Nicknames

Here's what we've got so far (usually with a "little" in front):

- Seamie (pronounced "Shamie", of course ... I wonder what the Gaelic diminutive would be)
- Shamu
- Shame-shame (Scott and Sarah should get a chuckle out of this one)
- Monkey-monk
- Frog legs
- Snorgler
- Snorcher (these last two refer to the funny snorting noise that he makes)
- Truffle pig (this refers to the adorable, open-mouthed, head-turning "rooting"---in combo with the snorching noise---that he does when he's hungry and looking for food)

While looking for a truffle pig image, I found this really cool chocolate-manufacturer website. ... wait for the eyes to show up, then use the magic wand!

(and, um ... if any of you happen to be close to any of their retail locations ... and you happen to want to get us something ...)

A comic just for us!

The Creator has dedicated this comic to us ... and it made Greta cry. Damn you, Creator! [shakes fist]

Actually, we talked to midwife Karen yesterday, and she said that, because Greta's milk is coming in, "for the next 24 hours or so, everything will make her cry."

Case in point: as I was typing this post, Greta and Sandy were discussing American Idol, and Greta said, "I read that Simon's girlfriend says he's the most generous person" ... and then she started crying.

In which young Seamus makes some new acquaintances, some of them Nice, and some of them Not.

Seamus has his first encounter with a stranger today, and I'm sorry to say that it did not go particularly well. We bundled him up in his brand-new car seat, complete with warm, snuggly insert (I had stumbled out into the sunlight on Monday, in a zombified state, to purchase these items), and took him in a Zipcar to his very first doctor's appointment: a routine newborn checkup.



First, we had to get him in the car, though. Our street is ancient (by U.S. standards, anyway), narrow, and completely parked-up almost 24 hours a day. This makes drop-offs and pick-ups extremely challenging, especially during business hours. When I brought the Zipcar around, Nanabanana and Greta were waiting for me in our building's lobby, but I couldn't stop and pick them up without blocking traffic. In some places in the world, drivers will patiently wait a moment for a car on a narrow, one-way street to load up a few passengers, especially if one of them is an infant. New York is not one of those places. To avoid a cacophony of horns and possible violence, I did what everyone else does on John Street: I pulled up halfway on the opposite curb and waited for my passengers to emerge. (See Nanabanana's CSI-worthy recreation of the crime scene, below).



Directly behind me was a UPS truck. Directly in front of the UPS truck was an annoyed- and officious-looking metermaid (is there any other kind?), writing the UPS truck a ticket. I put my flashers on and waited for my passengers, nervously expecting the metermaid to knock on my window at any moment and tell me to move along.

Greta et al. and the metermaid converged on my Zipcar at the same moment. Just as Nanabanana was gently heaving Seamus' carseat into the vehicle, the metermaid said, "You can't park on the sidewalk!"

"Okay, we're just getting our baby inside," said Greta.

"You can't park on the sidewalk," repeated the metermaid, while Sandy and I struggled with the carseat. I had securely installed the seat's base in the Zipcar ahead of time, but it took some fiddling to get it to snap into the base.

"We're just trying to get our newborn baby into the car! It's taking a minute, because we've never done it before," said Greta, annoyed.

While walking away from Greta towards the front of the vehicle and pulling out her citation pad (which is actually an electronic device these days), the metermaid announced, "Well, if you're going to be rude about it, I'm going to give you a ticket."

What then ensued was a battle of wills between Greta and the metermaid, with Greta pleading, cajoling, and berating the metermaid, who, as is the rule with her kind, responded in much the same way that the Spanish Inquisition did to pleas for mercy. The metermaid primly responded, "You're not any better than anyone else," wrote up the ticket ($180), and handed it to Greta, who angrily flung it into the vehicle, and then promised the metermaid an eternity of torment in the afterlife. (Though Dante somehow fails to mention it, I believe there is a special circle of Hell reserved for just this sort of metermaid.) Even I, placid though a normally am, was moved to roll down the driver's side window and yell, with all the sarcasm I could muster, "Have a nice day!" at the metermaid's implacable retreating back.


As a result of this incident, Greta, suffering from exhaustion and post-partum hormone fluctuations -- and never having had much patience for senseless bureaucratic injustice in any case -- showed up at the doctor's office with red eyes. Fortunately, Dr. Chaudhary was lovely in every sense of the word (I had to swear to Greta later that I didn't pick her from her practice's roster because of her attractiveness), and declared Seamus to be an extremely healthy young man. In fact, he's been nursing so well that, ahead of schedule, he's almost completed gained back the 10% of his weight that babies lose after delivery.

The practice where Dr. Chaudhary works is really nice -- very holistic and alternative-treatment-friendly, as befits our status as secret hippies. On the aesthetic front, their waiting room looks nothing like a doctor's office waiting room -- it's a huge space with big, plush couches and huge windows overlooking Broadway. I knew we had come to the right place as soon as I saw it; it suggests that the people in charge care about their patients' peace of mind.


Seamus had to get his heel pricked for the standard metabolic-disorder screening tests, but that was the worst of it. Now, of course, I'm worried that Seamus will have picked up avian flu or something while he was out of our same little apartment, but I'm resisting the urge to wipe him down with Purell. I'm also resisting the urge to consider Seamus' encounter with the metermaid a bad omen -- I figure that, for the rest of his life, everyone else will seem very nice by comparison.

