No More Stump

If there is one thing I (wes) don't like about newborns is the stump. It's just nasty. So now it's gone and my Amelia looks normal....for a Gerbick anyway...

Amelia Anne Video

here is a little snippet of the gerbick life during the past 5 days:

and here's the story how we ended up with little amelia a few weeks early:

i went for my regular 37 week appointment with the midwife & thankfully remembered to mention that i seemed to be a bit more 'leaky' but i thought it was just the mucous plug slowly letting go. the midwife also thought that's what it was, but just to be sure, she gave me the good 'ole cough test...within 5 seconds, she looked at the test results on the q-tip looking thing & said "oh, well, not what i expected, but you will probably be going to the hospital today!" then she looked at wes & i with our panicked faces (he had arrived at the appointment late, but he made it just in time for the shock) & patted my leg & said calmly "okay, breath, this is okay, breath..." we were shocked! the nursery wasn't finished! we didn't have any baby booties! our bags weren't fully packed! i was totally floored but after i started breathing again, i was ready. wes, on the other hand, was still a bit shaky (he doesn't handle surprises well, which is understandable).

apparently, 5 days earlier, my water had ruptured at the top of the uterus, so i didn't get the normal gush of fluid...more of a barely noticeable slow leak. according to the midwife, not a good thing to let go for too long! i was also 3 1/2 cm dilated & 80% effaced (i think that's the right word), so they also considered me in labor. i guess those strong contractions i was feeling at night were not 'nothing' as i thought...

i went home to finish packing, wes went back to work to wrap things up there & we met at home with the troops: my brother in law, cal, swiftly arrived to entertain addy, my sister arrived to help out with packing & join us at the hospital, & my friend christine was already here watching addy while i was at the appointment, so she also helped to pack. when wes returned from work, he was ready to get this baby out of me & was full of jokes & helped me calm down. we ordered pizza, my last food for however long (hospital policy), packed the car, & set off for the long trek one mile down the road to the hospital...of course, it was during rush hour, so it took about 15 minutes. crazy columbus traffic.

did we mention that the baby doctors didn't have a midwife on call on tuesdays?! (yes, this was monday, but they count tuesday starting at 6 p.m. on monday night) so i was without the midwife, left to the care of the nurses & would deliver with a doctor from the practice who i may have never met...which i was okay with, but very still a bit peeved about it all! i mean, why say you offer midwifery services, but only if you don't deliver on a tuesday?!

after checking in & getting set up in the labor & delivery room it was about 6:30...i started walking around in the lovely hospital gown, setting the time record for 'the lap' around the maternity ward. i was barely having contractions & could hardly tell when contracting...not good. after several nurse changes, one of which attempted to talk me into an epidural (which really annoyed me), we finally hooked up with one who understood the situation: hypnobirthing-no-pain-meds-slow-laboring-mama meets hospital setting that's used to pitocin, epidurals, & c-sections.

however, around 9:30, it was decided that i should be started on pitocin. i tried all the hypnobirthing relaxation techniques & natural contraction inducing methods & was still only at 4 cm. so pitocin was started, which made me strapped to the bed & the monitors...the thing i wanted to avoid the most. BUT, thankfully the relaxation techniques worked & i was calm & accepting of it. however, the pitocin wasn't helping; i still didn't know when i was contracting (i guess i have a high pain tolerance?) & i was only around 4 1/2 cm at 12:30 a.m. so the next step was rupturing the rest of the sac from the bottom...we had to wait for the floor doctor to get out of a c-section, which took about half an hour, then there was the GUSH of fluid. the nurse said "i'm getting all the delivery stuff ready b/c i think when you start, you're just going to GIDDY-UP!' (translation for all non-midwesterners: move fast).

things quickly picked up. within 30 minutes i had dilated to 6cm...THEN we didn't see a nurse for an hour & a half. 90 minutes! i was REALLY feeling these contractions & although calm & in my 'hypno-mode' & i was getting a bit worried about not seeing my nurse. so wes pressed the nurse call button 4 times, all of which resulted in no one showing up...my sister came in & said that she had also asked at the nurse's desk to send a nurse down (as it turns out, my nurse had been called into an emergency c-section & no one really knew who my nurse was at the time). we waited for a nurse & my contractions kept getting stronger & stronger... i asked for my sister to call my mom down to the room for she is a woman known to make grown men cry with just a single glare...something that was needed when dealing with this nurse's desk, apparently.

