Sunday, February 26, 2006

Before our real-life move, an internet move

I have had a lovely time pretending that this blog was about Isaac for nearly 1-1/2 years now. Any such ideas are out the window now that we also have a Jacob, so "Isaac's Blog" is moving to the more appropriately-titled "Those O'Neal Boys". We appreciate your continued readership as we venture into uncharted territory of wrestling with not just one, but two little men. That's why we have arms in pairs, though, yes?

Friday, February 24, 2006

Pictures at home

Grandma and Isaac brought Jacob and I home from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. Here we are in our first few moments at home, with me in the shirt I'd been wearing since the wee hours of Sunday morning:



There was a little drama the night before we were discharged because Jacob's bilirubin tested on the low side of him being jaundiced. They had to take a blood sample and send it to the hospital lab to get his exact bilirubin count, and then his pediatrician would make the decision about whether he should stay in the NICU for baby suntan therapy or if he would be sent home with a "bili-blanket" to treat his jaundice in a more comfortable setting. This all turned out to be a moot point because his blood test showed his bilirubin on the high side of normal and he passed his final inspection by the pediatrician with flying colors. Dr. Modi said his jaundice would get worse before it got better, and sure enough he looks a bit pumpkin-headed. This is what Jacob has to say about it all:



Isaac had fallen asleep on the ride home from the hospital, so Grandma got some unadulterated Jacob time. Here they are admiring each other:



We are already succumbing to the Second-Baby Photography Curse. For example: we have no good pictures of Dada and Jacob, including zero pictures of the two of them taken together at the hospital. Dada snapped a bunch of pictures right after Jacob was delivered and then left to pick up Isaac, taking my camera with him to distribute these pictures to the known universe. He never brought my camera back to the hospital, and Grandma forgot her camera in the car the two times she and Isaac visited us while we were there. I keep trying to encourage Daddy/Jacob-focused photography, but Dada has been working during the day, which means when we remember to take pictures it is way too dark in our living room to take cute portraits without them being blurry (like this one):


...or Dada is snacking and has not only Jacob but also crumbs on his shirt that we don't notice until we dump the picture onto the computer hours later:



We are also trying to capture the interactions of Big and Little Brothers O'Neal (more on that later), but because of the inherent limitations of photographing a moving toddler, we don't have too much to offer just yet. I will give you this one, featuring a popular living-room scenario where I have Jacob on my lap or attached to the boob and Isaac decides he needs to squeeze his big butt in the same chair, creating a massive snuggle-fest:

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Somebody had to get mommy's nose



3-day-old Jacob looks at the lamp

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

How U.B. became Jacob

To all those ladies out there waiting impatiently to go into labor, I have a suggestion: go to toddler music class. I went with Isaac on Saturday morning, where I ran in circles, jumped up and down, galloped like a horsey, physically restrained my son when it wasn't his turn to play the gigantic drum, etc etc insert other high-exertion activities that I probably shouldn't have engaged in (but did) here. The contractions started when we got back in the car; the bloody show was already there when we got home.

Since this is the first time I've actually gone into labor on my own, I really had no idea what to expect with the contractions. All "the books" say that they will get closer and closer together, and that you should go to the hospital when they get closer than 5 minutes apart and you can't carry on a conversation through them. My contractions went on throughout the day, and did get much closer together over a twelve hour period, from 15-20 minutes apart to start down to 6-15 minutes apart. They also got more painful, but really weren't all that bad. That they had lasted so long gave me an inkling that this might be the real thing, but I battened down that hatches and prayed to the God of Convenience in Labor that I could last through the night so Dada could get some sleep and, more importantly, so we wouldn't have to ditch Isaac at our friends' house in the middle of the night.

Isaac, in rare form, slept through the night. I did not, having been awakened twice by some seriously killer contractions that strangely went away if I got up and farted around on the computer for an hour. When Isaac finally did wake up at 6:30, I started timing again and they were still a lousy 6-8 minutes apart, but I had to come up with some Claire-improvised labor breathing to make it through them (being the labor class flunkie that I am). I went to fix Isaac some breakfast, passing by Dada who was asleep on the couch. "GET UP!" says I, "HOSPITAL! DRUGS! NOW!" Being the sympathetic wife that I am and having no clue that these contraction-things could actually get worse, I agreed that Dada could take a shower first and that we should stop for Starbucks on the way to the hospital. We dumped off Isaac at our friends' house, where he spent the day playing with Sarah, Ella, and Ella's Grandma and Grandpa. I don't know how, but they even got him to take a nap.

