Contractionometer

Check out this tool for the precise measurement of contraction frequency and duration. With it in hand, I become, Stopwatch Kevin. Michelle has been taking her Brethine medication, but wow it sure doesn't seem like it is doing much. The contractions have been hitting her with such intense back pain to the point that she is literally doubled over and in tears. It's such a horrible feeling to sit by her side and not able to do much of anything. Ann suggested using a rolling pin, no not to knock her out, but to roll along her back where the pain was. It sort of helped, but really I think things just have to take their course. I don't know how long little Michelle can take this! We both hope she will not have to edure this much longer.

Back home

Michelle and I had a fantastic trip back to PGH. Fantastic in the sense that I did not need to deliver a baby on the side of the road. Michelle was still gripped with contractions, 10min apart, the whole ride home. Thanks to dad Smith for his GPS, just in case we needed to find a Hospital. So we are home now, decompressing. We have this feeling that our little baby will be coming soon! Much sooner than the first week of February. The visit with Dr. Angeshwar (sp?) this morning was excellent. He is an amazing doctor and even tried to arrange a private jet for us to fly down to PGH. He has mad hook-ups. However, they happened to be in CO skiing. Snow was coming to town (NY) tonight so he suggested we leave today and we did. Michelle had her 5th ultrasound of the pregnancy and below is one of the cool "4-D" photos. Thanks so much to Derek, Ann and the kids for having yummy food sitting on our table when we got home. You rock. I am pooped.

Pictures for fun

Having a bit of free time on my hands, I am sharing some old photos! Nick and Kevin racing in Niagara Falls A former Browns fan Derek holding a dazed Kevin Kevin holding a young Sara This happens again tomorrow If I bury her, will they ever find her?? I'm either smiling because I peed my pants, or because the belt that I am wearing has my name printed in large letters on the clasp. You decide?

Snapshots

Michelle wanted to share some snapshots from her stay at Wilson

Feeling crappy in bed last night:

Sitting in the rocker, with lots of water

Sitting, waiting, peeing

Today has been uneventful so far except for some wonderful visits from family and friends. Michelle has been on the magnesium sulfate all day still. A bit too strong early on however, such that she was getting nauseous. At 4:30 she is supposed to get an oral contraction-stopping medication with the expectations that we could be discharged and travel home in a few days. The OB stopped in this morning and hopes that the oral drug will replace the IV drug. If Michelle responds well, then we go to my parents' house tonight. Tomorrow she'd have a checkup and ultrasound with the OB at his office and get the final word for travel back to PGH. That's the plan. I did come prepared and started the morning with a wonderful cup of Ethiopian coffee made in my French Press. French Press, don't leave home without it! My mother stopped by this morning and brought some lovely flowers for Michelle and breakfast for me! While I requested, was expecting, and promised one of her wonderful egg and cheese sandwiches, I was instead treated to two McDonald's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, hash brown and coffee. Thanks for using all the eggs at our house Steve! I'll also mention that during Heather and Sara's visit, my vegetarian sister enjoyed some of the second BACON, egg and cheese biscuit. Don't worry, she moved the bacon aside. Next visitor... Mom Smith came while Mom Wahila was here. It was nice to see them both. I ran down to the car to get some clean clothes then came back up and took a European shower in the sink essentially. Later on in the day Michelle was feeling good enough for some food. I was on my way out to get her some McDonald's of her own and ran into Reverend Art in the hall. He got word of Michelle's hospital stay from Reverend Pat. The pastor connection rocks. Anyway, he stayed and chatted for a few minutes. It was nice to see him. Later, Heather and Sara came to visit and we had a Christmas present exchange. Thanks ladies, it was a lot of fun! It was great to see Heather before she heads back to Philly. What else? Beats me. I'm still kind of tired. Dad and I need to share a beer that is sitting home in his fridge.

