ready to Feed - you basically heat it room temperature and then feed the baby with it. You have a limited amount of time to use the container of formula. Cost: Very expensive.
• Concentrated - It requires you adding water, stir, and then heat to room temperature. It also expires like Ready to Feed. Cost: Less expensive than Ready to Feed.
  
• Powered - Scoop out desired amount (scoop included), add water, and then heat to room temperature. This container of powder usually lasts about a month. Cost: Least expensive option but is also the most work.

• We also talked about warming a bottle and how it isn't really, truly necessary. She said the baby gets used to whatever we start them off with and at the hospital the bottles (if that is what is given) are not just stored in a cabinet so they could be above room temperature since it is usually cold there.
• Bottles: There are a TON of different kinds of bottles and different nipples to use with each bottle. Basically our teacher's advice is to pick ones that we like and then the baby will adapt. If the baby gets gassy, we might want to switch to a bottle reduces that (i.e., Dr Brown)....but for now, get whatever we want as long as they are all the same kind. She said that if we get different kinds, the baby isn't going to be able to learn how to drink from it and will get confused.
• Pacifiers: While this isn't part of feeding, we covered it during this topic. Mostly because she recommended whatever kind of bottle/nipple we choose, if we wanted to use a pacifier to get the same kind of pacifier.
  

• Phases of Labor - We just went over what we covered during the previous class. I think they are just trying to prepare us.
  
• Lamaze Portion - This is my least favorite part of the class. They taught us to do short breaths (like blowing out a candle).
  
• Birthing Video - I don't think I need to elaborate. =)

It was a decent class...also, next week I am very excited. We get to learn about how to bathe a baby and also take a tour of the delivery/labor portion of the hospital. Very exciting!

It's all about Max

Max & The Stroller 006
Originally uploaded by Holly Mroczkowski.

Max has been pretty good about this whole pregnancy thing...with a few exceptions. We have to lock him out of the nursery because he likes to sleep in the crib. He also loved the stroller while it was upstairs. I caught him late one afternoon sleeping in it and I just had to take a picture of it. This cat hates change so please pray for us. =)

Lamaze/Infant Care: Class 2

Last night we had our 2nd Lamaze/Infant Care class. Our normal instructor was there and I am not sure how to react. It was 3 cram packed hours of information. Here was the agenda plus notes along with some of my commentary:

• Car Seats
• We talked about the importance of installing the car seats correctly. There are certain places in STL (fire stations mostly) that will install the car seats for you. This website will help you locate one.
  
• 5 point harnesses are very important to have.
• Actually, this website pretty much sums it up everything we talked about.
• Home Safety
• The only thing I can really think that surprised me was not to buy the little plastic outlet covers...they are a choking hazard. I did find a couple of websites that might be helpful. They are poorly created but they do have some good information:
• http://www.babyhomesafety.com
• http://www.babyhomesafety.net
• http://www.onestepahead.com/home.jsp?siteId=117&PIPELINE_SESSION_ID=242797edac1204150dc06e6b3096f0cc
• Then came the scary part of the class...all about labor. They showed a video but neglected to tell us the woman had all gone natural (i.e., had no drugs). That would have made a lot of us women feel a lot better after seeing all of the women in pain. My fun loving group's entire mood changed and we all were terrified. I only found this out because my sister watched the same video with a different instructor. She told them these are the 'worst case women' that had no drugs. Whew! Anyways - here is what we learned...
  
• Stages of Labor
• Phases of Labor

All in all - I don't know if it was that I didn't feel well or was tired...but I did not enjoy the class last night. I'm hoping next week will be better.