THEN, i started to feel the need to push. not just a 'hey, this might be a time to push' more of a 'HEY I NEED TO FREAKIN PUSH!' so wes rang the nurse call button again & said "my wife feels like she needs to push" ...within a few minutes a nurse came down, checked my cervix & flippantly said "you're only 7 cm" & started to walk out of the room, which totally sent me to the moon (read: very upset/angry). so then laboring heidi gets a bit pissed & i start asking questions about why do i feel the need to push, what can i do to help back labor pains, what can she recommend, etc...& she curtly responds "you tell me what's comfortable..." at any rate, "adrianne" got an earful from me after that. a few minutes later another nurse shows up, checks me & says i'm 8 cm. we tell her the last nurse just said i was 7, so she says "well then you must be a 7" ... i explain to her that i feel the need to push & that with my first delivery, i didn't dilate or efface fully & that i was having pretty severe back labor. then i had a contraction & i don't remember what happened, she just sort of left the room.

i know this is a long post... i think i am just REALLY missing that birthing center in nampa, idaho.

within a few minutes, another nurse walks in...Amy. she sort of exuded calm & somehow she caught up on the story of things, checked my cervix & told the other nurse who had just said i was probably a 7 "we need to call the doctor now." she looked like an angel... then she gave me breathing tips for back labor, which helped significantly. (now i realize that the breathing was similar to the breathing when you need to stop pushing...that may make sense to laboring moms...you know when they tell you to stop pushing to suck out the nose, etc or turn the head? that was it). soon the doctor arrived & i didn't have my glasses on, so she just sort of looked like a blur of heavenlyness. amy looked at me & said "now you can start pushing" & with the next contraction, off i went...

the doctor stood near the door, observing my pushing abilities or something & started to walk out after a few seconds. then amy, who was bedside, loudly said 'you need to get your gloves on' & the doctor quickly came back into the room. i gave the 'ole heave-how again (this was a very long contraction, mind you) & everyone's faces looked totally shocked. this is when i loudly said the quote of the whole entire event: "AM I TAKING A BIG CRAP OR AM I PUSHING OUT A BABY??!" b/c it REALLY felt like i was taking a crap (back labor really sucks) b/c the pressure was all in my butt. WEIRD. (i'm sure some of you don't care to know all of this, but you may stop reading at any time ;o) then everyone sort of responds at the same time: "you're pushing out the baby!" these contractions were extremely long at this point, so i took another deep breath, pushed again, & apparently the doctor sort of pushed the head back in a bit & the contraction ended. suddenly things were pushed around, pads put under me, newborn equiptment adjusted & turned on, then quickly the next contraction came...one push & the head **& one hand** popped out with the cord wrapped around both...the doctor turned the head around (she was head down instead of head up; hence the back labor) & unwrapped the cord, told me to push again & out came little amelia. beautiful.

in the hypnobirthing book, the author talks about how sometimes the nursing staff don't really believe that HB women are as far along as they truly are & how HB women are sort of 'put off' my the staff b/c they don't think things could progress that quickly... i didn't think it would be me in that situation, but there i was! if nurse amy hadn't entered the picture i truly think that wes would've been catching amelia!

so that's the story. i find it exciting, of course. i also find it disappointing that the 'best maternity hospital' in the columbus area gave such precedence to c-sections that they basically ignored or dismissed a natural/vaginal delivery as they did... also note that tuesday night was called "baby boom" in that hospital, so they were also understaffed a bit...from midnight until when amelia arrived at 3:41 a.m., 10 babies had been delivered (2 apparently by c-section, which is, i guess, more important than vaginal deliveries?). obviously, i'm a bit fired up about the institutionalization of birthing here, with all the rules & assumptions already in place before i even entered the hospital...i'm sure i'll get over it eventually but for the time being, i'm allowing myself to be upset about it.

as for amelia...she is perfect & beautiful & so so tiny! we are really loving this little lady. she is very different from addy personality-wise, but their newborn pictures look nearly identical (just add two pounds to amelia to see the resemblance). she sleeps so much...we are used to the newborn who slept maybe 10 or 12 hours a day & now we have the other end. the kind that you have to wake up to feed & when she cries it's unusual & cute. (not that addy's cries weren't cute, they were just very frequent :o) we have many pictures to post, so be ready for them!

things are going well here, except for a severely engorged-breasted mama (maybe my body has a memory chip of how much milk a newborn needs from addy's first weeks & is now extremely OVER producing for amelia who so far eats much less). so i've been walking around for the past day with ice packs on my chest...good times! amelia will be taking her first walk with addy, daddy, & griswold later today & everyone is very excited about that.

addy LOVES amelia. she is delighted when she squeaks or peeks her toes, fingers, legs out. she loves to pet her head (full of hair!) & play with her toes. it's really beautiful to see the two together.

more later! gotta wake up a baby to nurse before i explode...

