Double Digits

With Eleanor's (proposed to be shortened to L for the blog, though I'm sure we'll debate L vs. El vs. Elle for the spelled version if it becomes an actual nickname) arrival, our family has now cornered the market on matched month/date birthdays, with at least four: mine (1/1), papa's (5/5), Z's (8/8), and now Eleanor's (3/3). I've also been surprised to find at least three people in my high school class share her birthday (they each made a comment on our favorite social media site about 3/3 being a superior birthday) -- so in my sampling, it would appear that September has got nothing on March 3!

Yesterday after the many hospital staff visits, I ran home to collect O and mima to come meet their new sister/granddaughter; I had accidentally forgotten to leave the car keys, so mima was housebound with O this morning, but successfully got Z off to school (and informed our favorite elementary school bus driver, who was ecstatic!). Meh was awesome enough to plan for L to have presents waiting for her brothers (and, impressively, O had also decided on a board book present for Tiny "to chew on" so she wouldn't try to eat the big kid books). O was very excited to meet his sister and had a giant smile on his face the whole time, even if he was a bit shy and preferred to focus on the present she gave him (a book about Jake of course). Afterwards, Mima took him for lunch at his favorite restaurant and he apparently walked in and immediately announced to the host/waiter that he now had a sister named Eleanor.

We were discharged from the hospital after Meh had her dinner, with L decked out in her first of many pink outfits (with matching hat). And we were home in time for the boys to welcome L before bedtime. She clearly has both of them already wrapped around her finger; O did an excellent job of holding her during story time (and kept talking about how she was "super cute"), and Z very gently wrapped her in his favorite blanket and gave her a little hug -- super cute indeed!

Third and inches

As she wrapped up making O's amazing birthday cake, Meh announced that, with its completion, she was now ready for the baby to arrive. The baby must've been listening (to both that and all of Meh's reverse psychology, saying that she was resigned to the baby being late after Z and O), because she waited less than another day and a half, and has now arrived! Meh even went into work yesterday, but around 4 pm I received the call that Meh was heading home and that I really should collect O from school and head home too. The boys had a mostly normal evening, though as I'd mentioned that Tiny might be arriving soon, every time O heard someone downstairs (mima, papa, and Uncle J came to visit) during bath and bedtime, he was asking if that was Tiny making noise. At 9 pm Meh decided the time had come, and the two (three) of us were headed to the hospital, while Mima settled in for a reverse slumber party with the boys two nights after they had one at her house. (Thank you mima!)

By 9:30 we were admitted, and at 11:29 pm, she arrived! Introducing Eleanor Batya Selfon! By the numbers (also now enshrined with an age counter in the rightmost column of this blog):

• 6 lbs 14 oz
• 19.5" length
• Head circumference: Shoot, I recall them jotting it down in the records, but somehow it didn't make any of the paperwork we were given. Ah well.
• Eleanor: A name we liked (plus mildly Hebrew derivation - "Eli nor" = "My God is light")
• Batya: Named for Meh's grandfather Bernard (Hebrew derivation = "daughter of God")

Here she is just a few minutes after being born:

She was super cuddly right from the start, and had much snuggle time with mommy right after she was born; I don't think we got the actual weight for a few hours -- and that was after a bath that she emphatically did not like! But beyond that she has been very happy and making tiny little snuffling sounds. The pediatrician came by this morning (as part of a cavalcade of medical staff visitors -- hearing test, Hep B shot, hospital photographer [who actually seemed to do a nice job, though we'll still be visiting our favorite baby photographer before she moves to Arizona], lactation consultant, nurses, and more), and announced that she was looking great -- so much so that he was fine with us heading home this evening after dinner. More pictures of Eleanor's first day here!

Feeding frenzy

This morning, O declared to me that he likes to take "adventure bites". This (according to him) is apparently a term used by his teachers to describe taking a big bite of something; my guess is that the extra data he missed is that an adventure bite involves trying a food that the kids either don't know or don't strongly like the taste of. Anyway, after announcing this, O then showed me an adventure bite of cereal, and later on, one of candy. I suggested he try one of my sandwich, but he wasn't interested. Of course, he always follows his brother's lead; if I offer him food, he'll ask "did Zachary eat any?"

