Update

Elijah is showing a little bit more personality now that he's over a week old. He's taking more of an interest in the world, looking around and vocalizing.

After his first bath:
With Daddy:

He has put on 6 ounces from his birth weight so far. Not too shabby.

Wait, what?

You mean to say that babies don't come with instructions?!

Just kidding. Anyhow, things are going all right, despite a distinct lack of sleep. Elijah's hair is gradually lightening; we think he might go blonde in later life.

Still catching up on some emails - thank you for the continued support and well wishes! I haven't had time to write up anything about the labor. I know people are curious. It was... a very long ordeal, but the end result was worth it. Will write more later!

The latest....

Elijah Derek Murray, 8lb, 7ounces.

No time to update further, but I wanted to thank everybody who emailed, texted, prayed, and called. All is well, just got out of the hospital observation ward and plan to catch up on some sleep.

Quick update

Got a mild case of high blood pressure (pregnancy-caused), so they're inducing me at 8pm GMT tonight. Thank you all for the messages of support.

Despite the abject pain of having had contractions for the past 57 hours (with about 5 hours of broken sleep during that), I still found WICKED PLEASURE today in walking into the Day Assessment Unit (for pregnant women). Why? None of them are admitted there in active labor. Yet I was (I think the referral was a mistake). Seeing a group of 5+ women staring at me with identical deer-in-the-headlights expressions was very amusing.

Tea minus owwww

Irregular contractions started at 10am Saturday.
Waters broke at 4:30am Sunday.
Went into the hospital for a check, got sent home at 7am to "progress more." Was 2cm dilated at that point.
Currently 4:15pm, contractions are approximately every 7-10 minutes for about 45-50 sec each.
The hospital wants us back in when the contractions are approximately every 3 minutes for 1 minute each.
I'm eating dried apricots and feeling very sorry for myself.
Bruno is reading me inspirational birth stories and I am switching between glaring at him through contractions and being somewhat inspired.
I am too lazy to post a picture, so this update will be a wall of text.
I'll update again at some point when I can.
That is all.

Tea minus 4

Random picture of the moment: Warm waters running into the ancient Roman spa at Bath.

I haven't popped yet. Also I'm having some issues with legit emails winding up in my spam folder, so if I've missed an email from you over the past few months, forgive me!

Got checked out at the hospital today and pronounced sound, although I'm supposed to go back in if I get any more symptoms of pre-e. Ankles/feet are still swollen... walking is hard, but doable! B has been working from home as much as possible. Periodically I catch him looking at me with an appraising gleam in his green eyes, kinda like I'm some sort of roasting chicken, as if at any moment I'll leap up and shout: "DING! My waters broke! The baby's all cooked!" Someone needs to tell the man that a watched pot never boils.

And, a bit off-topic for the general tone of my blog, I read an interesting letter today concerning a patron's complaint to a library about a specific book being included in the collection. It's one of the best responses I've ever seen to a censorship request.

Off to a baby shower tomorrow. I'm hoping to hold out a few days longer in order to see the new Batman flick, but we'll see.

T minus 5

Since I'm living in England, maybe that should be tea minus 5? Either way, the due date is rapidly approaching. I've had a few symptoms of pre-eclampsia, so they're keeping an eye on me. In fact, I'm going in tomorrow for another blood pressure profile. Fortunately, blood tests, etc, have come back normal, so I should be all right.

The UK is a little bit more laissez-faire about pregnancy than the US tends to be. There's less emphasis on induction/c-section and more on natural birthing. They don't give you an internal exam until you're very close to the due date or actually overdue. This suits me just fine.

Here's something to drool over - homemade sausage gravy.

Ingredients: Sausage (plain), Flour, Milk, dash of pepper, a little butter. Crumble the sausage in, remove when cooked but leave the drippings. Make a roux. Add milk after letting the flour brown a bit. Cook until it thickens. Add sausage. Serve over homemade biscuits.

I made buttermilk biscuits from scratch for this good old southern dish. Warning: it's fattening, even with skim/lowfat milk, so don't say I didn't warn you. On the other hand, one serving of this for brunch should hold you until dinner.

That's all for now. I'll try and keep updating more often as things progress.