She's Here!

Heidi and Wes will be coming home with the newest addition to the Gerbick family on Wednesday afternoon. Amelia Anne Gerbick was born at 3:41 a.m. early Tuesday morning.

She weighed 6 lbs, 7 ounces and was 18 inches long. Amelia is perfect and healthy.

Mom Dad and Amelia are doing great. Addy came to visit today and she fell in love with her little sister.

Here are some pictures from our visit with Amelia...

Off to the hospital

In one hour....

a new low as parents

we have no pictures to go along with this post. it is sad & it will happen to every parent; at least that's what we are telling ourselves...

my mom (heidi's mom, aka: karen, gram-mum) stayed with us from wednesday night until tonight. it was SO WONDERFUL to have her here to help finish the nursery (hhmm, did i say help? i guess i mean, to DO it... thanks mom!) & also to provide addy with endless entertainment that moves faster than i do these days. (we hope to get pictures up tomorrow of the finished nursery...just a few more things to do).

SIDENOTE: my mom also let wes & i go off for a friday night on the town. we ate at mongolian BBQ & then i became very nauseous (i was attempted to kickstart serious labor w/ spicy food, not a good idea) & so we sat & watched the fountains at easton for awhile; then we went to see "vicki christina barcelona" which is a woody allen movie recommended by my sister...we found it very funny, especially since it was the first movie we'd seen in a theater in almost a year. anyway, my mom managed to clean our house (dusting & vacuuming!) while we were gone & apparently addy helped. amazing things. we walked into the house after the movie, both of us saying "why does it smell so...clean?!" it was nearly miraculous.

so addy has enjoyed this visit with grammum...she was taught how to 'let mama take a rest' by patting my leg & giving me this pitiful look of 'oh no, mama!,' how to wash walls & launder baby clothes without trying all of them on, & also how to eat non-stop...her favorite thing to do when grandparents visit. addy also picked up a cold virus along the way this week, so having a buffer for her grumpiness was very handy.

today my dad came to pick up my mom & help wes brew a 'fresh hop' batch of beer...they picked a terrible day, it was 91 degrees outside (wes brews in a turkey fryer outside to avoid being killed by me b/c the house smells--to me--like rotten trash, but really is just hops & such). anyway, i'm getting a bit off subject here, but it's past my usual bedtime, so please excuse the rambling.

after a dinner of sonic burgers & tots, we sadly told addy that "grammum & pop pop are going home now..." addy gave me a total look of understanding & without hesitation, she grabbed her milk sippy cup off the table & sort of stood there with a look of 'i'm ready to go!' then a light bulb must have gone off in her head & she went over to her heavy diaper bag & started dragging it over towards me, mumbling something along the way...most likely it included 'i'm ready to go with them, i have my diaper bag & sippy cup...all the important things are here...' she appeared very determined to go home with them & not to stay at home! it just broke our parental hearts & warmed the grandparents' hearts all at once.

i know things have been a little boring around here for her, but i had NO IDEA it was this bad! however, we quickly recovered our status once we promised to take her to the park after g-mum & poppop left...we know how to manipulate our child, have no worries of that one.

the daddy has a blog

everyone must add another blog to your list of reading material... http://gerbickengineered.blogspot.com/
that would be wes' blog about his adventures in life & home maintenance. he didn't want to continue to disrupt the flow of 'addy & griswold' information. really, i think he just wanted a blog where he could talk about nothing but brewing beer!

newsworthy!

this morning was the 36 (i'm 36 1/2 weeks) week appointment with the midwife. i have continued to have contractions these past two weeks, nothing major or painful, more uncomfortable. so when the nurse said that the midwife would want to check my cervix b/c of the contractions i was just thinking 'this is annoying b/c nothing will have changed & i will have an exam for no reason...' lo & behold... i am 1 cm dilated! YEA! i'm not sure if that means i will go earlier than the 39-40 week mark, but it does make the contractions a bit more enjoyable (b/c they are actually doing something productive). and then the midwife said that if i start to have contractions that i have their permission to encourage them along.

we are very excited that this is starting already. but i will not be fooled into thinking this means an early delivery, i'm just happy to know all is at least starting to progress.

now if we would just finish that nursery...wes' job in the nursery is complete (painting, chair rail, blinds, etc) so now it's all organizing & cleaning. my mom is coming this wednesday thru saturday to help me do that, thankfully. go contractions! (oops, go "surges" as they are called in hypnobirthing).