Mommy's craftiness has been in full force as we begin to prepare for "tiny" (current code name; O insists the baby's full name is "Tiny Tim"). Well, to be clear, I guess I'm still a bit superstitious and declare that anything pink and girl baby themed is really just for if there ever happens to be a girl baby visiting the house. Ptui ptui, salt over the shoulder, etc. Anyway, a number of Alice in Wonderland-themed blankets, bumpers, mobiles, and other decorations are already in production. Meh saw a cute flower-covered lamp in a catalog and decided that she could do it better. I would emphatically agree with the result, though there was the near-tragic moment when she was about 5 flowers short -- thankfully with the UPC sticker in hand from one of the flowers she'd gotten (at another location), I was able to pop off to the local Michaels and find a match. Success, and a fabulous lamp by mommy!

Three's Company

If it's cleared to announce on the social networks, I suppose it's okay to post a blog entry -- we're expecting! Meh is due right around O's birthday in early March, and for the first time in more than 60 years, my family will be welcoming a girl! Meh's logic for announcing now was that of course we'll be taking Halloween pictures tomorrow, and her costume is Willy Wonka's Violet Beauregarde turning into a blueberry -- so she wanted to get out in advance and explain the joke as involving a pregnant tummy. :)
O has been more excited than Z (who internally is probably thinking "here we go again") -- he keeps talking about the baby in mommy's tummy, though we had to explain a bit more than we'd expected about it being a different part of her tummy than where food goes. This promptly got reflected back to us in this reported conversation with one of his teachers:

O: That's a cute baby! (as a mom goes by pushing a stroller)
Teacher: Is that baby cute?
O: Yes. I have a cute baby.
Teacher: You do?
O: Yes, in mommy's uterus.

Say uncle

The boys' uncle B is visiting from New York! It's been a very fun trip so far; he's been having a great time playing with them (though I had to make fun of him for needing a nap after today's activities!) and of course it's been wonderful having him in town with us just to hang out and spend time together; he's even wanted to gear up with the bjorn and wear Owen around, as seen in this picture from a Costco excursion. And tonight he's even generously volunteered to babysit while Meh and I head to my work group's holiday dinner and then our business unit's huge holiday party -- here's hoping for a smooth night of sleep from the boys!

Chanukah started the night before Uncle B arrived. Mima and papa came bearing presents for the boys, as well as for us (thanks for the Superman cufflinks!); Zachary was thrilled with his excellent Caterpillar-approved heavy loader, complete with multiple engine noises, mechanized lifter, forward and backward movement (though Zachary somehow already managed to immobilize that part) and a music button that Meh insists reflects what must be construction workers' musical tastes when "on break". We got him Thomas pez dispensers, which he was eager to introduce to his Wonder Woman and Miss Piggy ones.

Across the room, Owen got a fun combination ride-on/push cart from mima and papa. Once papa had figured out the extensive assembly instructions, Owen was off and running (or at least grabbing) with it. Here's how he looked in ride-on mode, before we flipped it to push cart, which he of course scoots over to and plays with (generally trying to somehow fit various corners of the cart into his mouth). Owen continues to gradually scoot more and more, often leaving a path of disassembled play mat in his wake. Lately he's been somehow scooting himself half under the couch -- if he ever disappears from sight, I think that's the first place we'll have to check!

Welcome, Owen Lev!

We are delighted to announce the arrival of Owen Lev Selfon! Owen was born this morning at 7:34 am. The stats:

Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz (3784 grams for the metric lovers among us)
Height: 21.06" (53.5 cm)
OFC: 13.58" (34.5 cm) [that's the head circumference]
Apgar: 8 (@ 1 min), 9 (@ 5 min)

Friends J and S graciously answered our 2:15 am wakeup call to stay with Zachary, and we arrived at the hospital a little after 3 am. Four hours (and a lot of mommy work) later, we got to meet Owen in person. He's already had several quiet alert periods, looking around and being super snuggly, and objecting vocally (but very cutely) to the typical poking and prodding that hospitals impose on newborns.