Now that I think of it, I believe that this metermaid is, in the alternate reality to which Dr. Seuss had access, the Nooth Grush on the toothbrush ("Well, some are nice, but he is not.")

Dear Mr Dyson,

I thought you might be interested to know that Seamus' suction is more powerful than that of even your finest vacuum cleaner.

Seamusfest '07 MVPs, Part 2: Bonu the SuperDoula

Bonu was our instructor at RealBirth. She told the class that she was a doula, and that she also had had her son at home. Greta and I were in the market for a doula, so we snapped her up immediately.

There's something about Bonu that calms people down -- narcotic pheromones, perhaps. She was great with Greta during Greta's labor. And then, a couple of days ago, she came by to see how we were doing. She asked to hold Seamus, and proceeded to rock, pat, and jiggle him into a blissful stupor. It was fascinating to watch -- he was like a dog getting its belly rubbed. When she finally put him down, he slept, log-like, for twice as long as he usually does.

Embarrassingly, we had been so focused on feeding him and trying to manage our sleep periods that we completely neglected to try out the one thing that everyone knows about babies: rocking calms them. Since then, I have tried my best to mimic Bonu's effortless-seeming baby-handling moves, but it's like trying to learn how to dance like Fred Astaire (while sleep-deprived). Actually, I'm not doing that badly -- for instance, I've found that a bit of strategically-timed rocking will keep him asleep for a good long while when he starts to wake, and I've been using this to try to squeeze out more sleep time for Greta.

In addition to dazzling us with her infant rapport, she also brought us a very nice gift basket, which included thoughtful things like sore throat-easing tea, for Greta's bruised-during-labor vocal cords. In short, Bonu rocks! Next to deciding on having a homebirth in the first place, hiring her was the best delivery-related decision that we made.

Poor marginalized critters

I know what you're all thinking: "These posts about Seamus are great, but what about the cats??" I'm happy to report that they're doing fine:


They're all snuggled up together in the back room, keeping their distance from the horrible new human who has invaded their home.

Oh, okay ... here are a couple of Seamus photos:

Seamusfest '07 MVPs, Part 1: NanaBanana

For those of you who missed it in the comments, Nanabanana has a Seamus blog of her own. She's doing a better job at keeping it updated than we are with this one.

That's her above, taking a break from reading her Diane Mott Davidson novel to inspect The Cutest Baby In The World (tm). She has been completely invaluable -- she takes such good care of Greeba, always making sure that she has electrolyte water, rubbing her feet, and making food for her.

I wish we had more of a "village" to help us with Seamus ... unfortunately, Sandy has to leave us sometime this week. But even just for this week, having a third pair of hands around, especially such loving and compassionate ones, has been incredibly helpful. Plus, she has shown an unexpected gift for baby photography (a new career, perhaps?), and she makes us laugh.

Sandy, you are the one of the two best grandmothers in the world (actually, you're definitely the best this week; I just don't want to offend my mother).

Beastfeeding

Looking at babyhood from an IT perspective, Seamus has three functions: input, output, and downtime. (There's also a fourth -- spreading joy -- but only Steve Jobs defines that as an IT function.) His output is exemplary (that's my boy!); he has already finished expelling the vast quantities of meconium that filled his intestines in utero, and is now heroically pushing out looser, watery poo.

The input and downtime are more challenging (for Greta, primarily), because he spends so much time feeding that there's not much time left for sleeping. So far, his pattern has been more or less: feed for forty-five minutes, sleep for forty-five minutes.

Many people aren't even aware that new mothers need to learn to breastfeed -- I always assumed that it was instinctual for both mother and child. To an extent it is -- but getting it right is not. This has been Greta's biggest challenge so far, leading to a fair amount of angst ("What am I doing wrong??") and culminating in a semi-desperate call to Bonu early this morning. When I described Greta's issues to her, she had two excellent pieces of advice, which I will share with you, on the off chance that you might need to breastfeed someday:

1) The breastfeeding class that we took emphasized that you should remove your baby from the breast immediately if your nipple hurts, because that's an indication that the "latch" is incorrect, and you will wind up feeding inefficiently and damaging your nipple. Bonu, however, clarified that for many women, nipple soreness is unavoidable at first -- you just have to "power through it", and eventually it will lessen and then go away.

2) Newborns are such lightweights -- Seamus would get one swallow, and then immediately (and somewhat comically) pass out. Bonu said: wake him up in some gentle way (a foot tickle, talking, etc.) so that he starts sucking again. Repeat over and over again until he's had enough to eat.

These two tips turned nursing sessions from frustrating ordeals into smooth sailing ... now if only he would sleep for a little while longer after nursing. The kid's like the Energizer Bunny of breastfeeding -- I think he's transferring his intake into an alternate dimension via a tesseract or something. There's no way that all of the liquid that he demands with such frequency could fit into him.

The good news is that breastfeeding is the sweetest-looking thing in the world. Utter contentment, both during and immediately after, suffuse little Seamus' being.

Right now, child and exhausted mother are dozing next to me, following two back-to-back marathon feeding sessions. Now sleep, Seamus! That's an order from your old man! As long as you live under my roof, you'll follow my rules! ... etc. ...

[another nanapow original photo]

Call me, my love, call me, call me, any, anytime, call me

Greta tells me that she feels a bit guilty about our "no telephone calls" edict now. So feel free to call us if you want to.

I should warn you that we can't guarantee we'll actually pick up, especially if Seamie is sleeping. We feel the love coming through, though, even if we don't talk to you.

