MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I had a long weekend. Heavy labor pains for forty-eight hours tend to ruin a good day. Here is the scoop on the birth of Aiden Michael Wilson:

• August 27th 4 PM — Chrissy starts having labor pains in the afternoon, but is definitely feeling it by 7 PM. We decide to wait until the contractions get to be about 5 minutes apart before we go to the hospital. Chrissy is able to watch TV until about 9 PM, but goes to lie down after that because of the pain. We’re hoping to have a baby by Monday morning.
• August 28th 3 AM — Chrissy wakes me up to tell me that we should go to the hospital. She hasn’t slept at all. We time the contractions, and they are 3-5 minutes apart, but they are only about 20-25 seconds long. We go to the hospital and get admitted. They say that Chrissy is barely dilated.
• August 28th 10 AM — The doctor allows some drugs for Chrissy to kill the pain, and we manage to get a few hours of sleep until we talk to the doctor.
• August 28th 12 AM — The doctor checks Chrissy and says that she is still barely dilated, so we can go home if we want, or we can wait it out at the hospital room. We decide to go home. We’re home by 6 PM, but Chrissy has bad labor pains all night.
• August 29th 3 AM — The contractions are still pretty strong, and now they are longer (almost a minute). The doctor told us to wait until they were 2-3 minutes apart, so we time them for a couple of hours before heading back into the hospital.
• August 29th 10 AM — Chrissy gets more drugs for the pain, but the contractions are so strong this time that she can’t sleep through them. The doctor checks Chrissy and finds that she is only 3 centimeters dilated. They break her water, and order an epidural.
• August 29th 12AM — The epidural (for the pain) and Pitocin (to speed up dilation) come around noon, which finally allows us to get some sleep. We get to sleep until about 2 PM.
• August 29th 4 PM — The doctor checks Chrissy again and finds she is only 4 centimeters dilated. The doctor asks Chrissy if she would rather wait until she is fully dilated even though there is a good chance she won’t be able to have the baby naturally, or opt for the c-section. Aiden is ramming into the pelvic bones with his head, and the doctor doesn’t know if he’ll be able to come out naturally. Chrissy opts for the c-section, and immediately nurses prep her for the operating room.
• August 29th 4:33 PM — Aiden is born. The neonatologist gives him an 8-9 on the APGAR test. Chrissy then recovers in post-op while Aiden is sent to the nursery for measurements.

I’ve never been so aggravated with a book that I would seriously think about writing a nasty letter to the publisher, until now. I really liked Star Trek Enterprise, so I started reading the books after the show was cancelled. It’s ok because there’s only a few them, and I’m not going to start reading the ungodly amount of other Star Trek books out there. That being said, aside from the book that was just a rehash of a TV episode (”Enterprise: Shockwave“), this book really pisses me off.

This is actually a very long, yet informative, rant, so click “Continue Reading” below to read the whole thing. Suffice to say that I was unhappy with this book, not just because it was written for the fifth grade level, but because the authors push their political agenda down our throats without so much as a reach-around. And I posted the review on Amazon.com to warn off other people ahead of time.

Chrissy and I went to Lamaze classes this weekend at Community Hospital in Munster. We took the weekend crash course that was eight hours on Saturday and five hours on Sunday. Two very long days. But we brought our own pillows from home and were relatively comfy.

It was very interesting though, and we learned a lot. Surprisingly, the class wasn’t all about breathing for pain management. The instuctor talked to us about pregnancy issues, and then the birthing experience, and then postpartum issues. We found out that the Yoga Ball that Chrissy put away long ago could be used to strengthen the birthing muscles and ease the pressure during labor.

We did practice the breathing techniques for a little while each day, but the class was mostly about what to expect and how to prepare for the next stages of pregnancy and birth. I feel a lot more confident about what I’m supposed to be doing now. And the instructor was very good about answering everybody’s questions. I was sort of dreading the long classes, but now I’m glad that we went.

I went to take out the garbage last night, and the neighbor across the street walks over while I’m in the road. He says, “Did you know that your chimney is broken?” I’m thinking, “No…”

It turns out the electrical damage we took on Thursday night was due to a direct lightning strike on our chimney. There was a huge hole blown into the side of it, and bricks were all over our roof and yard. I explained what happened to the neighbor and thanked him for telling me. Then I brought Chrissy outside (into the 90 degree heat, even after sundown) to see the damage. She was less than pleased.

We were planning on just eating the damages from the storm, since the AC cost us just a little less than our deductible and we could wait a while to get a new downstairs TV. Howver, we found out that it was going to cost us $4100 to fix the chimney, so we immediately called the home insurance company. Now we can get everything replaced for only $500. I hope our premiums don’t go up too high…