The bris is still to be scheduled, but for right now we're just excited to start to get to know him. Zachary will likely get to meet his brother tomorrow, and we've already been told that everything is looking great and we'll hopefully be able to go home tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone already for all of the well wishes!

On the seventh day...

Six days have come and gone since the due date, and while Meh is increasingly uncomfortable, Gooshie apparently isn't ready to meet the world quite yet.

Lately we've been focusing on trying to stay within a few hundred feet of each other; even when Meh took a hill-less shortcut home from a walk to the park yesterday (the stroller wouldn't make it) while Zachary and I took the main path, I was a bit worried until we all arrived back at home. So it was a slightly bigger worry for me to drive off into the city last night for my orchestra's winter concert. Yes, the cellphone remained in my pocket, though in the end the question wasn't whether Meh would have Gooshie but whether I could actually make the concert in time - traffic was unusually atrocious and I ended up not hitting my seat until two minutes past the starting time. Thankfully a full audience meant we started a good three minutes later.

On the ball

Gooshie's very first crate o' diapers (along with some slightly larger diaper reinforcements for Zachary) arrived yesterday afternoon -- a mere 16 hours after I ordered them, what's their secret? Anyway, after I unloaded the contents, Meh had the excellent idea to use the remaining empty box to try out a bag of ball pit plastic balls she'd picked up for the little man. Suffice it to say he loved it:

This morning, Meh checked in with her midwives and got to take a non-stress test. Everything is looking good with Gooshie, who from the subsequent ultrasound apparently already has "some" hair. Color and amount still to be determined!

This afternoon we all went to lunch and then ran some Zachary and Gooshie-related errands, walking across a large outdoor shopping center. (Later we graduated to carting; Zachary pointed at one, said "kaht", and was very happy to be placed in it.) During the on-foot portion of our walk, we spotted the Seattle Humane Society's adoption truck parked at the mall, and Zachary said "bus!" while happily running up to it. First he was licked by one of the tame rescue dogs welcoming everyone to the bus, and he was very happy and giggly about that. Then I tried to point out the various cats in the transparent windowed bus -- but he was already off like a shot to the pet mobile's front passenger side door, where he commanded it to "open!" and then started climbing up onto the step and knocking on the cab door while saying "nah-nah-nah" (knock-knock-knock). Such a cute little man!

Three and Out

(Or should that be three and in?) It's day three of Gooshie watch 2010, and already 50% of our poll-takers are proven wrong; that Gooshie is certainly one tough bookie. I've taken to staying home starting today (a two-and-a-half year old is exhausting even if you aren't nine months pregnant!), though impressively, Meh still went to work. Zachary and I visited her as part of a very full day of reading books (often the same ones repeatedly), playing at a park near mommy's work, grocery shopping, and a Scandinavian shopping and lunch trip (I had to force myself to eat his super-tasty macaroni and cheese when he declined).

Today I also ordered some old standbys from Zachary's early days - Butt Paste, some extra-gentle wipes, and perhaps most importantly, a crate of size 1 diapers. The room transition also continues -- we've been doing more and more of the bedtime routine in the big boy room, until now everything short of actually going to bed takes place there. That step will likely wait a bit, but it's good to see how smoothly he's made the transition (even if after bathtime he still tends to run naked into his own old room before remembering that the clothes, books, and story time are the other direction).

Dated Materials

It's here! Today is Gooshie's due date. No news yet, but to keep things interesting, I've opened up a poll (see it to the right) where you can guess Gooshie's birthday. Winners get to, um, meet Gooshie? But so does everyone else of course. :)

Thirty Days

We're down to the final month (plus or minus two weeks or so) until we get to meet Gooshie! We're all both excited and a little nervous, and keep trying to remember what things were like in the early days; if only we had a blog or something to compensate for the sleep-deprived loss of short term memory. Zachary still doesn't really indicate that he gets it, though he's got to notice that he simply can't always be "up!" in mommy's arms. Not that daddy can sustain that for extended periods either with our 30-pound little man!