(Photo by nanapow)

Seamus Blau: Rookie Stats

By popular demand:

DOB: Thursday, January 25, 2007
Time of birth: 6:36 PM EST
Place of birth: 17 John Street, Apartment 7C, New York, NY 10038
Weight at birth: 7 lbs., 14 oz.
Length at birth: 19.5 inches
APGAR at birth: 6.9
APGAR at 5 minutes: 9.0

(Photo by nanapow)

Timeline of a birth

11:15pm Wednesday: we have foolishly stayed up this late to watch Top Chef, even though we know that Greta has to get up at 6am the following morning to drink castor oil, on our midwives' orders. Greta has become fascinated with cooking shows in the past few weeks -- a nesting symptom, perhaps?

6:00am Thursday: I help Greta choke down two ounces of the foul, foul castor oil, mixed with mango (yes, mango!) sorbet. Greta goes back to bed, feeling a little queasy; I stay up.

8:30am: Just as I am about to leave for work, Greta lumbers out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom, where she experiences gastric distress. Horrified at the severity of it, I decide not to go to work.

8:45am: Though I try to delay it, Midwife Karen tells me, via phone, that I have to go drop off the Big Jug O' Pee (see earlier posts) as soon as possible -- they need the results of that test. I reluctantly leave Greta, who is camped in the bathroom.

10:30am: I return to the apartment, to find Greta still in the bathroom, and now in the throes of a kind of torture. She is vomiting into plastic shopping bags, and every few minutes her bowels clench painfully, even though they have long since been completely emptied.

11:30: NanaBanana and Grandpa Cliff arrive from Connecticut. I meet them downstairs and tell them that Greta is in no mood for visitors, and will probably need to sleep for a few hours after this ordeal is over. They decide to wait in our building's lounge. (Sandy bruises herself on the pool table in there somehow ... poor Sandy!)

Noon: No change. Greta is now hanging onto the towel rack next to the toilet to get through the intestinal spasms. I get on the phone with Karen, who suggests that maybe Greta's pains are actually labor pains. She tells me to feel Greta's stomach when the pain in the worst -- if her Seamus-stuffed uterus is is hard as a rock (or a spasming muscle), then it's a uterine contraction. Unfortunately, I find that her stomach remains soft.

12:30pm: Greta is in such distress now that she can't tolerate talking to me, or even having me in the bathroom. I straighten up the apartment a bit, checking in on her periodically.

1:00: At Karen's urging, I finally convince Greta to get off the toilet and lie down in bed so that she can rest (I, do however, resist Karen's suggestion that I put a Depends on Greta). Greta's nether regions are in such distress that I apply a frozen witch-hazel maxi pad to ease them. Greta falls asleep.

1:45: After sleeping peacefully for about a half hour, Greta's sleep is increasingly interrupted by more spasms. I assume that this is the last throes of the castor oil torture, but the spasms keep getting worse. When they get bad enough for Greta to clutch our bed's headboard and groan loudly, I say, out loud to myself, "Something's not right here," and begin to dial Karen again. As I wait for her to return the call, I suddenly realize what's happening: Greta is in labor.

2:00: Karen confirms my diagnosis and requests that we call her back in about two hours, or if there are any major changes to the labor. I am a bit alarmed that contractions have started at only five minutes apart. No "early labor" for us. No Braxton-Hicks contractions. No "going to the movies to distract ourselves". Straight into hard labor. "I'm not sure I can do this," pants Greta.

2:30: I've been helping Greta through a few more headboard-clutching contractions. I wonder, could I help her through labor all on my own? I believe I could, but I have no inclination to try to prove it. I call our doula, Bonu; she says she'll be here ASAP.

3:00: I ask Cliff and Sandy to come up from the lounge.

3:30: Greta has mostly been laboring in the bathroom again: but this time, standing up, bent over and clutching the sink, while I rub her back. Bonu arrives and takes over massage duties. Greta is now on her hands and knees on the couch, while Bonu expertly massages her back. Meanwhile, Nana and Cliff assemble the "AquaDoula" portable tub. Their extracts Greta's first laugh of the day.
On the one hand, I am very pleased that a professional is here. On the other, I feel somewhat useless. I stroke Greta's hair and talk to her. I'm amazed by, and bit guilty about, my ability to emotionally tolerate her suffering during the contractions. Maybe we've just done so much birth prep that I know exactly what to expect -- and that Seamus is waiting for us on the far end of this.

4:00: Greta tries out the tub, crouching in it on all fours, while Bonu and I scoop warm water onto her back. It feels very good for a while -- it make the contractions easier to bear. After a while, though, she begins to feel nauseous, so we help her get out and dry her off.

4:30: While on a bathroom break, Greta has a contraction and feels Seamus "drop" lower -- something we've been waiting weeks for him to do. Shortly afterwards, Bonu gets onto the phone with Karen and they have a "birth professionals" confab. Bonu stresses to Karen that she feels, based on Greta's vocalizations, that she may already have begun to push (which, for those of you not in the know, is pretty much the very last last step before birth happens). Greta's moans have a guttural quality that sounds "push-y" to Bonu (and to me, too).
I try to put Greta on the phone with Karen, but Greta is by no means in a talking mood. Like many laboring women, she finds that she must put all of her concentration into her work, even between contractions. So instead, I hold the phone up to her and let Karen listen during a contraction. "I'm going to come over," Karen says.

