'cause waking up is hard to do

This should work... We need to remember to take more photos and video of our little peanut. I'm pretty excited that we've managed to keep her alive for 2 weeks now. (It's hard to believe that we, two complete amateurs, were allowed to have a baby.) She's doing well so far. She likes to fall asleep in the sling after a feeding and a diaper change.

pics (finally!)

Click here to see photos of the most awesome thing in the whole world.

I'm still having difficulties being out of bed for too long, so the story is going to have to wait.

It looks like Kerri won the baby pool... congrats! (We'll figure out a prize soon.)

Thanks for all of your happy comments and e-mails!

"Cleo" gets her real name

Ava Catherine Jones was born on Saturday, April 12, at 2:58pm after a fast and furious 10 hours of labor. She came out within 45 minutes of us arriving at the hospital. She weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces, 21 inches tall, and is practically perfect in every way! Full story and photos to follow soon.

my uterus laughs in the face of modern medicine!

Today's the due date. I know today isn't over yet, but I really doubt I'm going to have a baby within the next 4.5 hours. I can't wait to see if the widget says "-1 days to go" tomorrow.

I've been having contractions all day, but they're totally irregular and not getting any stronger. I'm trying to ignore them. I still have to poke my belly to really verify that I'm actually having a contraction. Anyway, Deanna says I can't have the baby until after 4 pm tomorrow because she's throwing a bridal shower tomorrow afternoon. I don't think she has anything to worry about.

It's now 7:30 pm, and Andy and I just finished dinner. We ate in the living room with the front door open--fresh air and the sunshine beaming in--it has been a gorgeous and rare day in Eureka. Varying weather reports say today's high was 68-72 degrees. Around 4:30 we took a hot tub at some friends' house, and it actually was too warm to be comfortable. Wednesday and Thursday were sunny days, but pretty windy. Today was just sunny, barely a breeze and perfect. It was the kind of day that makes you happy to live in Humboldt.

Tomorrow is the opening day of the Farmers' Market in Arcata. Our favorite local band is playing: Huckleberry Flint. Two members of the band, Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor, will be building our house sometime this summer, and Adam's wife is Deanna Dick, our doula for Cleo's birth. We are very blessed to know these folks and tomorrow should be another perfect day.

can't think of a catchy title.

The baby widget says "1 day to go" and I roll my eyes and shake my head. I doubt it.

At yesterday's doctor visit, I had my membranes swept. (Google it if you really want to know what it's all about. I'm not going to get that personal here.) It's a procedure that can start labor within 48 hours if it works. It's been about 18 hours and not much has happened. A few random contractions last night, but that's it. I'm not convinced that it's going to work, but it was worth a shot.

Cleo feels even lower than before--which I didn't think was possible until she's really on her way out--and it's making everything pretty uncomfortable. Walking sucks. Sitting up is a pain and I'm really tired of lying around all day.

In other news, the county should call the end of the rainy season next Tuesday, and that means construction projects can begin. Ours is ready to begin once the county signs off on it. For that to happen, we needed 3 signatures on the final lot split map. The fire chief's, PG&E's and the Land Use Division of some department at the county. Well, the Land Use Division guy called today and asked where our map is currently, since his has to be the last signature of the 3. The fire chief signed it without hesitation. It has now been sitting on a PG&E guy's desk for a week. When we called him today, he said he would have it signed by 3:30. I sure hope so. I've always tried to give people their space when working on a project, but I'm finding out that that's really not the way things work with government agencies and utility companies. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say. It's the only thing that works short of a bribe.

Anyway, we're going to pick up the signed map after 3:30 today, and I'll deliver it to the guy in the Land Use Division tomorrow morning. (So it can sit on his desk for awhile.)

On Tuesday we met with our architect and drafter to make final changes to the plans. I am getting very excited about the status of the house on paper... but there's still so much that has to happen before we can building it. Here's a quick run-down, in a fairly specific order:
1) PG&E has to sign off on the final lot split map.
2) The Land Use Division at the county has to sign off on the final lot split map.
3) We finalize our house plans, with all the engineering stuff and submit them to the County Building Dept. for approval.
4) We get the deed for our split lot.
5) We take the deed to the bank and apply for a loan, and hope that they approve us for enough money to complete the road improvements and the house construction.
6) Construction on the road improvements is started and finished.
7) The county signs off on the road improvements.
8) We pull the approved bulding plans and start construction on the house.

So, as you can see, there's STILL a lot that has to fall into place before anything happens. Meanwhile, we're having a baby.

Good God... single digits!

I guess I haven't looked at the baby widget since it said "10 days to go"... Now it says "7 days to go" and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I've been feeling a little down since yesterday; not really sure why. Cleo hasn't moved a whole lot today, so maybe I'm just nervous and worried. I'm pretty sure everything's still normal, there's just no room left for her to be all that active.

As I was awake from 4 to 6 this morning, I thought of several things to blog about but I didn't write them down. Of course, I've forgotten about them by now. Harumph.

Normally I would read a chapter or so in whatever non-baby/birth-related book and then I'd fall back to sleep, but last night I finished Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain for the second time. I read it pretty soon after it came out in 2001 or 2002, but a week or two ago I saw it at a friend's house and had to borrow it for a re-read. It got me started on a restaurant kick, and now I want to read Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee. I saw it on the bookstand at my favorite local supermarket and I should have bought it then. I met Alice Waters and several other CP folks while working for David Lance Goines in 1999--this new book seems to "dish the dirt" somewhat about how the restaurant came to be and all of the personal realtionships between the players. I knew that Alice and David had been a couple around the time of CP's birth and the Free Speech Movement, but knowing a little more about all of it certainly couldn't have hurt my understanding of how they work together these days. David still creates artwork and posters for Chez Panisse... I'll never forget the time he worked up a gorgeous design for a CP birthday poster and Alice said "it was too... too." David was able to decipher that, fix it somehow and it was approved after that one change. They still have that connection.

So, last night, instead of reading to try to get back to sleep, I tried counting backwards from 100. When I reached 0, still awake, I kept going. "Negative 1, negative 2, negative 3..." It wasn't working. I noticed that I was able to count and think about other things at the same time. This was not a huge revelation--I'm sure everybody does it everyday. It just frustrated me that I was multi-tasking in my head while actually trying to fall asleep. It just doesn't work.

Now I'm tired, frustrated, bored and depressed. Not a good combination. I think I'm going to go for a walk. I might not need anything at the drug store, but at least it looks different than the inside of our house.

terrible April Fool's Day joke

Saying your going into labor when you're really not is only funny to some. I promise to not joke about it again, but really, how often does the opportunity present itself?

Well, yesterday was our deadline to deliver with the old practice, and obviously, we missed it. I'm a little bummed, but not really. I'm rolling with Cleo's punches, and as long as she decides to come out before April 25, it's all good.

I just posted this entry, and then felt the need to amend it after looking at the disturbingly quiet floating baby in the widget at the top right of our blog. That is not representative of what Cleo is like at all. Cleo would be filling the whole circle with her head way at the bottom, not floating around. Then, every once in awhile, she would send a limb jabbing outward, pushing on the edge of the circle and distorting it into other shapes. And she would get hiccups, too. That's fun and annoying at the same time.