The Month is Upon Us

July 1. Half the year, calendar-wise, is over. Has time flown by for you? I wouldn't say it has for me. It's gone by at a nice, leisurely pace. With the month of July ahead of us, it is now crunch time for Little Giant Baby Nyla. She is 18 days away from her due date. Wow. In a way, it seems like yesterday we found out Ginny had another person growing inside her. At the same time, it seems like that was 9 months ago. (It was.)

Today was Ginny's regular, weekly checkup with her regular doctor. Regular checkups are ok at this point, given last week we were in and out of doctors' offices. The report? No change in dilation. No effacing, at least not enough that we were told about it. But Little Giant Baby Nyla is now head-down. This is a good thing. Ginny's belly continues to measure about 2 weeks ahead, so the nickname we gave her works.

That leads us to the bigger news. July 18th, in the evening, we will make our trip to the hospital, at which point the nurses will do whatever it is they do down there to encourage Nyla to make her grand debut on July 19th, her actual due date. Of course, now that we have set up an official date for her to come, she will probably decide at 2am on Wednesday the 14th to want to see us. Not that I'm going to complain, however. I'm ready to see my little girl and hold her in my arms!

I hope to post some pictures of her room this long weekend. Hopefully G and I can coordinate that and get some pics to share. No promises, though! Little Giant Baby Nyla could throw a wrench into everything!

-D

New Week, New News

In this case, the title implies good news. No, this update is not coming from the hospital, although if it were, Little Giant Baby Nyla would have arrived already, because there's no way I would blog while Ginny was in labor, despite the fact that I really think it would be fun to do. (By the way, I think that last sentence was not a run-on. Grammar folks, let me know.) Anyway, Ginny has had a good weekend. Despite an episode Friday night, she slept well and had an almost pain-free Saturday. She had no terrible pain, just some dull pain here and there. Last night was a bit uncomfortable for her with some hip/leg pain, but nothing remotely close to earlier in the week. Today? Another good day, so I think this means she's turned a corner. Perhaps it really was the UTI giving her terrible pain all along, since she finishes her antibiotics tonight. Still, she has another appointment with the physical therapist tomorrow, where she'll get her hip worked on again. Thursday afternoon is a regular appointment with her usual doctor, at which point Ginny will pretty much tell the doctor that Little Giant Baby Nyla has to come out whether she wants to or not. Then again, Nyla may decide tomorrow that she would love to see the world. In either case, I cannot wait to hold her.

Today, our wonderful church family threw the final shower for our soon-to-be family of three. Let me tell you, we are extremely blessed that we have had four showers and Nyla has gotten a lot of stuff. Nyla has gotten a number of outfits, bottles, diapers, towels, and many other items that babies need. Hopefully soon we will post some pictures of her room, since all of her stuff is more or less here now.

That is all for now. We're praying Ginny continues to feel good, and that Little Giant Baby Nyla will come soon, strong, cute, and healthy!

-D

Sometimes Pregnancy is a Pain in the Back

The one thing I am sure of is that this is Friday. Two of the things I have learned to be thankful for (or additionally thankful for) are a) the opportunity to work from home; and b) bosses who are very understanding of personal situations. I am also thankful for the nice lady with AT&T DSL Support who finally was able to solve our lack of DSL problem before I became a permanent wi-fi thief switched to that other internet provider. In actuality, today has been a series of small victories at Casa Gafforda.

Yesterday was another painful day for my beloved bride. She had some serious pain from 4:30 to 8:00 in the morning. That prompted her to make an appointment with her doctor. Her regular doctor is out of town, the one we saw in the hospital and on Tuesday was not in the office, so we saw another doctor in the practice (tip for all those who want to become moms: pick a practice with several doctors, because it makes a big difference). The absent doctors turned out to be a blessing. The doctor we saw did the examination (no change, a "generous" 2 cm dilated). Ginny began describing the pain, and the doctor said, "Hold on a minute, let me call my son who's a physical therapist." Well, 15 minutes later we were off to his office. Around 3:30, he got around to Ginny and spent some time talking with her and figuring out her pain. As it turns out, her left hip is, for lack of better terms, slightly twisted and turned up. I'm sure there's a better phrase, but I'm just a blogger. Anyway, he did a few stretches and massaged her hip area. She immediately felt better. She still had another bad episode later in the evening, but she had a pain-free night of sleep. Today has been the best day out of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Her pain spells, generally speaking, have been shorter and not as intense (although as I type this she is going through a pretty rough one). As a spectator, I feel absolutely helpless knowing I cannot make her pain go away. She just has to ride it out.