5:00: Karen arrives and examines Greta. After "getting all up in her business," as they say, Karen looks surprised. "I'm feeling something very, very good here," she says. "You're completely dilated. There's nothin' but baby up there." I have a moment of awful fear when it takes Karen a while to find Seamus' heartbeat with her doppler device; once she does, it's a beautiful sound.

5:30: As the second midwife, Martine, arrives, Greta's lying on our bed on her side. I'm lying next to her, trying to soothe her, Bonu is behind her, massaging her, and Karen is down at her business end. The contractions are more intense then ever, and Greta is clutching the headboard again, and my hand, sometimes.

5:50: To my amazement, Karen and Martine begin encouraging Greta to push. I'm amazed because this means that we are in the home stretch -- if you are familiar with how long labor usually takes, you are probably amazed as well. "You're going to set a record!" I tell Greta. "My mom already did that," she gasps. I'm impressed that she's able to make a joke at this particular moment in her life.
Indeed, all along I've been impressed at how lucid she's been between contractions. As noted above, she didn't really want to talk to anyone, but when she had to or was able to, she was pretty much her regular self -- stressed and ornery, but that's pretty much like she is during a working day at TPR.

6:20: Karen says, "He's got hair!" Again, I am amazed and thrilled -- this is going to be over so soon! I had thought it would take at least twice this long. "Seamus is coming!" I tell Greta.

6:25: I've been lying next to Greta, reluctant to see what's going on further down. (I can remember Captain Hollow's reaction to the sight of his baby crowning.) But now I think, I'm going to regret it if I don't see my son come into the world. I look, and I see the hair.

6:32: At the next push, the head begins to emerge -- and at the push after that, it just keeps emerging, and emerging, and emerging. Due to the miracle of molding by the cervix and birth canal -- without which, vaginal birth would be impossible -- Seamus' head is (temporarily) tremendously long and sort of cylindrical. It's shaped like the head of one of H.R. Giger's aliens.

6:33: "It kind of ... burns," gasps Greta. "Yes, I know," says Bonu (also a mother) and presses a pressure point on Greta's hand to ease the pain.

6:34: The eyes emerge -- dark, wide, and staring right at me.

6:35: "Let's get her onto her hands and knees," says Karen, and together, we do.

6:36: Karen eases Seamus' shoulders out, then deftly lifts a loop of umbilical cord that's draped around his chest over his head and out of the way. The rest of his body slides out onto the bed. In defiance of entropy, something new and wonderful has entered the world.

6:37: "I want him on me!" says Greta, weakly. We ease her back onto her back, and Seamus is placed on her chest, and covered with a blanket. "Hello, Seamus," I say.

Quick Update from Greta

We'll have to post the birth story soon, but let's just say I understand why A) people take the epidural, B) people stop at one kid and C) what Jim's sister Kathleen meant when she said after giving birth to Rowan, "I just DID that!" in amazement at her own redrawn limits.

Amazing and unbelieveable still, truly that this has happened and that I just did that (with the help of Seamus, Jim, doula Bonu, Mom, Cliff, and midwives Martine and Karen)! Oh and my bestest friend castor oil. Uh, yeah, was I cursing the names of the midwives when I was sitting on the toilet for 4 hours straight, hanging from the towel rack by my arms? Yes, I was.

Anyway - we don't have alot of pics of Seamus yet because we're either sleeping with him, or attempting to get the hang of nursing, or eating, but I'm posting some photos of the day yesterday. Right now, Jim and Seamus are taking a little nap together in bed. Damn he looks sexy with a baby in his arms. Must resist, because even if I had a labor of half the time, I am never doing that again! I swear!

Thank you all so much for the well-wishes. Really heartfelt and appreciated. And, of course, Teri made me cry. Leenie too!You ladies are relentless!

OK - photos:

My mom cutting the cord
Seamus's first check up!

Jim and Seamus bonding while I was being tended to

The first shirt Seamus ever wore courtesy of Aunt Lizzie, aka Bizzer


And now I must go catch a few Zs.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Seamus

Or, A Case Study In The Effects Of Sleep Deprivation

Just now, Greta said (while "beastfeeding" Seamus), "Jimma, he needs a cap -- can you bring me one?"

I picked one up off of a table, brought it over to her, and tried to put it on Greta's head.

She looked at me in shock. "Were you seriously trying to do that?" she asked.

I stood there for a moment, then quietly said, "Uh, yes," and put the cap on Seamus' head.

What is this "sleep" that you speak of?

I'll try to do some more updates later -- for now, we have to sleep when Seamus does, and he's not sleeping more than an hour at a time so far. We just slept for a whole hour and fifteen minutes, and I woke up convinced that I'd just slept for at least four hours.

Despite this cruel behavior of his, we still adore him. Even when he's yelling and waving his little fists, he's still the cutest thing we've ever seen.

Thanks to all of you for your congratulations and kind words -- I've really enjoyed reading them. Greta hasn't had time to ... although I've changed many a meconium-smeared diaper and re-done the burrito wrap over and over again, I'm practically a man of leisure compared to Greta ... since she has the baby-feeding equipment.

It's great having NanaBanana here ... I have no idea how couples who are all alone cope with this.

Hello kitty

Hello world

Please welcome Seamus McCune Smith Blau

Born at 6:36pm EST. Brave and powerful mama doing great, and so is the new cutest baby in the world (sorry, Rowan). Pictures will be posted whenever I get a chance ... I just ordered about five cubic feet of Indian food. Mama's hungry!

