Atticus is here, and so is Mama's new laptop!

Atticus Stone Langdon was cut out of my abdomen and came screaming into this world at 5;40 pm, November 27th, 2009. He came curiously on his due date, although I went through one complication after another. First off, when I checked into the hospital right before Thanksgiving dinner, I was under the impression that they would send me away at first since my contractions became irregular. But then my blood pressure kept reading high, and would not go down.
"I cannot let you leave the hospital without your baby. We don't like sending someone away with such high blood pressure and protein leaking into the urine. And this is the day. You're gonna have this baby," the surgeon told us matter of factly. This news stunned both Tom and I, and just as I felt that burning flush of my cheeks and butterflies in the stomach, Tom choked up with tears. I will tattoo this onto my memory forever. Tom was so surprised, taken aback by the realization that this was finally happening. I found it cute also how much of a nervous wreck he was the whole day and a half that I was in labor. After being hooked up to monitors, preventing me from walking around, the doctors waited for several hours to see if my body would naturally dialate more than 3 centimeters. By this time the contractions officially became excruciating. I broke down and asked for the epidural. And... what relief. All through the night I never advanced in dialating. Even after administrating Pitocen for nine hours. This baby was not going to come out. My cervix became so swollen from Atticus' head pushing up against it. Anyways, the c-section started finally late Friday afternoon. The bright lights, the multiple surgeons, all of it made me nervous. I had already went through so much. I started to cry. Tom held my hand and told me everything was alright. A minute later he was out.
"Oh, he's definetely a boy," one surgeon said. Tom filled me in on why. The moment Atticus came out he pissed on four different surgeons. The first words out of Tom's mouth was, "oh, he's cute!" When I finally could hold him, I agreed and rejoiced in his healthy, chubby face.

We're waiting

All of Atticus' new friends are waiting for him to come home. But as I just discovered, his friends will have to watch and adore at first on Mommy and Daddy's bed.

Fall/Nesting/ Baby showers bring November flowers

The explanation I hear from people over my behavior lately, is "oh, you're just nesting." But I hear this in response to whatever I'm worried about, like money, or space, or being annoyed by someone doing the same, careless thing over and over. I start to equate it with the classic," you must be on your period," cue to not take seriously any negative moods. But, sure. I am nesting, and what an exciting and perfect time to. I get this excitement over the beginning of fall, of the trees ablaze against the indigo crackling clouds. There's a certain energy in the air in fall. And then there's the majestic high of breathing in the chimney smoke, the crisp dampness of a fresh rain on fallen leaves not yet fermented and moldy. This is the perfect time to snuggle inside, underneath the covers for the last stage of incubation.

The boy kicks so much, almost like he's on an imaginary bike in there. I felt his head press hard up against the surface of my navel today and I hoped it meant he would do his fateful dolphin flip. But nope. His gangly legs and feet are still thrashing away down over my pelvis.
Nine more weeks...

So, finally I can indulge in the details of baby shower #2 since family have sent their photos. Deborah, the loudest and most blunt girl I work with was the one who made this wonderful celebration possible. And she got alot of help from another coworker Lisa. Yet again, I was taken aback, a little in disbelief all the care, gifts, food, smiles, love and people that went into this. The parental units were there, several people from work, even my boss who brought the karoake machine, and my all time best friend Laura and her daughter Mercadies. Deborah put on a definite April show with embarassing games people were forced to play and karaoke. I belted out "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Laura and I sang" Time after Time". Laura started to cry singing and then I started to cry and it became a sentimental mess. Here are some fun pictures including the humiliating Simon says tricks people had to follow:

Baby Shower #1

Being pregnant has really gotten me very spoiled and showered with more attention than I would ever have guessed. Tom told me that this overdone baby shower was for me, not him. Yes, I got the most attention, but Atticus has no idea how much he's already loved and what celebrity status he already has. Tom's family put on such a thoughtful, detailed smorgasbord of food, decorations, games, prizes and gifts. Grandma Hill and Auntie Jewel are the ones who set it off, and though I did not cry at the shower, when I put away all the awesome stuff we got my heart and eyes swelled a little.