We have another physical therapy appointment Monday, so we'll get some more stretches and exercises she can do. We also see her regular doctor Thursday, at which point Ginny will beg, plead, and attempt to get Little Giant Baby Nyla out as soon as possible. Until then, she'll fight through the pain; I'll attempt to be the best massuse in the world; and Little Giant Baby will probably just sit there, not wanting to move.

-D

And The Hits Just Keep on Coming

The saga continues... let's pick up where we left off. Monday night was a good night for all three of us. Ginny had little pain, and we both got a quality night's sleep. I did some work from home Tuesday in case Ginny had more pain. Fortunately, she felt better than Monday, and her doctor visit went well. Unfortunately, at around 8:00 last night, she had another spell of sharp pains that lasted for about an hour. She was able to fall asleep, only to wake up around 12:15 with more terrible, piercing pain in her lower back. She moved to our couch in the den, and I sat next to her until she finally dozed off to sleep. Of course I got little sleep, but I was not going to leave her like that. I managed to make it through the day at work (thanks in part to the heroics of Landon Donovan), and she did fairly well today. She had another hour-long spell this afternoon, but eventually she falls asleep for a little bit and wakes up feeling better.

We're starting to suspect, as do some of our family, that she is having back labor pains. While one might think that is good and means Little Giant Baby Nyla is almost here, on the contrary, these pains can last for weeks. In other words, if Nyla comes on her scheduled due date, well, it will be a long 4 weeks.

Ginny is such a trooper, though. She's dealt with these episodes very well. I'm just praying (and asking for you to as well) that this pain goes away, or that Little Giant Baby Nyla decides she's ready to see the real world.

With that, I'm out!

-D

It's Been a Looooooong 24 Hours

Good Monday afternoon, our readers, at least I sure hope it is Monday afternoon, because quite frankly, the last 24 hours have been long, tiring, and a little scary.

Let's get to the good news - Baby Nyla is still cooking and still kicking. With that out of the way, our story begins last night. We had just finished up a nice dinner with Ginny's parents and sister as well as my mom and brother. Around 7:30, Ginny all of a sudden felt a sharp pain in her back. She immediately sat down on the couch with an ice pack. The pain progressively got worse. Around 8:30, after my scurrying around to pack up a suitcase for the both of us, we set out for the hospital. I have to say, after Ginny went back to get examined, the 20 minutes I had to sit and wait in the waiting room before being called back were not fun. After finally getting called back to see her, she said, "I'm in labor. I'm 1 cm dilated." Wow. At this point, I'm preparing myself for a long night of labor. BUT not so fast, my friend. 1 cm dilated was it. No water break, and Baby Nyla was still up high. After an hour, Ginny was discharged with instructions to come back if the pain increased, her water broke, or a couple of other "women" symptoms. Oh yeah, she got 10 mg of Ambien to take to help her sleep. All would be good now, right?

WRONG! At about 2:30, she wakes me up (after sleeping for all of 45 minutes), and the pain is worse. On the road again to the hospital. This time, she is now 2 cm dilated. Ok, so we're progressing well. Still no water break, and Nyla is still riding high. (She also is such a wiggle worm or rebel, because the nurses had to move their heartbeat-sensor 3 or 4 times to find a place where her heartbeat was detected.) The pain is still intense, and Ginny is so, so uncomfortable. She finally got some pain medication and was able to grab a nap. One of the doctors in her OB/GYN group (not the one she sees but one in the practice) walks in, tells her she is going home, and that she is getting some antibiotics. As it turns out, she has a urinary tract infection. That would explain the terrible pain in the lower back and the nausea.

After sleeping for much of the day, I am extremely happy and thankful to report that Ginny is doing much better. She's gradually been getting down some fluids, sitting up in the den on the couch, and snacking on that delicious snack of Saltines. Again, to reiterate, Baby Nyla is still in there, still kicking, and still being persnickety when it comes to finding out where she is.

So to recap, we had a false alarm but got good practice on packing up and heading out. Ginny has a UTI. Baby is still cooking. And Ginny is 2 cm dilated. So it looks like we're really heading down the home stretch. Let's hope we don't have to go through another night like last night!

Continue to pray for Ginny and Nyla. G has been in a lot of pain the last 24 hours but is improving. And Nyla's little heartbeat (when they can find it!) is strong.

Long post, but a lot has happened. And if there are any grammar errors or missing words, I blame it on the 90 minutes of sleep I've gotten in the last 30 hours.

-D