Start spreadin' the news

I take back everything I said about castor oil -- labor has begun. And it ain't fooling around -- contractions are 5 mins apart.

NanaBanana is here; doula and midwife on the way.

More when I'm able.

"For Immunity!"

Well the castor oil has been taken. It wasn't fishy like I thought it would be. When I was a kid I had a friend whose parents were German and one night when I slept over her mother made me take castor oil. I guess it was a daily routine for them (or I was being particularly bratty that day). Anyway, she made me take it and I remember it tasting fishy. Maybe it was some other kind of oil. Maybe just the father was German, now that I think of it. Eileen Engels, I will get you some day for that!

So I'm on a train I can't stop now. I seem to recall this not working for a couple of people I know personally, but the midwives seem to think everything is "ripe" and ready to go.

Per Granny Franny's request, I'll try not to describe the, um, results of the castor oil ingestion other than if contractions start, but I can't promise anything! I AM a 13-year-old boy at heart, after all.

Uh, I think I'm already, uh, feeling it. Gotta go!

(Oh, when I was gagging down spoonfuls of the castor oil with mango sorbet chaser, Jim said "Pretend you're on survivor. It's for immunity!" hee)

Mmm, castor oil!

Another update: Midwife Martine called about an hour ago (interrupting American Idol!) and gave us the results of the blood tests that Greta took yesterday. In brief: Martine says she "won't be sitting up tonight worrying" about Greta. A couple of the tests (platelets and anemia) were slightly outside of "normal", but not enough to seriously worry Martine. The bottom line is that Greta may be starting to get sick, but she's apparently not sick yet. We need the results of the Jug O' Pee Test to be sure ... but hopefully, by that time Seamus will be with us.

Tomorrow, the incomparable NanaBanana will be motoring down from beautiful Milford, Connecticut, to take up residence in our back room. The original plan was for her to drive down when Greta was just starting to labor, but after all the medical stress yesterday, Greta wanted her mommy! ... and Sandy was tired of waiting for that call.

So, Sandy will have the honor of keeping Greta company after Greta drinks the castor oil. I'll be at work, waiting to hear that gastric distress has turned into uterine contractions, upon which I will race home ... and those damn TPR computers can take care of themselves for a while.

Poor Greta, stuck in the poo chamber tomorrow! ... but yay for Seamus!

Update o' the Day

Midwife came. My BP is still a little high (for me): 140/80. This is normal for some people, but mine is usually 110/70. I have been peeing in a big orange jug today and Jim gets the pleasure of carrying it on the subway in a bag that says in big letters "URINE SAMPLE" to the Quest lab in Soho in the morning. We'll get results about whether there's protein in my urine on Saturday probably. The results of yesterday's blood tests might be available tomorrow or Friday.

I'm taking evening primrose, which supposedly softens the cervix, and I'll be taking some kind of midwife-recommended homeopathic remedy when Jim gets home with it tonight. Can't remember the name.

Under normal circumstances, the midwives would just be waiting another week until 42 weeks to send me to the doctor for an ultrasound to make sure Seamus is still healthy and safe in there and then we might start some more aggressive measures to try to get him out if not. But because my BP is up a bit and I could be getting sick, they want to cut off at the pass the possibility of having to go to the hospital later and be induced by a more invasive measure, like pitocin. This is one thing I'd LOVE to avoid. That and a c-section.

So tomorrow I am going to be waking up at 6 am and peeing in the jug for the last time, and taking 2 ounces of castor oil, a substance that makes people puke on contact or poo profusely after a couple of hours of keeping it down. Apparently, and appropriately, mango ice cream helps it go down a little easier. So that's my morning tomorrow. The thought is that my bowels will get the already somewhat started process in high gear. I will start contracting and go into full on labor hopefully tomorrow! I DID call it as the day.

I'm willing to do anything at this point to get this kid out so I know he's safe and sound in our arms.

Wish me luck! Hopefully there will be a post here in the morning announcing that the games have begun!

Greta in her nest

I brought Greta home yesterday, made her a nest on our bed, and made sure she had everything she needed:

• A cat
  
• A computer
  
• The Sunday Times crossword
  
• A cell phone
  
• A bottle of water
  
• The remote control
  

So at least she'll be comfy while we wait for Seamus to arrive!

Update of the day --- TMI WARNING! (I warned you!)

The midwife came today and she checked the baby. His heartbeat was great, size is good,etc. Then she said she wanted to do an internal and that she wanted to swipe my membranes, which entails sticking her fingers IN my cervix and separating the water bag from the small membranes that attach it to the cervix (sorry, I know this is disturbing!). Apparently this makes your body produce prostoglandin (I think), which makes you go into labor if everything else is ready.

So she did the internal - I was 2 cm, 50% effaced, and my cervix was very low, all of which she said was good.

Then she did the swiping, which was quite uncomfortable and I squeezed Jim's hand so hard he is convinced he is going to bruise.

I started bleeding and had some clots later on (small ones) and now I'm pretty much done spotting more or less.

So then she did my blood pressure (after all that!) and it was high. I'm not surprised. Then she had me lie down and relax to get me to lower the blood pressure, took it again and it was high still. So she told me A) No more work starting today and B) I have to get my urine protein checked, but then we realized since I was bleeding from the swiping, it would affect the protein level in the urine. UGH! So she told me about preeclampsia and since I had this higher BP and I had a headache this weekend, they had to rule it out because it's really dangerous and I would have to go to the hospital and have the baby ASAP. UGH!