Wilson Hospital does not like Facebook

Hello Wilson Hospital

The on-call OB for Lourdes Hospital happens to work out of Wilson Hospital. When he arrived at Lourdes to see Michelle, one of the first things he said was that we were going to transfer to Wilson. Not really what we expected, or wanted to happen. Michelle's insurance doesn't cover Wilson (she checked before we left PGH). However, under these circumstances we will let the OB duke it out with them for us. Anyway, we're thinking two things: 1, let's go into labor and deliver this baby! or 2, stop the contractions, go back to PGH and have the baby in a few more weeks. The doctor definitely wants to stop the contractions and prevent a premature delivery (Michelle is 34-35 weeks). BUT, if he can stop the contractions and prevent labor, that still really doesn't mean that we go back to PGH. What if we are somewhere in the middle of nowhere western NY and Michelle decides to go into labor. No good. So even if we are discharged tomorrow, we may still be in Endicott until the delivery. We hope to know more later tonight. Michelle has been given all sorts of fun medications and given blood for lots of tests. Some of the buzz words I keep hearing are: fetal fibro=nectin magnesium sulfate steroids a shot of whatever antibiotics Of course I know what some of them are, others I don't. It's all pretty crazy right now. Mostly, Michelle just doesn't want to leave the hospital and then have to go through this all over again in a few days or a week. I think she would be quite pleased if our little visit here led to labor in the next day or two. I may reiterate that Dec 30 is a fine day to have a baby. My mother would agree :o). Um that's all for now. I am kind of tired. Thanks heather for bringing a jar of PB.

In the hospital again!

Welcome to Lourdes Hospital, Johnson City, NY. This is great. Is it pre-term labor? Is it just discomfort? Who knows! This is eventful. Michelle is being monitored, at this moment. We had another ultrasound. The baby is doing great! It is still a boy. We saw his face, heart, spine, kidneys, brain. Michelle is utter discomfort however. Her back hurts terribly. Probably due to contractions. All of the staff have been wonderful. At times there have been up to 5 of them in our small ER room. The ER doctor talked with Michelle's OB in PGH and they agree that she probably is not going into labor today. We are going to stick around the ER for another hour or so before they let us go. The big question however is when or if we can drive back to PGH before delivering a baby. We will at least be in NY until tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I will get an early birthday present. Can we say tax deduction? Anyway, for my comfort, the ER has coffee, graham crackers, peanut butter and jelly! Standing by...

When will it end?

Remodeling. It's about time to wrap things up. We had our bathroom remodeled in April of 2007 by a crew led by the gentleman who was replacing the roof at Third Presbyterian Church. Between that time and now, I made a pretty good mess of other parts of the house as I started projects, large and small. So, Michelle called on the community of Highland Park for recommendations of a general contractor/handyman. As it turns out, several recommendations were made for one Dan Hinchman, who was part of the crew that worked our bathroom! Fantastic, that was an easy find. Projects on tap for Dan included:

1. New floor in kitchen and dining room
2. Secure the dishwasher frame to the wall and floor and the dishwasher to the frame
3. Finish the plaster on the support posts and wall section that I put up around the dining room/kitchen interface
4. Install the remaining ceiling tiles in the hallway and stairway
5. Put up molding around the ceiling tiles (see number 4)
6. Install hand railing in stairway
7. Other miscellany

With these things completed, all that would remain would be some priming and painting on my part, as well as putting up a few shelves and a light in the nursery. The end is in sight! Here are some pics of the work. Cutting in around the edges.

Say goodbye to Bicycle Yellow

Here's a good view of the lovely tile floor. Originally I didn't want to repaint the two rooms, but you can see that the tile color is very light, similar to the walls and we felt that a darker color would help balance things a bit. Yin and Yang.

The hallway ceiling looks great. I just need to get in there and finish up some painting.

Looking into the dining room from the kitchen

Same as above. We are really happy with the color. Many thanks to our neighbors Gary (for his brilliant artistic sense) and Catherine (for gifting us with the paint).

Oh, so that spot. It's the only unpainted spot in the kitchen. So our window air conditioner leaked inside this summer and made the paint in the kitchen bubble out. I removed the flaking paint and plaster and am fixing that spot up. It needs one more application of plaster, then some sanding, followed by primer and paint. Not too bad.