Which brings us to nicknames -- what becomes of "little man" when there's another, well, "little man"? Will we recycle names? Share them between both boys? Come up with new options for Gooshie? Only time will tell; this reminds me of our question of whether Zachary would still ever go by Ziggy after he was born - didn't happen. In the meantime, the preparations continue; we took a tour of the hospital last week (this time we're using the one 10 minutes from our house rather than hiking into the city) and got a feeling for where and when to go. Meh has weekly check-ins with her midwives (with their ongoing ban on kids due to cootie spreading concerns, Z and I have stayed home, so I still haven't gotten to meet any of them), and everything has been looking on track so far. (Ptuh ptuh ptuh!)

We'll close this entry out with a video of one of Zachary's sources of constant entertainment:

9 1/2 Weeks

We're at 66 days and counting until Gooshie's due date! He continues to be very active, with much kicking and squirming. Last night we were feeling kicks every few seconds, and it seemed perhaps a bit too rhythmic -- until Meh guessed that we were more likely noticing tiny baby hiccups.

Zachary continues to not entirely get the big news, or that he's going to be a brother. Still, the changes are starting to add up to something for him; we've begun the move of objects and furniture that will create his new bedroom. He does seem to love his soon-to-be room, often asking that we take him upstairs just so he can watch the Snoopy and Red Baron dogfight mobile. And that's not the only thing involving endless circles that he enjoys, as demonstrated today at the park (while modeling his Thomas boots and new red mittens):

Tonight we did half of a "traditional" Jewish activity for Christmas, meeting some friends for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. (They'd come from the other half of the tradition: going to see a movie. I don't think Zachary's quite ready for that yet, though we did try watching a bit of Finding Nemo on DVD with him today. Alas, he wasn't really interested in hanging around for it.) Zachary brought in one of his favorite books, and he and I had a very exciting communicative moment. He was looking at his book and saying "sha!". I couldn't tell what he was saying, so I incorrectly guessed a few times. When he shook his head, I asked what he was pointing at, and he grabbed my finger and pointed at the swing in a picture. I know this isn't such a huge thing, and it's better communication-wise if he points with his own finger and all that, but it was still a very exciting event for him to make the extra effort to directly tell me something!

Gender neutral

One bit of data we didn't mention about the 20-week ultrasound was that it was our first opportunity to find out Gooshie's gender -- if we wanted to. We'd debated this for quite some time; for Zachary, we'd elected to be surprised, and it was actually quite the experience when, the moment after he was born, the doctor held him up and asked me to call the gender; I somehow sputtered "It's a boy!". On the other hand, finding out would help set our minds at ease as to whether we'd need a whole new wardrobe (not that many of Zachary's newborn clothes were particularly gender-identified), whether our growing collection of Zachary's old non-infant clothes should be held onto or donated, and whether we'd need to be preparing ourselves for a bris versus a baby naming soon after Gooshie's birth.

It wasn't until we headed to Thursday's ultrasound that we decided to find out, though only if they could be really certain one way or the other. And roughly 5 seconds into the ultrasound, they were - it's (going to be) a boy! We even got a great image printout saying "It's a boy!", with the mouse pointer indicating the, um, source of the certainty.

Gooshie in 3D

When we were getting ultrasounds for Zachary (Ziggy at the time), I recall there were fancy clinics you could go to, pay extra money, and have this new-fangled extra expensive technology that would generate glamour shot 3D models of your baby. While that might be interesting for dropping the wireframe model of your baby into the latest video game simulator, it seemed a little unnecessary when we got perfectly cute actual ultrasound still images. Two years later, the technology is apparently a bit more standard -- today was our 20-week ultrasound, and they generated a 3D image of Gooshie's profile, alongside the more traditional images.

Everything is looking great; an approximate weight of 12 ounces, which is apparently 30th percentile. Gooshie was wiggling around during the ultrasound, but we got to see all the proper limbs, tiny fingers and toes, and of course a cute face that Meh thinks already looks different from Zachary's. Zachary and I hung out next to mommy for most of the appointment while Zachary played with his yellow car (which for some reason he kept talking about as 'wah kah' [red car]), though eventually he got a bit stir crazy, with repeated 'Ah dah!'s [all done] leading us to go play in the waiting room. I had him in stitches moving around a magnetic car in one of those closed hollow tables with magnet paddles that you use on the table's underside; he'd say 'go', and I'd hesitate just long enough to surprise him. This boy loves to get startled!