So I went to work to wrap things up (for 3 hours) and she called and wanted me to go to the lab and get some blood drawn and get a giant orange jug to pee in all day tomorrow so they can check my proteins etc. I asked the tech if it made a difference if I was bleeding and she said it shouldn't, but I suspect it will make a difference and possibly give them an incorrect reading. Jim says if it does, we should ask to do it again. But I'm thinking the blood tests should also rule things out.

So I'm just hanging here. I'm supposed to lie down as much as I can. I'm hoping the swiping will just help and I can just go ahead with my homebirth plan in the next couple of days and never have to deal with the hospital, etc. If I need to go, of course I will though. I have had some pains in my cervix since and it's tender there now, so maybe something will happen tonight.

Everyone send Seamus HURRY UP vibes! MORE MORE MORE!!!!

Getting Impatient!

I want Seamus! I want Seamus!
I thought for sure he'd be here this past weekend, but he decided that he's just not ready yet.
We're sitting here watching the world's dumbest show---24. Jack Bauer is about to torture his own brother.

Waiting for Seamus.
It does feel like he's trying to get out, moving around a lot like he's trying to move down.
Come on, Seamus! You can do it!
Maybe my prediction of this Thursday will come true.

GOOOOOO, Seamus!

We Want a Seamus! We Want a Seamus!

Seamus,

All of your little friends are waiting for you. So come on!!

Love,

Your mother

Predictions Anybody? (Updated!)

Update: he's still taking his sweet-ass time! Most people's guesses have already expired.

I was due on January 18th, and people have started predicting when Seamus will make his debut. It could happen as early as tomorrow and as late as 43 weeks, which would be February 8th!

So far, we have these guesses (the expired guesses are crossed out):

Rob Munk: January 13 (his birthday!)
Carol: January 14 or January 18 (Carol says that these dates came to her in a dream ... and the 18th is Caitlin's birthday)
Kathy K: January 15 (Jen Turner's birthday)
Texas Jo: January 15 (Jo's birthday! She and Kathy will have to split the prize, though.)
Al Gore: January 15 (It's Martin Luther King's birthday, too!)
Scott: January 16 (Danny Drysdale's birthday)
Neil: January 18 (he's the only one so far who believes that Seamus will be exactly on time)
Julie: January 18 (she has joined Neil in trusting Seamus to follow orders)
Matt Davis and Kathy Blau: January 19 (Josh's birthday!)
Nostradamus and Elf: January 20 (Julie's birthday)
Jen: January 20
Jim: January 21 (my birthday!)
Salvatore: January 21
Evelin: January 22
Julieanna: January 23
Mr. Dyson: January 24
Me: January 25
Cliffie: January 31 (his birthday)
Heidi: February 1 (Teri's birthday)
Sandy: May 8 (very funny.)
Teri: "Four days after the Briggs Stratton contractions start up." No fair, Trees! Pick a date! :-)

As people guess, we'll update this post.

Nostradamus wants to know what the prize is ... we're not sure yet! Bragging rights? A pail of used diapers? You get to babysit?

Late-night shenanigans, a special birthday, and lazy cats

We know that something totally crazy is about to happen to us. We are listening to the last few clicks of the ratchet as the roller-coaster car reaches the top of the hill ...

In the past few months, Greta has been getting up at least twice a night to pee -- sometimes as many as four times! And once in a while, she finds herself unable to get back to sleep. (This is caused by anxiety, I believe.) So she pokes me and says, "Jimmaaaa ... I can't sleeeep." And then I mutter, "It's okay, Greta ... don't worry about it ... just relax ..." Somehow, this always does the trick, and she falls asleep again immediately.

Last night, though, she dropped her water bottle.

A brief digression: Greta, having perhaps been a princess in her last life, needs many accouterments for her nightly repose. She needs a full bottle of water (with the cap on, so that the cats don't knock it over and spill the contents), a box of tissues (for late-night sneezing attacks), and her sleep mask (so that she can get back to sleep if she wakes up after sunrise). As her house elf, it is my job to make sure that all of these items are in their proper place at bedtime.

The bottle fell down behind our bed, which is pushed up against a wall. This made retrieving it challenging. I immediately got down onto the floor and started to crawl under the bed (naked ... sorry for putting that mental image into your brain), when I suddenly had an attack of claustrophobia (unusual for me). I quickly backed out and considered another line of attack. I climbed over Greta ("Don't step on me!" she said) and got between Seamus' co-sleeper and the wall. My plan was to crouch down there and grab the water bottle, but I was wedged in so tightly that I could barely move. Greta rolled her eyes. "That's not going to work," she said.

So I ordered her off the bed (a command the she fulfilled with a fair amount of effort ... it's not easy to rise from a prone position when nine month's pregnant) and pulled it out from the wall. In a moment, I had retrieved the bottle, put the bed back into place, and we were both back under the covers. "Happy Birthday," I muttered, before re-entering unconsciousness.

Happy Birthday, Greta Ann! I hope that Seamus is as cute as you were:


Meanwhile, the cats are patiently awaiting the new arrival. Actually, they're not patient, they're just lazy. And they have no idea what's about to happen to their comfortable little world ...

Lucky me!

