Vattnisse |
The boss doctor told us today that the kid comes out no matter what by week 37 - that's 3 more weeks. Until then, all we can do is to make sure Erin doesn't strain herself or that anything happens that will necessitate medical intervention. I'm cautiously optimistic myself, though things will be clearer tomorrow as we get more test results back.
Mothman |
*sigh*
I'm glad everyone's family members are doing well this holiday season.
Heath, I'm thinking about a sabbatical for the Christmas season. If you wanna have Pip in the background, just have him cast haste and sing his +3 song for everyone. If not, have him wander off. Take care.
Hope things are ok Pat, and you and the family have a good christmas.
Mothman |
The boss doctor told us today that the kid comes out no matter what by week 37 - that's 3 more weeks. Until then, all we can do is to make sure Erin doesn't strain herself or that anything happens that will necessitate medical intervention. I'm cautiously optimistic myself, though things will be clearer tomorrow as we get more test results back.
Hope things go well. 37 weeks isn't so bad, if she can make it that far.
Vattnisse |
She probably can't. After today's tests, the diagnosis is that she's suffering from preclampsia. It's not particularly bad yet, but that makes it a day-to-day decision whether to give birth or not; if allowed to go on, preclampsia leads to organ failure and birth defects. However, the baby's still facing upwards, so she can't give birth normally. Thus, if Erin's condition worsens, it's surgery time.
Ragadolf |
preclampsia=bad news
Good news, having the baby pretty much makes it go away, (If i remember right)
GOOD news, the zipper makes child birth MUCH easier!
BAD news, recovery goes from 2 days to something like 3-4 weeks! ;P
Personally, I thought the good news outweighed the bad! :)
Still crossing fingers & praying! :D
Aubrey the Malformed |
Yes - caesarian is a lot less traumatic for the baby, and probably the parents too, so it's nothing to get too bothered by. James was a caesarian. The healing up bit is a bit less fun for the mother, of course, but on the flipside the baby comes out looking lovely, instead of squashed like they sometimes do for a normal delivery. All a bit heavy, Vatters, but it sounds under control - it's good they caught it, as preclampsia doesn't really have too many symptoms until you get to the organ failure bit, so the doctors seem on the ball. Best wishes to all.
Vattnisse |
I'm not really that worried anymore about the health of either Erin or the baby. But it's a big change - two weeks ago we were reading up on natural birth, no anesthesia and all that, and now Erin is day-to-day with no real control over what's going on anymore. I guess we're still in a bit of a daze.
Aubrey the Malformed |
Yeah, I can see your point. We decided to have James by caesarian all along as we wanted to make sure as little went wrong as possible (as Andrea and I are not spring chickens) but if it is forced on you by circumstances it's probably a big turnaround. It's actually fairly untraumatic (certainly much less than having a woman screaming for hours next to you with no pain relief) - the surgery takes place behind a big curtain with your wife's top half on your side and the gory details on the other so you can't see anything that might scar you for life. You chat with the missus for a while and five minutes in you have the baby. Then they spend the next hour or so sewing your wife back up while you cuddle the new arrival. Easy. But Erin will be pretty much unable to bend, lift, carry stuff or drive for about six weeks after.
Ragadolf |
Yep. Aub's right. That's pretty much how I remember it.
(All four of my children have been C-section due to medical reasons of one thing or another.) ;P
Oh, and don't be surprised if she milks the recovery JUST a little bit, say an extra week or two. Most women find having the husband doing ALL of the fetching, cleaning, cooking, diaper changing,... etc just too good to pass up! ;)
Unless your baby is stubborn, as mine was/is. It took 4 people (2 doctors & 2 nurses) to 'convince' my youngest to come out (through the 'zipper') and play. He was bound and determined to make it out the way he was supposed to! :)
Have to admit, 7 years later, I wish I had peeked for details. Because what I saw over the tent was funny! Aw well, ;P
The good (and MOST IMPORTANT) news is, it sounds like wife and baby will be fine.
ALL else is merely details.
God bless! :D
French Wolf |
When my son was very sick my wife and I were in a daze for the two weeks. I spent the whole time keeping it together and being a rock.
An hour after I was told he would survive, the relief hit me hard and when I least expected it. I'll never forget those two weeks. But the doctors were great and the care top notch, something which you need when you feel they are in control.
Good luck Vattnisse
Mothman |
Apologies for my unannounced absence over the past week or so; turns out that looking after a new baby (who’s been sick as well) combined with the general busyness that accompanies the lead up to Christmas doesn’t leave much time for recreational computer use. Who knew?
I’ll try to catch up on things tonight and tomorrow, although I’ll probably not be around much again on the 25th and 26th. Oh, and happy Christmas etc to everyone.
Mothman |
I'm not really that worried anymore about the health of either Erin or the baby. But it's a big change - two weeks ago we were reading up on natural birth, no anesthesia and all that, and now Erin is day-to-day with no real control over what's going on anymore. I guess we're still in a bit of a daze.
It happens, the dazed thing. Pregnancy, babies and birth are definitely unpredictable. Like you and your wife, my partner and I had planned to have our son naturally, no drugs etc … well, three weeks before he was due she started having contractions, called the hospital, they said it sounded like very early stage, many hours to go, to try to get some sleep and come to the hospital in the morning. She went back to sleep, woke up in pain a couple of hours later and delivered the baby about ten minutes after that, at home with not a medical professional in sight. Talk about dazed!