Gooshie Kickoff

We've been gradually sharing the news around, and with yesterday being the first day that Meh felt a certain familiar kick, this seems like a good opportunity to post the announcement on our blog - we're expecting! On or about March 1 (plus or minus 2 weeks or more of course), we're all looking forward to meeting Gooshie.

The name came about quite early; I actually remember we were sitting on a dinner date, where a few minutes before, Meh had surprised me with a gift-wrapped book that we'd actually read through once before -- it was a wonderful way to find out the news! Anyway, Gooshie just popped into my head when we started thinking about what to call our in-vitro baby. It's certainly appropriate and consistent, as Zachary was originally named Ziggy, another name that happens to belong to a Quantum Leap character.

Not sure yet whether we'll find out the gender this time; Zachary was a surprise, but I think Meh would like to know if we'll be needing a new color and clothing-style palette or not. :) And as to Zachary's own awareness, not sure if he has any idea yet. One of his favorite books remains "The Berenstain Bears' New Baby", but I think that might mostly be for wood-chopping sequence for brother bear's new bed (in which I still think papa bear looks suspiciously menacing with a sharpened axe).

I was bummed to miss the first kick as I'm still in Texas, though I know it's a bit longer before they can be felt by others (though preferably not strange people touching Meh's tummy like last time!). On the plus side, I'm now visiting friends M, K, and their super-cute baby N - we've been having a wonderful time together! It certainly brings back memories, though I still have a hard time remembering Zachary being that small.

To Zig or to Zach?

A few more early pictures from the weekend are here (should I be worried that it looks like 5 people have already found and viewed them, even before I sent out the link?) - I'll try to post more from the grandmother cameras later on. And as mentioned yesterday, our friend came by with his super fancy digital SLR and even a bounce card (a shiny white flat surface used to get more natural light onto a subject), so I expect we'll have some lovely pics to share soon.

Last night was another long night with a fussy Zachary. Meredith's parents generously watched him from 9 pm to 1 am, which gave Meh a small sleep window, but he was still up nearly all of the rest of the night in one form or another. They say that babies start off 12-hours off from our schedule (they're most active when the mom is sleeping), but hopefully we can gradually get him onto Pacific time in the next few days/weeks. But he's definitely gaining weight at this point, so at least we know he's getting enough food. Perhaps today we'll venture a stroller tour of the neighborhood and/or a bath in the evening to try to calm and/or tire him out a bit more.

In talking about/to Zachary, we find ourselves (and our families) continuing to occasionally call him Ziggy. My mom reports this never happened with my own pre-birth nickname (Boris - thank goodness that one didn't stick!) I'm starting to wonder if we might actually have an ongoing nickname here rather than just a fetal placeholder. So I pose the question to our readers - he'll definitely be Zachary and likely Zach as well, but what about Ziggy?

Incidentally, we've had two different pediatrician friends quip that apgar scores of 10 (recall that Zachary got a 9 out of 10) are either:
a) Only given by novice pediatricians, or
b) Reserved for the children of laywers.

Ah, how the failures of standardized testing are once again illuminated!

A Hospitalin’ We Shall Go

One thing I’d forgotten to check (not that this was particularly high on the priority list!) was if the hospital had internet access, so our friends could immediately (or at least shortly after the phone calls to family) get any news. Thankfully, they do indeed have a wireless network set up. Unfortunately, it’s also partially-screened access; the nurse called out Ebay as a known blocked site (to keep people from trying to buy crap while they’re sedated?), but apparently Blogspot is as well, so this will be offline blogging at its finest. I’ll try to post them all when things settle back down, or else get someone to post them for us.