Since I can't seem to get around to writing real thank you notes these days, I am going to talk about the wonderful gifts I received today from Granny Franny and Auntie Teri and family.

First of all, it's SO nice to have an extended family through Jim who knows me well enough to know what I love. Two packages and two cat cards! Well, okay, that's a no brainer, but Granny Franny somehow knew my favorite scent in the world is lavender. She sent me a little purple bag filled with the stuff for when I can "spare a few moments" to lay my head on my pillow. What a nice picture! Can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks!

And then the package from Gloucester! Stickers on the outside, always good. Ladybug stickers, even better! Handmade origami invented by Tris, handmade cards from Wes and Tris, some tea meant to give me tranquility (uh, what, am I going to have some chaos in my life soon? Hee). Some cool birthday candles in the shape of flip flops (I've been dreaming of the Caribbean lately)!

But there was also a small, old-fashioned–looking leather book wrapped with a beautiful white and gold ribbon with something written inside that I started reading out loud and Jim had to finish. It was so beautiful and touching, I couldn't get the whole thing out:

January 2007
For you, wee Seamus-
For your mama and
your daddy-
For your big wide
family-
For everyone who will adore you,
admire you, teach
you, guide you,
scold and discipline
you, cheer you and
fear for you, laugh
with you, cry with
you, play with you,
walk with you, run
with you, dance with
you, feed you and be
fed by you, sing to
you, listen to you,
embrace you, hold
your hand, read to
you, read what you
write, show you new
things, watch you
discover the world
around you, hope for
you, pray for you,
worry about you,
delight in you-
Please always remember,
Seamus you are so
loved---and thus,
never alone.

Love Auntie Teri

And...

A Cradle Song by W.B. Yeats

The angels are stooping
Above your bed.
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.

God's laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
the Sailing Seven
Are gay with his mood.

I kiss you and kiss you
My pigeon, my own
Ah, how I shall miss you
When you have grown.

Sigh. Thanks Fran and Teri et al! You've touched my heart.

A message from Seamus...

Hi everyone. I know I'm SUPPOSED to come into the world today, but I'm just not ready! It's really warm and nice (not to mention soft) in my mother's belly and I still have a couple of weeks if I feel like taking them! I can't wait to meet you all though! Oh, and I have the hiccups...again!

Thanks, Londoners!

Even though I didn't completely forget that Sunday is my birthday, somehow the impending birth of my son has overshadowed it! Go figure. That's why it was a really nice surprise to get a package of Moroccan goodness from the London contigency of Leenie, Greg, and Lily (the Birthday Meister). I got some cool elf slippers and Jim got a fez! A real Moroccan fez! But the best part was my very special chocolate gift JUST FROM Lil. I'm special! And Jim is speshul.

Happy MLK Day ...

... to all of you. Sorry, Seamus, that you don't get to be born on King's birthday!

I love it that we have a holiday dedicated to a such a radical guy, whose words still have the power to challenge and shame us ... Seamus, may you grow up to see a world where King's ideas are taken more seriously than they are now.

This is a test of the Seamus McCune Smith Blau Early Warning System

Granny Franny asks: "... we haven't heard what communications network you plan to set up for telegraphing every important update on Seamus' ETA. Any plan afoot, yet?"

Why yes, Watson, the plan is afoot! Here it is:

- When Greta goes into labor (for real, that is -- there are often "false alarms" before the real thing starts), I'll send out an email to both families, and ...

- I'll also put a post up on this here blog thing ...

- ... and I'll send out a "hurray!" email after SMS is born.

There is one important request that I need to make, though: please don't call us. We won't answer anyway, but we'd rather not have the phone ringing at all. Actually, I'll probably pick up the phone, snarl, "I told you not to call -- you're dead to me! Dead!", and then hang up.

Okay, I won't go that far, but we have been advised by the midwives that the ideal birthing environment is one without interruptions. Feel free to post comments here to your heart's content, though, and to email us.

Now that I'm done being a hippie control freak, who wants to see a picture of a full-term pregnant belly? This was taken just a couple of minutes ago:

Things We Don't Do In This House

Greta and I love those horrifying reality-tv nanny shows -- the ones where a British nanny shows up at an American house full of screaming, fighting children and desperate parents, and solves all of their problems in three days. Apparently the British are the world's experts on raising well-behaved children.

I know this from personal experience: when my English niece, Lily, was around six years old, I accompanied her and my sister to a kids' birthday party in London. Instead of children running around, throwing gobs of ice cream and cake at each other, at this party, the well-dressed attendees sat quietly around a table with their hands in their laps, patiently waiting their turn to have candy and cookies passed to them.

From the U.S. nanny shows, it's apparent that all American children, in contrast, are possessed by Satan: they constantly scream, viciously beat their siblings, and yell, "I hate you!" at their parents. The parents fall into one of two camps: Ineffective Yellers and Helpless Pushovers. That's the bad news about us -- the good news is that all American parents really need is for a uniformed, middle-aged British woman to show up and whip them into shape.

Watching these shows has made Greta and me wonder what kind of disciplinarians we will be. We suspect that we will overcompensate for what we know about our personal deficiencies: so Greta thinks that she might be too soft on him, and I might be too harsh.

I've been practicing (on Greta) to be a bad parent by developing House Rules to recite to Seamus: specifically, rules delivered in the most annoying format ever developed ... Things We Don't Do In This House. So far, I've admonished Greta in the following ways:

- "We don't leave dishtowels lying around in this house."
- "We don't throw tissues on the floor in this house."
- "We don't leave magazines on the food preparation area in this house."
- "We don't leave the commercials unmuted in this house."
- "We don't call Daddy a "retard" in this house."

