Progressing...

3/14/13

Happy Pi Day to all of you math nerds reading this blog...actually, I'm not sure if there are any?!?!  Regardless, do you know the name of the largest knight in King Arthur's Court?  It's Sir Cumference!!!  Ok...no more cheezy jokes...I promise...but I heard it at school today, so I had to share!

***On a recent post, I requested you to offer your comments to my blog if you'd like to provide your input/thoughts to our pregnancy story...I looked at my settings tonight and discovered a default blog setting that only lets certain Google+ people to comment on my blogs...now I switched it so anyone may comment.  So, I'll ask again, knowing that maybe you tried before and weren't able to...if you particularly enjoyed an entry, or wanted to ask a question or just offer a comment so I can share an outside perspective on our story...I'd love to add that to the book I'll assemble for my baby when she gets old enough to read it!!!  Thanks for your help in making this a unique experience for myself, and for helping create a great story for my child!

We made some progress towards the arrival of baby.  Tonight we had our weekly doctor appointment.  Laura is still at 1.5 centimeters dilated.  However, she is progressing nicely and is now 85% effaced...which means the cervix is thinning/shortening.  I hope you're impressed with this, because I know I am...after 9 months of pregnancy and doctor's office visits, I can now say the proper names of some lady parts without giggling!!! Anyways, thank God Laura asked the doc to explain this tonight, because I was going to have to work up the courage for next week...and who knows if I'd have that opportunity if baby decides to arrive early!?!  She explained by saying the cervix is typically 2-3 inches long, and at 85%, it is now only about 1/4 - 1/2 inch long...meaning mama's body is slowly getting ready for baby to arrive.  Laura has still not had any contractions, but now that we are technically "full-term" since we're past 37 weeks, baby could arrive at any time.

Last week we scrambled to get our "go bag" ready after our appointment, but tonight we just came home and chilled!  We've both had a long week, but thankfully it's flown by...if that makes any sense?!?!  I'm chalking it all up to getting ready for baby, but my mind has totally gone to crap over the past 1-2 weeks!  I've been trying to get my room ready to go for a sub to take over for a couple of weeks should I not make it to school.  Between getting lessons straightened out, copies sent off for printing and keeping up with grading...I can't keep it all straight!  Add to it that this is a busy time of year for our AVID program as we are in the thick of recruiting new students for next year.  Unlike most classes that students take, students need to be recommended by staff, we have to pull their academic data (state test scores, GPAs, etc), analyze that data to see who fits the profile we're looking for, contact home with phone calls, send application packets, conduct an informational meeting, wait for applications to be returned, determine which students to interview and make final selections for making schedules...all of that requires coordination behind the scenes...and thus, my "coordinator" title for both buildings.  Luckily, I did it all last year too, so at least I have more of an idea of what to do this time around!!!  Not that you all cared to know about what sort of stuff is on my mind, but it's my blog, so I get to write about whatever I want!!!  Add on top of all that stuff that I'm constantly thinking about Laura and baby...hoping she is doing ok and hopeful that her body isn't making life too difficult for her as we come down the home stretch over the next couple of weeks.

On a different baby note...I got some daddy training Tuesday night!!!  We went to visit our friends who had a baby at the end of January.  It was great to see my coworker who I always chatted with constantly during the day, but haven't seen for 2 months!  Her little girl, Lyla, is adorable.  We got there and Laura was offered first grabs to hold her...of course, Laura passed up on that option, fearful that she'd "break someone else's kid!"  So, I took her, and held her for pretty much the entire duration of our visit.  I also got some practice giving her a bottle and doing the whole burping thing.  Our friends must have been impressed with my awesome skills...ha...but apparently with throwing a towel over my shoulder and getting the baby burped, they both comment that it looked like I had done it often before!!!  Now I'm thankful for all of those long nights of babysitting in high school.  I explained that I watched nearly all of the kids in my neighborhood at some point in time, with ages ranging from 6 months to 4th graders!  I'm just hopeful it all translates to adequate daddy skills with my own child in the near future...and hopefully that I'll progress and be a good dad for her as she grows up!!!

Not knowing when we'll be grabbing our bags and heading to the hospital, I'll give you all a final update on our thoughts for informing everyone when baby arrives...I'll let the grandparents know when we're heading to the hospital, and I'll let them update everyone else.  Until baby arrives, unless it takes an unusually long time or if I get a chance during the whole process, I'll probably be pretty scarce in my communication.  I'll text the grandparents on occasion, but definitely won't be able to respond to texts nor answer my phone.  Once our baby arrives, I'll send out texts and pictures once mom and baby are all stabilized.  Because we'll need to move from our delivery room to our regular room, and will try to get some rest and clean up, it'll probably be more than a few hours before send out invitations to some visitors.  Our baby class instructor told us a story of a couple giving birth and within 36 hours, they had over 40 visitors...sorry, we love you all, but we won't be trying to beat that record!!! 

I'll leave you all with some suspense on this latest edition of my Daddy Diary...Laura and I have settled on the name for our baby!!!  It's starts with the letter .....   And with that...I'll wrap up this post!!!   Thank you all for your continued thoughts/best wishes and/or prayers you send our way...they're all greatly appreciated!  And of course, thanks for reading my Daddy Diary!  Take care!