At 8:08 am this morning (yes, I’m keeping a log of the day’s events), we were pleasantly woken up by a friendly phone call asking “Are you ready to have a birthday party today?” What a nice way for the Swedish birthing center to let us know that we were welcome to come in at our convenience! So at 8:08 am and ten seconds, we were at the hospital. I’m kidding, it was actually at 9:01 am that we got in the car and headed over, leaving Meh’s parents to entertain Korby for the next few days. We’d pre-packed our bags (though of course I forgot a few things, more on that in a bit), and the traffic gods cooperated with a smooth commute into Seattle.

We arrived, parked, went up to the birthing suites, and were introduced to our wonderful nurse Elaine, and Room 547, our home for the next day or so. (Note: They move new mothers once they and their babies are stable and looking healthy. We almost had some surprise visitors a few hours ago who didn’t know that. Whoops.) The next few hours involved getting set up with an oxytocin drip (used to induce), which almost immediately started labor, and Meh being incredibly and increasingly brave with the difficult and escalating labor process. I really can’t even pretend to imagine how it was for her, and all I could do was try to comfort her and just be there to lend a hand/arm/shoulder to lean on. There was rocking chair action, the jacuzzi tub, standing/walking/swaying, and of course a bit of laying in the bed.

By mid-afternoon, coping techniques and pain medication just weren’t doing enough, and we decided to get an epidural. (Side story: The anesthesiologist, who was also very nice and friendly, told this joke – “They figured out a way to allow men to experience childbirth along with the women. The first man to try the technique was in the hospital alongside his wife during labor, and kept saying how it really wasn’t so bad. When they came home from the hospital, they found the postman dead on the doorstep.” Ba-dum-bum.) The epidural made a world of difference (Meh described her feet as ‘warm and cozy’ afterwards, though she retained enough feeling to know what was going on, just not the pain), and Meh was able to alternate between snoozing, chatting, and even a few quick games of cards. Ziggy continued along, usually oblivious, but occasionally dipping his/her (hm, by the time this is posted, perhaps we won’t need the gender neutral bits!) heartbeat in response to Meh’s positioning. As the evening progressed, our regular doctor said good night and introduced us to her on-call associate, who was also very friendly, patient, and good with explanations for the baby’s status. And that’s where we sit right now, gradually getting further along and ready to hopefully meet our baby later tonight or early tomorrow. That’s the status for now, hopefully more to tell later! [6:40 PM]

Membership has its privileges

This is excellent -- a good friend caught this parking lot image while shopping at the Metropolitan Market (a Seattle-area upscale grocer competing with Whole Foods). *Now* we find out about this! Add it to the list of other pregnancy perks:

• Occasional (though disappointingly rare?) offers to allow Meh to cut in long bathroom lines
• The very civilized (sorry, civilised) offers to give up seats on the London Underground (subway)
• Super tasty non-alcoholic drink alternatives to those fancy wines at The Herbfarm
• ...and people fleeing from seats even remotely nearby when Meh looked for a place to sit at the airport while waiting for her parents' luggage to unload on Saturday. (Seriously, I think one or two people even broke into a run.)

Are there other undocumented perks of pregnancy we missed out on? Besides being able to peruse cute baby stores without having to pretend it's for a niece or nephew, of course. Or if there are good young baby perks we should know about, please let us know! I know Microsoft sends along a care package (of course featuring a tiny little MS-logoed onesie among other things - can dorkiness possibly start at an earlier age?), but we'd love to hear any other tips or recommendations.

In other news, check it out, yet another medical opinion reversal -- this from the good researchers at our very own University of Washington. (Granted, I'm not sure how many doctors really endorsed parking your child in front of Baby Einstein videos for hours on end to begin with, but still...)

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html?cnn=yes

the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.

I still say even the name of the video series is misleading, unless they're thinking they'll train your baby to drop out of high school and become a patent clerk? Then again, Albert Einstein apparently had speech difficulties early in life, so perhaps these videos are more on target than we think...

The date is set! Well, sort of.

"You can't be pregnant forever," commented our day-by-day baby development book. (These post-full-term paragraphs are pretty lame.) Today that came into focus just a little bit more, with our one-week-past-term visit to the doctor.

The doctor appointment was a bit of a marathon session, clocking in at around 2 and a half hours (I know, only slightly shorter than a Lord of the Rings film). We got to find out more about Ziggy's current status, which is happy and very active!