Before you can be admitted to the hospital, you must first pass through triage so they can decide whether or not you are a faker with your labor; namely, the only test you have to pass is to have a doctor examine your baby-chute and decide that your cervix has done enough work that the rest of the job won't take too long. For the uninitiated, I have heard the rule of thumb is that once you're 3 or 4 cm dilated (of the requisite 10 cm), you're in. Of course I had no idea how dilated I was, but I was in some crazy-pain, now every 5-7 minutes. The triage nurse clucked her tongue at me in doubt, suggesting that my contractions weren't close enough together for me to be THAT dilated. On that reliable hunch, these turds made me wait for an HOUR AND A HALF before I was finally checked out by a doctor. This doctor hadn't been in the room for more than 5 minutes before she exclaimed in near-horror, "Oh my God, you are staying. How dilated do you think you are? Guess!" I wasn't exactly in the guessing mood, but a suggested, maybe, 5 cm? "You are a GOOD 7 cm. We need to get you upstairs right now."

This actually posed a huge problem, because at my first prenatal visit I tested positive for Group B Strep. While I as a carrier was asymptomatic, I can pass these bacteria on to the baby during delivery unless I am treated with a solid four-hour course of IV antibiotics. If I delivered the baby before the four hours was up, he could come down with some terrible form of bacterial sepsis, such as meningitis. We arrived at the hospital at 7; we were admitted at 8:30; I didn't get my IV antibiotics started until just before 9. I was given the task of crossing my legs and laying down to keep from having a baby until 1. My delightful labor nurse, Pam, said there was no way, with me being that dilated and a second-timer, that I would make it.

My first suggestion to help stop me from having a baby was to get an epidural, which came at around 10:00. The anesthesiologist was gave me the most perfect epidural in the history of the world. I could feel most of the contractions, but there was no pain or even discomfort with them. Even more importantly, the epidural blocked nothing when it came to the pushing stage...

I labored in relative peace and quiet until about 12:40, when I started feeling this unearthly urge to push. Unlike the epidural I had while laboring with Isaac, where I could feel absolutely nothing and had to be told when to push (which probably factors in to why it took me an excruciating three whole hours for the pushing phase alone), this again perfect epidural hid nothing from me about when I was supposed to do some work and hold up my end of the bargain. It was extremely weird and painful, but I did my best to breathe in my flunkie and distracting fashion to hold out another twenty minutes. At 12:55 they broke my water. Instead of screaming at them to let me push, suddenly rationality took over and I patiently (and breathlessly) waited another 8 minutes, at which time I asked the three doctors, nurse, and husband in the room for double confirmation that it was indeed after 1, that my antibiotics had run their course, and that my baby was given the all-clear to go. They all said yes.

It took me exactly 4 minutes to push Jacob out. Everyone keeps commenting on how lovely I look holding newborn Jacob; how I am "glowing". This is because I busted every capillary in my cheeks, chin, and shoulders from pushing, grunting, and screaming like an Amazon warrior. Dada said they hadn't even had time to wheel their equipment cart over before he was crowning (and I was screaming in pain and hyperventilating). He suggested I title this post "Claire's Baby Cannon," and takes great personal delight in telling his coworkers, much to the horror of my mom, how proud he is that my birth canal could be used to calibrate missile-ballistics.

Back to the L&D room... Suddenly somebody told me to look down and there he was, upside down at the end of the table, my gigantic baby boy, huge and purple and perfect, with this full head of brown curly hair. They laid him on me, all cheesed up. To my infinite surprise, after all the doubts and misgivings I had about my ability to mentally handle the concept of a second baby... the first thing I thought when they handed him to me was "This is going to be so cool." And I have been the happiest girl in the world ever since.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

A Uterus Barnacle no more

Introducing...

Jacob Michael O'Neal


born February 19, 2006 at 1:07 p.m.
8 lbs 10 oz
21 inches long


10-minute-old Jacob with Mommy


5-minute-old Jacob holds Daddy's hand


Everybody is doing great and chilling at home now. Birth story to come soon!

Saturday, February 18, 2006

A contraction-al update

It's just after 10 here, and we just put the Psycho-Fuss Munchie to bed. Isaac has been a cranky punk all day. He threw three temper tantrums this afternoon, which is completely unlike him. I don't even remember the last time he threw ONE, let alone three. I feel so bad for the guy. All week Dada and I have been on the phone almost nonstop with this house-buying beeswax, paying a fraction of the attention to Isaac that he usually gets. Perhaps this is good preparation for having an attention-hogging brother in the near future, but it makes me feel like a terrible parent. Yes, I know, blah blah we're doing what's best for him and his brother blah blah. I don't care. All I want to do is sit still, stop talking on the phone, and pway twains with my son.

