Dr. Messinger At Last!

I completed ALL 1 million requirements (just a rough estimate) for obtaining my PhD today!

It could have been a disaster--due to inattention, I ended up scheduling my post-defense meeting on THE LAST possible day at 9:30 am. That is so totally unlike me. I'm the kind of girl that likes to leave a little buffer...last minute things make me nervous. Like really nervous. As if to prove that my neurosis is justified, last night Abby woke up with difficulty breathing and had to make a trip to the ER (don't worry, she's fine--turns out it's croup, totally treatable with steroids and inhalants). Had she not responded to treatment or had to stay more than the 5 hours she did, I probably wouldn't have made it to my last minute meeting. But she and Alex made it home by 8 am, plenty of time for me to make it. Then, to relieve some of Alex's burden since he had not been able to sleep at the hospital (instead of not sleeping at home in bed, like me), I took James with me to my meeting. He had lulled me into a false sense of security by sleeping soundly for the hour leading up to the trip. But the instant we arrived at my meeting he woke up and cried and farted for the next half hour. Thank goodness for all the nice ladies in the Rackham office who: 1) informed me I didn't have to actually answer the questions on the requisite graduate survey, thus saving me 30 minutes, and 2) were willing to shove James' pacifier back in his mouth and rock his car seat while I uploaded my dissertation! Disaster averted, official notification of PhD received!

Mega-post

I've been lax. A lot of fun things have happened since my last post. Instead of splitting it all up, I'm just going to do a Mega Post.

Two weekends ago, Grandma and Grandpa Mettler came to visit. The weekend was full of dining out, laughter, and, for Abby, constant play time.

Grandma of course thinks James is perfect.
 
And he's easy enough that even Grandpa held him for a while!

Grandpa taught Abby how to blow bubbles and veg-out watching Sports Center.

Grandma just spoiled them both.
 

While they were here Abby ran her first running race--a half mile course around Burns Park. She was so excited about it. She had been talking about the race for a week prior. She and I had "practiced" by running around the block several times. Then when we got there and pinned her number on she clammed up. She was fidgeting and watching all the other short runners at the starting line. One boy was "warming up" with his mom, sprinting up and down from the starting line. Abby watched for a few minutes and then whispered to me "Maybe I should warm up." And she kept saying "Let's just start now." Thankfully we found Rowan running around the adjacent baseball diamond so that she could burn off some of her nervous energy!

Grandma had to do some serious antics to get her to smile here!

She and Rowan both ran the whole way! They were rewarded at the end with apples.
 

The next weekend was Mother's Day weekend. Beth and Dan drove out from Chicago for a short one night visit. Abby was in heaven again, reveling in lavish attention.

This is how Dan spent much of his time here.

On Mother's Day proper we had a delicious waffle brunch with Brian and Heather.

Then we attempted to take some family portraits. It was hard enough with just three of us. I think four is nearly impossible.

Some outtakes.


The best we got.

Meanwhile, James has been adorable, as usual.

I think that covers up until yesterday....more on that later.

4 Weeks!

James is almost 4 weeks old now--time for an update! He's smiling now. And he's incredibly strong. His strength is inspiring when he's prone on your chest and he lifts the entire front half of his body up off of you to look around. His strength is incredibly frustrating when you're trying to finagle his appendages into a onesie. He's very easy going and mostly sleeps between feedings at night (except when he's passing gas). He occasionally screams, but the bouts last maximum 5 minutes and they usually end with him falling asleep, on his own or in your arms. (Side note: Abby also used to scream in our arms, but the bouts lasted for hours and then you had to stay perfectly still or she would wake up again and scream some more.) He's very vocal. When he eats he sounds like a squeaky wheel. When he farts he grunts like a line-backer. Here are some photos from the last week.

A half smile!

Feet

Small feet are so cute.

Siblings

Here are the promised sibling pictures...and a picture with grandma Messy for good measure.

Kind of Like the Movies...

Fair warning: this post is about labor and delivery.

Back when I had Abby, I was very unimpressed by the portrayal of labor in movies. It's always like "Hey, my water broke!" and an hour later there's a baby in the mom's arms. Whatever. But I guess sometimes that's not too far off the mark...

Flash back to April 9th. I had just returned from a doctor appointment where she told me I was 3-4 cm dilated. After the appointment, I started having regular contractions, but they were about 8 minutes apart. Intense, yes, but not frequent enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. After having sounded a false alarm the Friday before (stupid false labor) I was reluctant to claim that I was actually in labor. So I waited. And waited. And waited for them to get closer together. Abby went to bed. Alex went to bed. I stayed on the couch, dozing for 8 minute stretches. And then at 1:30 am, I swear to god there was an audible "POP!" Oh. That's what it's like when your water breaks. And all of a sudden the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and hellish. I woke Alex up, he called Brian to warn him that we were descending on him, piled Abby into the van, and we headed out. When you're REALLY in labor, riding in the car sucks. Every time a contraction came I made Alex turn the radio up so Abby couldn't hear me groaning. To his credit, Alex only ran a few red lights on the way. We dropped a sleepy Abby off with Brian and headed to the hospital, only to find out that we had no idea where to go. Darn. I guess we should have done that hospital tour after all. We finally found the right place to park and headed up to Triage. We made it there by about 2:15 am. The puking started, and when they checked me I was 6-7 cm dilated. Clearly real labor. They sent me up to my room--I insisted on walking, much to the nurse's confusion--she must have offered me a wheelchair 10 times on the way. I arrived to the room around 2:45 am. They had a tub of warm water waiting for me (awesome!) but I hadn't been in it for 5 minutes before I suddenly HAD to push. Since I had an epidural last time around, I wasn't really prepared for what it feels like to NEED to push. With Abby, they kept saying "Push when you feel like you have to" and I was thinking "What the hell do you mean? I don't feel like pushing, it hurts!" But wow. When you don't have an epidural, there's really no stopping the pushing. Then, at 3:27 am, he was born! He was moving and crying and clearly quite healthy (compare Abby's apgar score of 1 to James' of 9). They put him on my chest and let Dad cut the umbilical cord. Walla! I mean, it wasn't easy. In fact, I burst all the blood vessels in my face pushing him out. But boy, you can't beat short.

The only wrinkle was the post birth hemorrhaging...but a little morphine helped me get through that part juuuuust fiiiine.

I am ITCHING to go running, but they tell me I have to wait 6 weeks. I might wait 4, we'll see.

I'll wind up with just a couple of pretty pictures of our son.

Welcome to James Edward Mettler

Birthday: 3:27 am, April 10, 2012
Weight: 8 lbs 3.2 oz.
Length: 20.5 inches
Apgar score: 9 (!!)
4.5 hours old:

We're settling in at home now. (Well, as settled as you can get when your house is on the market.) Our first night home Abby came down with a nasty cough so she hasn't spent a lot of quality time near James yet. But she's starting to feel better, so I promise some sibling pictures soon.

Cuddling in his monkey blanket, made by his great grandma.

Frog butt.

Sleeping.

Hanging out on the deck.

Hanging out in the co-sleeper.

Did I mention I'm SO glad I'm not pregnant anymore?