Having your baby by caesarian (and early) is obviously not what you guys had planned (as an aside, I’ve heard that if you really want to make a midwife laugh, tell them about your birth plan), but if it is the advice of the doctors as the best thing for mother and baby, roll with it – after all, their health and safety is the most important thing at the end of the day.
As others have said, C-section births are generally considered less painful and traumatic (unless you happen to have a 10 minute second stage labour), but remember that it is actually major surgery, so do make sure that your wife has a proper chance to recover from it (which can be tough with a new baby in the house).
You’ve probably got less time than you thought you had before the birth, and probably a whole lot of things that you had meant to do before hand. Don’t panic. Get as much as you reasonably can done now, and remember that you will probably have a few days while wife and baby are in hospital after the birth to catch up on incomplete critical items.
dungeonmaster heathy |
Apologies for my unannounced absence over the past week or so; turns out that looking after a new baby (who’s been sick as well) combined with the general busyness that accompanies the lead up to Christmas doesn’t leave much time for recreational computer use. Who knew?
I’ll try to catch up on things tonight and tomorrow, although I’ll probably not be around much again on the 25th and 26th. Oh, and happy Christmas etc to everyone.
I know, right?
I'm on call this weekend; I doubt most people will be around anyway.Vattnisse |
Re: our current enemies. I submitted a bazillion monsters, mostly a variety of giants, to Lilith's DM Tools site back in the day. I dunno if that site still takes submissions, but these guys are so cool that they deserve a writeup somewhere. They'll fit right in next to this guy.
Ragadolf |
Just FYI-
My son is sick (Caught a cold, first of the school year, JUST in time for Christmas!) ;P And I think I'm getting it too. (Double ;P)
Also busy with the usual holiday nonsense, making candy, pies, cookies, etc. And have travel planned (IF I don't get sick!) So, I may drop off the radar at any time. Should be back by Jan 3 at the latest.
My prayers to all of those with expectant wives and sick kids,
and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all! :)
Vattnisse |
Little Emma was delivered today via c-section after 35 weeks and 3 days of gestation. She's looking great - 6 ponds 7 ounces is pretty solid for such an early birth, and she didn't need to spend any time at all in the nursery. Erin's doing well too, so this seems to have been a great success.
Vattnisse |
Rough last few days, operating on just a couple of hours of sleep per day. My in-laws have put up a YouTube video if anyone wants to take a look. I'm the mostly incoherent guy that pops up early in the clip; I also have more of an accent than I realised...
Mothman |
Rough last few days, operating on just a couple of hours of sleep per day. My in-laws have put up a YouTube video if anyone wants to take a look. I'm the mostly incoherent guy that pops up early in the clip; I also have more of an accent than I realised...
Watched the video. Vatts, your daughter is beautiful, and she doesn’t look at all premature. I wonder if they got the dating wrong (which is not uncommon), or if 35, 36 weeks is just about the right gestation period for your wife (40 weeks is the average or typical gestation period, but all pregnancies are different and sometimes the correct gestation period can vary from this by several weeks in either direction).
Your accent seems fairly mild or blended to me. You did sound ever so slightly in shock though :-)
Aubrey the Malformed |
Yep - he's got that "something big has happened, but I don't quite know what it means yet" look.
Sleep deprivation is (for me, since I can't take it well) one of the worst aspects of having a new baby. Heathy very preciently warned me about it. We are lucky that little man sleeps through the night and has done for a while, so good luck and hopefully Emma is a good sleeper too (the fact she is a reasonable size will help, hopefully, as she can hold more food for longer and will be less inclined to wake up hungry in the night).
dungeonmaster heathy |
I figured the Zombie Time would go bad for an Accountant who I assume has to be able to do a lot of precise, detailed mathematical stuff....
I guess the hardest part for me was the utter surrender of autonomy in so many varied and constantly surprising ways, to the needs of the shrieking tyrant.
I'm usually rather unmoved by protracted physical and mental exhaustion.
It takes it's toll, and I get punchy, but it's not as bad as the loss of ability to float about like a butterfly from this place to that.
I do, however, cleave unto the obnoxious macho bloviations of Leonidas in 300. It gives me that extra little oomph at times.
Mothman |
Yeah, I don’t do well with sleep deprivation. I guess no one does really, but it really messed me up last time around. Not so much the interrupted sleep but having to function properly at a high stress job the next day ... for month after month. I think we have a better system in place this time around, and I have a far less stressful job to go to these days, so hopefully it will all work out much better. Guess I will find out once I officially go back to work next week!
Mothman |
Vatts, I just got your card yesterday, thanks! I am impressed that you were organised enough to write and send out Christmas cards in the midst of all your excitement, I know there wasn’t a hope that I was going to be that together this year.
Also got my Bestiary 2 and Lords of Chaos delivered, a bit of a late Christmas present to myself. Very cool.
Ragadolf |
Yeah, It's been a LONG time since I could function on 2 hours sleep a night and still go to school/work/whatever the next day, every day for a week. (Of course, even THEN I still passed out for the weekends!) :)
Oh, and gratz on the newer, less-stressful job Moth! :)
I have one of those too. Less stress if no less hours. (Of course, I have it because I was Katrina'd , so there was a lot of stress GETTING here!) ;P
And hows everyone like the APG? I am thinking of getting for myself as a late Christmas/Early Bday present! :D