It's been basically twelve hours now and the contractions are sloooooowwwwwwwllllyy getting closer together. Now I can expect one every 6 - 11 minutes. And they hurt. Not unbearably, but still. It's impossible to tell if they hurt more now because they're getting stronger, or because I've had so many contractions that my back muscles ache. Oh, and they are tantalizingly real: the kind that start as a tightening in my lower back and then wrap themselves quickly around my abdomen like a claustrophobic heating blanket.

I'm really hoping we can put off this whole baby-out-popping business at least until the morning. Grandma can't fly out until tomorrow morning when a new day of flights begins, and I would prefer Isaac to try to get a good night's rest in his own bed before sending him off for a day of romping with Ella. Though, U.B., if you'd like to wait until we've met with our local banker and secured a loan with him, that would actually be ideal for Mommy and Daddy, K?

Disproving my theory

I have this secret theory that I am incapable of going into labor by myself. With Isaac, I thought my water had broken and I was induced. My mom, from whom I presumably would inherit some laboring tendencies, was induced with me when her water broke, and was induced with my brother when he camped out there longer than he should have. The odds are not stacked in my favor, I think.

Yet here I am today and, not to get anyone's hopes up, but this afternoon I am having some regular contractions, at 15-20 minutes apart, coupled with some bloody show. What does this mean? We'll see.

What's better than free babysitting?

My friend Sarah, with the help of her daughter Ella, sat for Isaac when I went to my prenatal appointment on Thursday. She and I are in this groove where we swap babysitting for each other. Isaac adores her. He gives her unrequested hugs at all times and calls her "Mommy Ella". Sarah said he was a complete angel on Thursday; he even *willingly* shared Henry with Ella:



Most times the kids just hang out on the floor playing with Ella's toy-mountain:



But on Thursday Isaac decided that hanging out in Ella's crib was also cool. Note him playing with and staring intently at the Fisher-Price aquarium that never interested him as a crib-dweller:



So what could possibly be better than free babysitting? How about a free babysitter who takes pictures of your adorable boy in action?

Friday, February 17, 2006

Won't you take me to Funkytown?

Before I found out about our delicious termite issues today...

This morning I secured the services of a real estate lawyer, something apparently required in the state of Delaware. As far as I can tell, he serves no purpose other than as an expensive writer of large checks. In the acquisition of our property, we are naturally getting a big fat mortgage; that goes to him for safe-keeping. We are so lucky as to qualify for a really embarrassing amount of money from the City in grants and low-interest loans because of Dada's job and the address of the property we are buying; those all go to him for safe-keeping, too. Have you seen the movie SpaceBalls? Of course you have, you closet Mel Brooks fiend, you. Imagine with me, if you will, that our lawyer is MegaMaid. First he acts like a gigantic cash vaccuum ("Suck! Suck! Suck!"), and then he redistributes the cash to where it all needs to go ("It's Mega Maid! She's gone from 'suck' to 'blow'!").

We asked the City Planning guy, who's giving us all this grant/low-interest loan money, and a lender at our local bank who they would recommend, since we are not the type of people who regularly engage attorneys. You know you live in a relatively small town when both sources say, "Well, you could always use the mayor." I had to look online to see who our mayor is -- he's Vance A. Funk, III. He runs a law practice with his son...you guessed it...Vance A. Funk, IV. According to Wikipedia, Mayor Funk caused a minor stir when it was revealed that he, in a letter to his supporters, referred to Newark as "Funkytown."

I think that, in and of itself, was enough for me to want him as my lawyer.

Unclean! Unclean!

Today we had a termite inspection done on our prospective new dwelling, with results that were not cool. Turns out that, while the house has no evidence of active termite infestation or even termite damage, there are some "shelter tubes" in the garage on a wall shared with the house, meaning termites have made themselves cozy there at one point in time. And as the inspector-lady puts it, these aren't exactly the kind of creatures that leave on their own, but the kind that must be evicted by the Orkin man. These little shelter tubes will cost somebody $800 to clean up.

Luckily we stipulated that our agreement of sale was contingent upon a satisfactory termite inspection, meaning if the seller won't remediate, we can back out of buying the house. I say "luckily", but we are totally bummed because we really, really like this house. Not enough to buy it while it could be riddled with termites, but this house is too perfect for us to be true.

Add this set-back to my dealing with a charlatan loan officer who quoted me over $10,000 in closing costs to our dual-agent realtor who is THE DEVIL, and it seems like nothing is going right for us this week. It's just not fair that we should happen to find this adorable, reasonably-priced house in an excellent location, because I swear to you there are no more like it in this town.