After visiting with our doctor, we got stuck in an air traffic control delay waiting for their fancy new ultrasound machine to be freed up. Our doctor has been very excited and proud of it; apparently it makes julienned fries, though when I inquired, there's no "post to YouTube" button on there. Not yet at least; maybe my suggestion will make it into the next model?

Anyway, the ultrasound was a little hard to see since Ziggy is now at full term. We actually got a printout and still can't tell quite what it is that we're looking at. Care to venture a guess? (Yes, the original is indeed that dark.) But back on the live-image screen, Ziggy was clearly moving his/her head around quite actively, and even looked to be sucking his/her thumb (apparently starting dad's bad habit pretty early on). Everything was looking good and healthy.

Next we were moved to a room where they could monitor both the baby's heartbeat and Meredith's status on one seismograph-looking printout machine. Ziggy happily chugged away in the 120s with a few spikes (that's apparently what they were looking for) before s/he went to sleep. Meanwhile, Meh's readings had a few spikes of their own with some braxton hicks squeezing, nicely spaced out. Eventually we were able to get Ziggy to wake back up and do a few more variable heartbeat things to make the doc happy that s/he is responsive and healthy. It was interesting to see such "old" technology as a long printout; I'd think they'd be all digital now so you could just scroll back and do statistical analysis to figure out if Ziggy as a stock ticker item would be a good blue chip investment (though regardless of what the financial advisors might say, we're buying!).

So, that wrapped up that. Based on our conversation with the doctor, we're scheduling to induce on Wednesday. So the baby might come then, if not:

a) Sooner (if things happen tomorrow), or
b) Later (if they induce and things take a while, or if the hospital's maternity ward schedule fills up and they elect to reschedule us for the next day)

That's about the status from here for now. We've been enjoying our time with Meh's parents, with lots of good food (tasty Italian for dinner this evening), watching movies, and light activities around the city. Of course, we'll let you all know if any other news occurs; Meh is getting e-mails saying "Well, I know you simply must have had the baby by now." Don't these folks follow our rambling, long-winded, blow-by-blow, day-by-day blog descriptions? :)

Ziggy can you hear me...

Intermittently throughout the pregnancy, we've been keeping a sort of audio journal - beyond capturing all of Ziggy's heartbeat recordings, we occasionally 'self-interview' about what we're hoping for, expecting, nervous about, etc. I'm not entirely sure what to do with these journals - whether to turn them into a CD/podcast for Ziggy to hear at some later age, or just keep as an audio diary for Meh and myself? I guess we'll sort that out later.

Multiple friends had been telling us for weeks that we just had to see Knocked Up. Luckily it's still playing at a theater or two here, so after a hefty but delicious breakfast (with portions typically scaled for at least two meals if not three) at the "world-renowned" Brown Bag (Meh's mom says it's been featured on the Food Network), we headed over to the local mall/movie theater. Most of the trailers were disappointing, but the movie itself was a lot of fun. It was great to see a reunion of virtually all of the 'freaks' from Freaks and Geeks (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and even the now Spiderman-famous James Franco; F&G producer/Michigander Paul Feig had a bit part as well). And certain pregnancy truths were really funny and timely. Perhaps the birth scene [oh, did I give away a plot point? Tough!] was a bit too timely and perhaps, er, graphic, but it was all really fun and a good way to spend an afternoon. Oh, and bonus points to them for some excellently humorous Jewish jokes and even a moderately obscure joke reference to Matisyahu.

Tomorrow is our +1 week doctor's appointment - we should have a better idea of where Ziggy is "station"-wise as well as how s/he is doing afterwards.

Major life events aren't limited to pending babies; today was the wedding of our good friend who officiated as the rabbi at our own wedding a little more than four years ago. I caught some practially live pictures live (well, I would've caught them live if I'd been sitting at a computer at the time) from a friend's iPhone on the scene. (Yes, I think he was sending pictures just to play with his new toy, or perhaps to justify the hefty monthly phone rate? :) Anyway, she was a beautiful bride, the celebration looked wonderful, and we're so sorry that we had to miss the big day. Mazel tov to both Rachel and Joshua!