The games were clever, I must say. Everyone was given an ice cube in their drink with a japanese looking baby inside and whosever baby broke out of its water one a gift. Then everyone guessed my bulging pregnant circumverence and actually an eight year old boy got it right. In most of the pictures my glasses looked like they were gonna slide off my face and I keep making this very unflattering, scrunched up grin. Daddy looked handsome and photogenic as usual. Here's a few pictures that were more flattering than others.

Hey! This soda tastes like an ash tray! What gives?

Last night for the first time I experienced the tainted smell and taste bud phenomenon that goes with pregnancy. This late. I hadn't really picked up on things tasting wrong or smelling wrong before, or at least not so distinctly. Tom made an awesome dinner for me. I mean, V.I.P. Rock n' Roll celebrity feast and all. He made rice, grilled onions and mushrooms on the barbecue along with a heaping salmon steak. Now don't go crinkling your eye brows over the high level of mercury in the salmon. I was just going to have a tiny bit. Anyways, Patrick my trusty neighbor was over and gave me a large mug of Dr. Pepper and ice in it. Immediately I knew there was something wrong as I put the mug up to my lips. I could smell cigarette ashes. And then I could taste them very strongly in my soda. And the soda didn't even taste like soda... like there was just.... something ...off. I watched him bring the clean mug of ice from his place and pour the soda in at my house. The simple fact that the mug had been in the cupboard of his very smoky house tainted it. But I never experienced that before and Patrick always smokes like a European in his house.

And then came the mushrooms. I was so excited to eat them that I kept pestering Tom how much longer I'd have to wait until they were done. So what a disappointing surprise when I bit into one after another and noticed a slight plasticky taste. I'm not doing justice to describe it. I don't know what could have gone wrong with putting white onion shards, crimini mushrooms, salt, pepper and butter in a pocket of aluminum foil and letting it sit on the grill for a long time. Tom was clearly hurt. He was all chatty and hyper and excited when I came home with news of good food, a blouse he bought me and some feeding starter bottles we'll eventually need for the baby. He had been a good hunter and gatherer and I crapped out by complaining about everything. But that is in general how I've been alot since the pregnancy started: bitchy and unsatisfied. Never before do I remember feeling so angry so easily, so irritated at just little things like how loud someone speaks, a small worry, etc. I've got the "every thing is a negative ploy personally against me" mind set and I know its just the hormones.

All of these amazing and difficult changes are worth it, but I miss how easy going I think I was in comparison. At the end of the evening cuddling up to Tom and feeling Persephone make the muffins on my hips and then feeling her vibrating purr on me made everything better.

Waiting for the ultrasound du jour

So here we are on the 25th week, getting to know each other better. I'm finally depicting a pattern of when Atticus is the most active, which is all over the place like mama's schedule. My sleep is just so screwed up from going from these grave yard shifts to swing. But really I can't sleep well until about 7 or 8am and then want to sleep all day. It's no wonder I'm now steadily gaining weight at an alarming rate. My body keeps spreading out like a Hershey's kiss, or like an old tea kettle shaped woman ( which is how Micheal Palin always described the shape of old grannies), or pear shaped as the Brits would say. But enough of that.
The ultrasound!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since the li'l bean is gaining more girth with growing organs and a tiny fatty layer it was harder to detect what the hell I was seeing on the screen. It is truly amazing what those doctors can make out from an ultrasound. They assured me everything measures spot on, that he's healthy and listening to his heartbeat makes me think of humming birds- how fast their hearts beat. It was sad that Daddy couldn't make it to this one since he had to work. And when I told him that it was hard to get a good face profile due to his arms and legs crowding his face, Tom said," that's because Daddy wasn't there."I haven't scanned in the wonderful head shot they printed for me from this ultrasound, but I'll post it any day now.
In the mean time you all can oggle at my protruding belly.

Wow! He has Daddy's skeleton!

Sorry for the stupid title, but I have to make fun of atleast Tom's delight when he saw at the last ultrasound the suspiciously long legs already evident on our tiny Atticus. Tom is about half legs, but they are still very long on his 6,2" frame. He keeps saying the boy is gonna look like him since he looks identical to his dad and so does every other brother from his dad. But I hope Atticus will have both of our native features: the dark brown eyes, thick, shapely eye brows, etc. I think this pic was earlier than the last ultrasound. But don't worry: I'll have more pics to show from this up coming ultrasound on the 13th.
I can't wait until we see his face!