Its all about position...

Well, that's at least what the teacher of our birthing class says. This past week we had class #2 and it was all about labor--signs or labor, early labor, good-active labor, transitioning, pushing, and the position of the baby. We learned a lot, but at the end we were a both a little uneasy with high levels of pain that seem to be attached with this whole labor and delivery process. Me--I was uneasy b/c I have to watch Rebecca in pain--Rebecca was uneasy because, well let's face it---she has to push this baby out and no matter what ER or the baby stories tell you, it seems to take a long time. One thing that dawned on me---these contractions---well they seem to be a real big kick in the pants. They last for 60-90 seconds and the time between them are about 2-3 minutes. Yep, its time to use that old Ph.D---let's do a little math :) If the contractions are about 2-3 minutes apart and they last 1-1.5 minutes....Rebecca gets what!?!?---she gets a lousy 30-120 second break between them? And the kicker is that this whole process can be up to 24 hrs and the contractions get closer together as you progress. How can they get closer together---what am I going to start having one while she is on the other one??????

Anyway, there is no turning back---we should have made that decision about 30 or so weeks ago---yep we are going forward--ready to take on these painful contractions---yep, we are going to meet these painful buggers head one with some serious weapons (at least that is what the teacher says)--yep, we have....breathing???? Excuse me nurse/teacher---you gotta be kidding me---these things sound furocious and we are going to try to breathe them away? You know what else works---blowing on a house fire to put it out or placing a blanket over some dynamite so the explosion won't be so bad.

Ok, so I am kidding---we are learning some methods to deal with Rebecca's pain----and breathing is pretty good--I know when my insides are being pulled out, I like to take a deep breath or better yet...I like to pant. Hey, maybe we could have Hardy in the delivery room teaching us how. All I have to do is walk him outside for about 3-5 minutes and we will have a panting instructor for about an hour.

Ok, let's see what has been going on:

Rebecca got beat up! Yep, from the inside---the girl is really taking out her frustrations about Michael Vick on Rebecca's inside. Actually I'm more conviced she is just curious about what all those body parts are:

*inside the uterus*
Truffle-"oooh...I wonder what this is...I should poke it....I should kick it....I should poke it....I should punch it......ooohhh squeashy"

*outside in the real world*
Rebecca- "whoa, I gotta pee"

We brushed Hardy. Doesn't sound exciting--well, then I guess you don't have a Husky:



Ok, here are some pics of Rebecca. The first one gives you the first sneak peek of the long-awaited Pascal...the second one is a good indicator of how great Rebecca looks at 32 weeks

White Plains, NY...A little piece of heaven

Some of you have shown concern for our inability to secure Pascal the Pachyderm--and it has been appreciated. The support has been overwhelming. I feel a new closeness to you all as I struggled to get past this loss. I took it pretty hard since it was my fault that we could not order the chair. When it first went on sale, my very smart wife suggested that we get the chair in case it was discontinued. I said," no way...if it goes out of stock, it will come back in...let's just leave it on the registry." Well, we all saw how that turned out. Anyway, a lot of you have given many suggestions. Heck, we even had one really nice visitor write in the comments section letting us know where we could get this chair--thanks, Geri.

So, on to the good news---we just received Pascal the Pachyderm in the mail a couple of days ago. About 2 weeks ago, I just started calling all of the stores to see if any were in stock. Finally, I found one in a wonderful little city called White Plains, NY. Now I don't know what "White Plains" translates into in english, but it must mean something like "beautiful garden" or "enchanted oasis"???

Anyway, I ordered one of the chairs and had it sent to us. One thing that I learned--Babystyle.com has a good sense of humor. After all of this hassle and finally finding the chair and ordering it--Babystyle sent it in an "Ollie the Octopus" box. I bet you can guess my confusion (insert other words) when we received the box and in giant letters it said
"Ollie the Octopus". Long story short--we opened the box and there sat a wonderful sight--a plush Pascal the Pachyderm chair--Yippie. I will soon post pictures of it in our nursery.

Ok, so what else has been going on---well, we went on vacation to west Michigan to visit Rebecca's family and for Rebecca to have a couple of baby showers. She wants me to pass on the fact that she had an awesome time and that she really loves all of the loot. Ok, so that wasn't exactly her words, but I think I captured the beautiful sentiment. I must say that both Rebecca and Hardy enjoyed the cool temperatures there. Here it is so hot and humid--it is just plain nasty. When we go on family walks, Hardy and Rebecca are just sad to look at sometimes. The hardest part to deal with is that when we get done with our walks Rebecca and I have to listen to our hyper-asthmatic dog for the next couple of hours. You should see (or hear) this dog.... PANT, PANT, PANT, PANT,PANT,PANT... on and on. When I ask him to tone it down a bit, he just looks at me with this look that can only be described as.."you try wearing a fur coat outside, jerk." We are thinking of moving to Antartica for Hardy's sake.

Let's see what else---oh tonight we started our childbirth/newborn care class. I enjoyed it. We learned a lot and the instructor is pretty good. We ended doing some Lamaze exercises at the end. I don't know about Rebecca, but I felt relaxed---I really think that is going to help me when labor comes :) Ten bucks says that all females reading that last statement instantly took a punch at me via cyberspace.

Ok, here was the bad part of the class. I did not use the bathroom before we went---bad idea. By the time we got there at the start of class, I really had to go--bad idea. I bet a lot of you already know why. We went in at 7:00. The instructor said there would be a break at 8:00. My initial though was.."ok, that is not too bad...I can wait one hour" Then I started to look around---what class was I going to again???? The class had about 20 participants---10 were pregnant women---that is a whole lot of compressed bladders!!!! So, when the break came, I decided there was no way that I could jump up and go to the bathroom in front of one of these expectant mothers--no way, that would not be cool. So, I watched...one went in that bathroom, another in that one....then a line formed...I watched for every expecting mother to get up and use the facilities--heck, I even waited for some of them to use it twice (afterall, it was a 15 minute break). Finally, when I saw other guys going for the bathroom, I new it was safe--at least for a few minutes.

Ok, picture updates.
Remember last time when I told you about Hardy eating Grumpy's face. Here is the proof:


Oh yeah...we picked out a little girl's take home outfit. Enjoy!




And here is a 31 week picture of Rebecca:



Well until next time.....

"Have a good freakin' week"