SHE IS HERE!

At 7:42 AM Central Standard Time, our daughter, Claire Suzanne Thomas was born. Mom and baby are both doing wonderfully. Claire is 8 pounds and 8 ounces, at 19 and 1/2 inches long. She has been eating well and so far is a very calm baby. Leia is recovering well from her C-section, which went smoothly. I'm just posting a few quick pics for now, but we will of course be updating more throughout the week.

Baby will be here in about 15 hours!!!

This past weekend I had a feeling that our doctor was going to have Leia induced sometime before the end of this week. I was thinking maybe a Wednesday or Thursday delivery. I got the shock of my life though when after taking measurements of our "little" girl on ultrasound today, the decision was made to deliver TOMORROW MORNING! I say "little" girl because according to the measurements that were taken, she is 8 pounds and 14 ounces. Because of several factors (size of the baby, gestational diabetes, lack of labor progress) Leia will be giving birth by C-section at about 8 AM tomorrow morning, June 30th. We are less than 24 hours away from being parents! Probably about 15 hours from right now.

The C-section idea is a little scary, but the pre-planning makes me feel a little better. It isn't an emergency so it won't be rushed. We have to be at the hospital at 6 in the morning to get ready, and I still have a few things to get packed, so I better cut this short. Tune in tomorrow for pictures of our baby girl and the big reveal of THE NAME! Don't miss it!

This Week's Doctor's Visit

Well, there's nothing really to report. Nothing has changed since last week. The doctor asked that we come back on Monday for an ultrasound so that they could get an estimate of the baby's size and a look at the fluid level. Babies at this point are doing nothing but putting on weight and after a certain point, the fluid level starts to go down so doctors don't let folks go too far past their due date anymore. Ours is still a couple of weeks away, though. Tim and I are looking forward to the ultrasound since we haven't seen her since our last one in February.

In the mean time, I am happy to be on maternity leave. I didn't realize how tired I was. I have been sleeping so soundly at night and resting during the day. This has resulted in less swelling and less back and feet soreness. I have been puttering around the house, trying to tidy things up. I organized my sock drawer yesterday. :) I ate lunch on Wednesday with our good friend, Laurel, which was a nice treat. Other than that, I've just been sitting on the sofa watching tv, reading, doing crosswords, and playing on my new computer. I've been trying to avoid going out since the heat index has been over 100 degrees.

I'll post a baby bump picture this weekend.

Quick Skype update

I just got finished testing out Skype by doing a video call with Leia while I was at lunch. It works great. Very easy to set up, I could hear her well. I think the internet connection at Panera was a bit slow, so the video quality wasn't the best, but it was still pretty good. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of doing video calls to see my daughter during the day. For now I will just use Skype to check up on Leia and make sure she it doing well.

For the record, she is doing just fine and is taking it easy. Just doing a little laundry today.

For my internet connected friends and family, get yourself a Skype account (it is free) and I just might see you later.

Father's Day Post by the Father-to-be

Hey, it's me, Tim. You know, Leia's baby-daddy? Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a long time, but Leia has been doing such a good job that I didn't want to get in her way.

Also, I am lazy.

But today is Father's Day and I guess I had better post something, so here goes:

First off Leia is still doing well. (Hey, I may be doing the writing but I know that Leia and Blueberry are the reason you are reading.) Her blood sugar readings have been really good and I continue to be very proud of how well she has stuck to her diet. It is no fun to count carbs at every meal and to have to stay away from cookies, cake, ice cream and basically all kinds of good tasting stuff. But my wife has shown a great deal of discipline in this and it has paid off.

Of course, she is past 37 weeks now, which means she is uncomfortable, but that is to be expected considering the size of the baby. Sleeping at night is a real challenge and I'm glad that she is finished with going to work. I hope she will get some rest and take it easy this week at the house. It would also be nice if the baby would get here soon and give her some relief. Half the time that I ask Leia if there is something I can do to help her out she says "I just need to have this baby". Fair enough.

Here is Leia's baby bump picture from today.





We both agree that the baby seems to have dropped since the last picture. Check out the previous week's photo to compare for yourself and see if you agree.

Leia told me to get something nice for myself for Father's Day, so I took her up on her offer. On Monday of this past week there was a great deal on netbook computers on a website that I frequent. An incredible deal really. If you don't know what a netbook is, it is really just a very small laptop computer. The prices on these things have been dropping rapidly lately and it got to the point that I could no longer resist. The price was so good that I actually bought 2 of them: a black one for me and a white one for Leia. To put this in some perspective, the computer that I bought when I went to college cost 12 times more than one of these netbooks.

The computers arrived on Saturday morning and I spent some time getting them set up on our home wireless network. I sat at our desk with both netbooks and our main computer while getting everything working and Leia found the image of me surrounded by computers to be quite funny. She took this picture to commemorate the occasion.