Looking into the kitchen from the dining room

Our first contractors didn't work out too well. Something about needing a ride to work everyday and needing help with dirty diapers got in the way.

Who wouldn't want to eat this?

Maybe a vegan. But secretly I think even they would want a bite.

It's been a while

I have been away from posting for a while! Primarily because I have been busy at work and finishing the kitchen, dining room, nursery and hallway! So let's start with work, it is great. My coworker and I won our company's innovation award for a recent development that involved the redesign of a vital output circuit. We use some pretty slick programmable hardware technology to increase the reliability and safety while also making it respond to failures 1000 times faster than the previous incarnation. Anyway, enough techno-jargon, here is some history. My company is Union Switch & Signal. However, were were purchased by an Italian company, Ansaldo STS, maybe 20 years ago. It is just recently that were are coming to be called Ansaldo STS USA. A similar transformation has already occurred for the French, Italian and Australian locations (as well as a few others I am not familiar with). Because we won the Ansalod STS USA competition, we were invited to participate in the corporate level competition. Through this, we were fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to France and give a presentation on our work. We flew into and out of the country through Charles de Gaulle Airport outside of Paris, which is where we stayed the day before and the day after the presentation. The presentation itself was given in the small town of Riom, 400km south of Paris. We flew to Riom from CDG the day of the presentation, but the next day we had a nice long bus ride back to Paris because of an Air France strike. This is the outside of the Ansaldo STS France offices in Riom. There are other offices in Les Ulis

As you can see, we are an international organization.

The presentation was great, as was meeting my international colleagues. But sightseeing in Paris was the best.... Amazing as it was, blazed in blue light, the Eiffel Tower....

..... turned into this! The lights were amazing. They were like strobe lights, bursting on and off, creating a brilliant display.

We saw the Cathedral de Notre Dame

The Siene River

I drank many, many of these!

Vibrant streets, bustling with activity

She was there too!

I hear some pretty fast bicycle racers ride around here every year

So when do I go back? Maybe next time Michelle and baby will be coming too! We'll save that story for another post.

30 Weeks & A Trial Run!

So I have slowly been compiling the paperwork that I will need to take to the hospital when it is time for baby to come. I have conveniently put everything in a small binder and labeled it "Pregnancy." I kept telling Kevin where it was, that it had to go with us, etc. I didn't realize we would need it so soon! Sunday we got a trial run to West Penn hospital. I wasn't feeling well Saturday evening. I wasn't sure if it was just because I am huge and therefore uncomfortable, or if it was for another reason. At 8:30 Kevin and I went for a walk because I thought the brisk air might help. Who knows if it really did. I slept for a bit and then woke up, maybe around midnight. I laid awake for about an hour and then decided I would head downstairs (to watch our brandeee new cable TV) so that I wouldn't disturb Kevin. Kevin woke up anyways and was distressed that I wasn't feeling so well, so he came downstairs with me and we each took a couch. Around 1, ewwww.... it hit me. I was sick! I didn't know what was going on! I had been having what I thought might be some contractions also, so it was time to call the doctor. Luckily I have them on speed dial and Kevin took care of the calling. The doctor said not to worry yet, and to try to take in some water a little later. Well that didn't go so well and paired with a fever that kept going up, it was time to go to West Penn! Oh, and did I mention it was Sunday? And that I was supposed to be preaching??? Luckily I have good friends. Ellie drove from Erie after I called her at 6:30 in the morning to preach as my substitute. Thank goodness, since Trip was in Washington, D.C. (We take turns being "off" the weekend after holidays and this was his turn to be "off"). Ellie did a superb job and I was thankful that I didn't have to worry about work - not that I could really, I was too busy throwing up... After an IV and some medicine to stop the contractions that I was having every three minutes, I was able to go home... So now I am supposed to be laying low, resting with feet up. I have decided that makes me even more tired, not to mention crazy and cranky. I am sure Kevin is ready to give me away. The good news in all of this - baby is just fine! Growing wildly at this point. Baby also has a strong heartbeat - we know because we listened to it at the hospital for hours and hours on Sunday! Here's a look at what momma beluga looks like these days: