Introducing Benjamin Malcolm Rider

So, yeah, I haven't updated the blog for a while. But I have a very good reason this time - I have been rather busy giving birth and all, and dealing with a whole lot of unexpected side trips on the journey from pregnant lady to mother.

A few minutes old

My water broke around 2 AM last Tuesday, almost 3 weeks early, and as we had planned, I spent most of the day at home, waiting for active labor. For most of the day, I was without contractions or other problems. Obviously, I hadn't been planning on having a baby that day - I was supposed to have a baby shower at work, for Pete's sake - so I had a few things I wanted to take care of before heading to the hospital. I cleaned Kirby's cage and processed half a box of peaches for the dehydrator. What?! I didn't want them to go to waste! In the late afternoon, my contractions started, so we headed to the hospital. By 8:30 or 9 PM, my contractions hadn't really gotten very strong, so the doctor on call (who was not my normal doctor) said I could have an Ambien and try to sleep until morning, when my regular doctor would be available. However, the Ambien relaxed me to the point that my contractions started getting pretty strong. Since Ambien is supposed to put deeply asleep (it is one of the sleep drugs that makes people sleep eat and drive and other wacky things) I spent 3 or 4 hours in a hallucinatory sort of state, kind of awake but also kind of dreaming and seeing things during contractions and passed out in between. I started pushing around 3 AM, and Malcolm was born 25 minutes later, beating the doctor by a couple of minutes.

Tired but happy new father

After spending about an hour with us, a routine blood test discovered that he was hypoglycemic and very cold, so he was taken to the NICU to get an IV and some warmth. Because he was a bit early and so small - 5 pounds, 3 ounces - he just didn't have enough body fat (takes after his father that way) and glycogen reserves that a normal 40 week baby should have. That and a few other minor-ish problems (minor in the grand scheme of things, major to a brand new parent deprived of her baby) that made the doctors cautious, he ended up staying in various stages of the NICU until yesterday (which meant so did I), when we were finally allowed to bring him home. Now he can be treated like a normal baby - hurrah! He shouldn't have any lasting problems, since they were all basically because he was 3 weeks early and not quite ready to be out in the world, and not anything disabling or systemic.

Trying to get and stay warm

 We are overjoyed to be home as a family at last. Benjamin is glad to not have to drive back and forth to the hospital every day to see us. I am especially glad to be done with beeping monitors (that went off all. the. time.) and decent but bland hospital food! For the record, I refuse to acknowledge the validity of calling anything made with Jell-o a salad, no matter how much fruit is in it.

Home at last!

Oh yes, Benjamin Malcolm Rider is the 11th Benjamin Rider, and will go by his middle name. Yes, he is partially named after Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Firefly ship Serenity. Yes, we are big geeks.

Slowing Down

I'm slowing down these days - not by choice, exactly, but by necessity. At 7 1/2 months pregnant, I just don't have the energy I usually do to get things done. I know this is natural - my body's making a baby here, after all - but I'm not particularly happy about it. I miss playing tennis several days a week, playing until I am drenched in sweat and exhausted physically and mentally. I miss pushing myself to run just a little farther - when I got pregnant, I was working my way towards being able to run a 10K, and while I could technically still be running, lately, I've had to switch to the elliptical for various comfort reasons. I'm still going to the gym 2 or 3 days a week, but only for 30 minutes most times, and I am still walking the dog around our hilly neighborhood, but I've slowed down there too (not entirely my fault, thanks to Miikka the Reluctant Walker). Soon it will be too hot for me to do much of anything outside, so even walking will have to move to the track in the gym (ugh), which may not actually be slower, but will certainly feel slower due to the lack of visual stimulation.

This forced downshift in activity just feels so strange. I'm not mentally in control of it - my body is in charge of the process, with no help from me  - and that is a bit unsettling for someone who is used to at least having the illusion of control. No matter how much my brain wants to go out and run or play tennis, if my body says no, there isn't much the brain can do about it right now.