Transition!! Taryl is getting the pushy feelings, and everything is bothering her and she is feeling irritable right now. Good times!

Dr. Bell is here again. He broke Taryl's water and inserted a pressure monitor thing. 8cm dilated, 0 station. Doing great.

Taryl is on the pit. She is on slight oxygen now too. Hey, if you are going to have a hospital birth, might as well take advantage of the good stuff, right?

Dr. Bell came in and checked Taryl. She is "a good 6 cm" (she was 5-6 before), but still at -2 station, and fully effaced. They are going to start pumping pitocin (pit) into her IV now. They are going to hold off on breaking the water for now (which Taryl is quite pleased over).

So, after discussions with Dr. Bell and our Doula, Taryl opted for an epidural (epi) to get some rest. You see, she was kept awake all last night with contractions, so she is pretty wasted without any sleep in the last 40 hours or so. Anyway, she got an epi put in, and she is trying to rest/sleep right now. Soon she will be getting some pitocin to try to make the contractions hit a good rhythm. We'll see what'll happen. I'll keep you posted.

So, we are all checked into the hospital and stuff. Mommy is 5.5 cm, in back labor and pain, and 100% effaced. They are considering her currently in active labor, or as Worf said, "You have dilated to 5 cm, you can now give birth". More as this develops.

Yes, it's been several months since an update - what can I say, this pregnancy is QUITE uneventful!

I didn't gain any weight, so I am still only up 5 pounds the whole pregnancy (which is roughly 5 below pre-preg weight!), blood pressure was good at 120/82, I had trace protein which isn't terribly surprising, my diet has been terrible, and I had to do a urine culture for a suspected UTI.

I knew I passed my 1 hour glucose, but I KILLED it! I had a 96, their cutoff is 140 and if I'd been below 90 they'd call me hypoglycemic. Considering I am a fluffy girl and they always stress about weight gain, complications like GD and the like - MWAHAHAHAAA!!! Victory for Taryl.

I'm measuring about 3 weeks ahead, which isn't a lot for me, and the baby was lying head down but partially transverse on my left side - he/she has slid transverse several times and it's quite painful, but hopefully they'll continue to go head down and make my life easier!

Next appointment is June 4th, we'll see what happens then!

We had the 20 week ultrasound for the new baby today and all looks well. The site for kid #2 is quite bare until we get a name and a sex to go along with it (ie: birth) but the ultrasound pictures are posted.

As implied above I DID prove willpower, the baby was head down and legs spread up but we managed to NOT find out the sex, I stayed strong and did NOT cave. Of course, in trying to get shots of the legs and spine there are definitely some fuzzy genital shots, kudos to anyone who finds them and takes a guess. I have my *own* conclusions based on those images as I am pretty adept at looking at ultrasounds (too many pregnant friends!) but it was *just* fuzzy enough there's no solid conclusion.

The whole thing was rather fun, actually. The baby looks GREAT, and everything is measuring normal, though a week ahead of my dates (closer to what I THOUGHT I was before the earlier ultrasound put me at a later date) but nothing will change as far as a due date so I have plenty of time to go into labor on my own. UNLIKE Callie this one wasn't moving a ton, just little fidgets here and there, and was already in a good position. I have been feelings kicks pretty consistently in the same area so hopefully that holds (unlikely, but babies definitely have position preferences even this early).

The one 'downside' is that we didn't get a good shot of all four chambers of the heart at once. They looked fine on the ultrasound but the midwives will want them side by side, so the clinic wanted me to come back in two months for another scan to get a better look. They offered to throw in some free 3-d ultrasound images as well, which is a big plus! I'll never turn down an excuse to see the baby!

Callie was there, acquiring her target for destruction on the screen. Of course as is the case of late she was so fidgety that daddy did not get much of a look at the screen, but he got the general gist of the ultrasound (one head, no extra appendages, not flipping us the bird yet) so all in all a good appointment. I have a midwifery appointment on Wednesday to go over the results and check the regular stuff... updates will be forthcoming but in the meantime, here's the baby's ultrasounds if anyone wants to hazard the Rorschach and take any guesses on what they are actually looking at! (there's labels at the top for cheaters, of course.)

Pics of "Ezekiel" for your befuddled perusing!

Taryl had her 20 week ultrasound today. Pictures have been posted. See the pictures menu on the left.