When I first told Leia about the purchase on Monday she wasn't really sure if she would get much use out of her netbook, but once they got here she changed her mind. She can surf the internet from anywhere in the house, stream TV and movies from our Netflix account, and the netbooks have built-in web cameras that will allow us to use video calling services like Skype and video chat in Google. Since I have one and she has one, I can do a video call at lunch to check up on her until the baby arrives. And after the baby is born I can call in to see them both. Very cool and very easy to do with the integrated camera, microphone and software. Sometimes I really love being a nerd.

By the way, I am using my netbook right now to author this blog post. I'm sitting on my reclining sofa and just finished watching today's coverage of the US Open while talking to my dad on the phone. Multitasking is awesome.

Final preparations for the baby's room were completed today with the addition of the painted changing table. I got up at 6 o'clock on Saturday to finish painting it and it took until about 10:30 to finish. It was very warm, but I worked on my covered porch with a fan on me and it was bearable. I left the parts to dry for 24 hours and then assembled the changing table this morning. I'm not at all happy with the paint job when viewed up close, but Leia says it looks good to her and that is all that matters. Besides, you can't see half of it once the organizer, various plastic buckets, the changing pad and the clothes hamper were put on it. It really was a pain to paint with all those tiny spindles, but it was free and it goes well with the rest of the room, so I suppose it was worth it.



Finally, I have been enjoying my new cell phone which has a built-in camera. I want to make sure that I have a camera of some kind with me at all times to capture those special Blueberry moments, so Leia and I upgraded our phones last week. It was practically free to do and we both like the new phones much better than the old ones. Call quality is much improved, not to mention all the cool geeky features like MP3 playback, video and image capture, and expandable memory.

I tested out my camera last week by taking this picture of my workspace. I have two computer monitors and I set the desktop backgrounds to show images of my niece and nephews. (My sister Carrie took these pictures.) Soon one of these monitors will have pictures of my daughter on it. I can't wait.



And finally, a picture for my own father on Father's day. Dad and I hate plastic blister packaging with a passion (so do most sane people). It is nearly impossible to break into. Yesterday I took this picture of a product called "Open It" which is designed to make it easy to open plastic packages.



Notice anything about how it is packaged? That's right, the "Open It", which is a product designed to open blister packages, is PACKAGED IN A PLASTIC BLISTER PACK!!! That is just ridiculous.

Happy Father's Day everyone!

37 Week Appointment

Hello all! We just had another appointment with the doctor and all is looking well. The baby is well positioned and her heart sounded strong. The fundal height (belly measurement) has increased by 4 cm in two weeks which means the baby is gaining weight and my belly has gotten big. We are still 1 cm dilated but now 50% effaced as opposed to 25% effaced. From what I've read, this doesn't mean much. The doctor said maybe another week or two but I'm not getting my hopes up because I've read about women being this way for weeks. Our next appointment is next Thursday afternoon. I'll let y'all know how that goes. I'll also post a baby bump picture this weekend.

I'm doing well. I haven't gained any weight since last week. My hands have started to hurt while I'm sleeping which is just related to the pregnancy and nothing to worry about. My Braxton-Hicks contractions are still around and were quite uncomfortable last night. In fact, I had to sneeze during one which proved unsuccessful. My last day of work is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to going home and kicking up my feet until the baby gets here.

With each successive appointment, Tim is getting more excited. He was doing a little jig in the elevator after we left the doctor's office. I think he's been feeling left out and is looking forward to being able to help out with the baby more. He spent part of last night getting our stuff ready for the hospital and lining it all up in the den. I had no where to sit this morning. I may have over-packed! I think he may be contemplating working from home some next week so he can keep an eye on me. He doesn't want to miss out on anything.

Have a good weekend!

Baby Bump - 36 weeks

Yep! We are at 36 weeks! Unbelievable! How am I doing? I am doing quite well. I have gained 27 pounds. I am experiencing the usual pregnancy problems: swollen feet, back ache, fatigue, etc. My blood sugar has been testing well. The doctor said at our last appointment that I'm 1cm dilated which doesn't mean a whole but it made me feel better. The baby is measuring healthy and her heart rate is where it should be. She is still very active. There was one night where she had pushed herself so far on my right side that it looked like she was hanging off the edge.

Tim and I are getting very excited and can't believe that we are so close to meeting our daughter finally. Tim has taken such good care of me during these months and I know he is going to make a great dad. He has been to every appointment and he has taken over a lot of my household duties along with doing his. I couldn't have dreamed up a better partner to help me through this. I am really looking forward to seeing him hold her since I have gotten to hold her this entire time. It'll be nice to share.

Also, this week is my last week at work and I am looking forward to having some time to rest (unless, she decides to come early).

In other baby related news, my brother and his wife had their first appointment this week and now have a due date of January 22. Oh, and Stephen was hired back so he is no longer looking for a job.