Next, I'll work on my "As long as you're living under my roof ..." technique.

On The Day You Were Born

Tonight, I read to Seamus a book called On The Day You Were Born, which was a Christmas present to him from his great-grandmother, Toni.

This is a great book for Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins fans -- while sweet and whimsical, as one would expect a children's book to be, it also celebrates the beauty of what some call "the natural world" (which would better be described as "the universe, from which a small group of sentient beings on a small planet somehow imagine themselves to be separate"), and the joy of understanding it. There's even a five-page appendix explaining, in simple terms, some of the concepts mentioned in the book, such as tides and animal migrations.

Many thanks to "Mimi" for this excellent present ... and for understanding us so well. We are so looking forward to the first time she can hold Seamus, look into his eyes, and show him the love that she already feels for him ...

The co-sleeper is not a cat bed.

The cats think that we bought this co-sleeper thing for them. The must be trained to think otherwise ... someday, they can feel free to snuggle with Seamus, but only when he's old enough to throw them off if they sit on his face.

Hopefully, the cats read this blog. I'm sure that Partial uses my computer late at night sometimes. I can't really otherwise explain the cat porn that I find in my browser history.

In the land of the famous fathers

On Friday, I was walking to work (Greta was taking the day off) and I passed Michael Imperioli, walking his young son to school in Tribeca. He was wearing sunglasses and talking on his cellphone, cutting quite a stereotypical figure -- but he was also holding his kid's hand, which was sweet.


Yesterday, Greta and I needed to get outside and enjoy the freakish weather, so we walked to the Petite Abeille on West Broadway and got an outside table. While we were enjoying our pommes frites (and I was enjoying a nice Belgian beer), we saw many parents strolling by with cute children, which made me smile and think about how I would soon be taking Seamus for similar walks. I was especially pleased to see a guy walking by "wearing" a small baby in a sling, since I plan to do that. "Incoming baby," I said to Greta, gesturing. She turned and looked. "Hey, that's Jon Stewart!" she said. [Actually, I said "That's fucking Jon Stewart!" ---GB]

After he had passed, she laughed. "You were so focused on the baby, you didn't even notice the guy!" she said. ... this is especially funny, because Jon Stewart is one of my heroes -- I believe that his show does more to help this country than all of the "real" news programs put together.

So anyway -- I may not be as talented or as rich as Michael or Jon ... and both of their sons are very cute ... but I do believe that Seamus will be even cuter.

The Birth Team

We've got almost everything in place now for the birth: two shelves full of birthing supplies, an exercise ball repurposed as a "birthing ball", hippie diapers (chlorine-free), and, most importantly, a crack team of delivery assistants:

- Karen Jefferson, midwife.
- Martine Jean-Baptiste, midwife. Separately, these two are formidable midwives. Together, there are an unstoppable baby-delivering machine. One of the two of them (whoever is available) will attend the birth.
- Bonu de Caires, doula. She was our RealBirth instructor, and we liked her so much we asked her to be our doula -- especially once she told us that she had delivered her own child at home. Plus, she a UMass alumna. Go Minutepersons!
- Jada Shapiro, doula. Bonu isn't available until after Greta's birthday (Jan. 21st), so Jada will do the doulaing if he arrives before then.
- Yours truly -- providing backrubs and a convenient person to blame for "getting us into this mess".
- The inestimable NanaBanana, dealing with anything else not covered by the rest of the crew -- especially being Greta's Mom. None of the rest of us can do that!

I wonder if I should get us "Team Seamus" t-shirts to wear on delivery day.

I also went all the frigging way out to Dyker Heights (famous for having NYC's most garish Christmas displays) today to pick up a co-sleeper. I was able to go without a coat, though, because of the freakish weather that we're having.

Now we just need to get Seamus turn in the right direction and drop his little head into Greta's pelvis ... but at least everything's ready for him now!

The bun is almost fully cooked

As of last Thursday, Seamus is considered to be "full-term" -- i.e., if he were born today, he would not be considered premature, even though the full forty weeks aren't up until the 18th.

I have a feeling that this magical 37-week border between pre-term and full-term is not as hard and fast as the literature written for the general public would suggest, but nevertheless, we felt relieved. We may even have breathed a clichéd "sigh of relief" or two. We made it!

Actually, we had a more practical reason than most parents to feel relieved: our midwives won't do the homebirth until after 37 weeks. Seamus is now cleared for landing. (Wait, is he a bun or a plane? ... I can't keep track of my metaphors at this late hour.)

We finally "interviewed" a kid-doctor today, at this really cool holistic medical center near Madison Square Park (which, confusingly, is over a mile away from Madison Square Garden). I'll let Greta write more about the doc, but I give her a thumbs-up just for the location: you know that Seamus and I will be taking extra-long on our doctor's visits in order to squeeze in a trip to the Shake Shack: the apotheosis of fast food, and the only place in NYC to get a real Chicago hot dog. (I'm hoping they'll be offering a veggie-dog version this year ... sorry for this blasphemous hope, Sandlins.)

Time for bed ... I am seriously jonesing for sugar right now, since this is probably the first night since Thanksgiving that I haven't stuffed my pie-hole full of cookies and/or chocolate after dinner. But I shall resist ...