Naina Joins Our Family!

No words can adequately describe the moment.  One minute I was a little scared, shaking from the exhaustion that comes from hours of labor, holding tightly onto Amit's hand, laying on the operating table, frustrated that I was ending up with a c-section, and praying that the baby would be ok through the long process we had just endured together.  

It only took a split second to wash away the fears and exhaustion.  Above the little curtain, the doctor held up our daughter for for us to see.  The whole world paused at that moment, as if it was just the 3 of us in that room, and there was nothing else that mattered except that we had a beautiful baby girl.

The moment I saw her, emotions took over and tears of joy replaced everything I had felt before.  Amit squeezed my hand tighter now, and when I looked up at him, I saw tears coming down his face, too.  He bent down, kissed me, and gave me some wonderful words of encouragement.  

We both reveled in the moment, letting our emotions overcome us, and staring at our beautiful daughter.  We couldn't believe it - after months of anticipation, the day was finally here.  Naina Ami Rele joined our family.    

How did we end up here, 3 weeks early?  Well, when I went in to see Dr White on Monday morning, we no longer had a choice about when to induce.  After seeing all my test results, she came in announcing that we needed to deliver immediately and sent me straight to the hospital to get induced.  

By 11am I was in my hospital gown - we were in Room 9 of the L&D aisle.  By noon, they had started the induction process.  By 3pm, I started having mild contractions, and by 5pm, labor was in full swing.  I was on the IV pain killer to take some of the edge off.  By 8pm I was 3 cm dilated.  And at midnight I was 7 cm and more than ready for the epidural.  At 3:30am, it was the moment I had been waiting for - time to push!  

Two hours and countless pushes later, the Dr Gretkowski came in to see what the holdup was. The baby's heartrate dropped whenever I pushed several times in a row, and her progress towards coming out had stopped for the last hour.  Well, looks like our little one was stuck, and the doc didn't feel like she could safely deliver her.  So off we went for a c-section to get her out. And you know the rest...our little Naina was born at 6:23 am on Tues July 7.  She weighed 5 lbs 7 oz., and was 17 inches long.

The Dreaded Bed Rest

They kept us overnight at the hospital yesterday to keep monitoring my blood pressure.  Finally Dr. Hill came by in the morning and presented the option of inducing today.  It's 1 day before 37 weeks, so she said if want to wait to see Dr. White on Monday, we can do that. But I'd be sent home with strict bedrest instructions.  Alternatively she said they could induce me today, and the baby would probably be ok, just 1 day before full term.  At this point she said she could still give us a choice and left it us to decide. 

Well, bedrest doesn't sound fun, but Dr White will be back from vacation on Monday, so we'd rather see her and go from there...  Either way, Dr. Hill said that they won't let the pregnancy continue more than a couple of days, so I could choose to induce today, or let Dr White pick a day when I see her on Monday. 

So... we came home.  This buys us a little more control over the situation - get my parents on a plane to San Jose instead of getting on their flight to Cozumel!, wait for Dr. White, and get a day to mentally prepare and know we're making the right decision to have our little one 3 weeks early.   I'm on bedrest till our appt with Dr White - Monday at 9:30am.  We'll know more then, but my BP is still really high.

4 Days Into Maternity Leave...

...and I'm in the hospital.  

We went to my regular OB appointment this morning and suddenly my blood pressure was really high.  They sent us straight to the hospital to get admitted into Labor & Delivery.  Yikes!  After my appointment, we had planned to go to Crate & Barrel, work on the baby's room, and then head over to Angad & Shilpi's for a July 4 BBQ.  But now here we are, sitting in Room 4 of Labor & Delivery.  The doc has been coming in and mentioned the possibility of inducing me this weekend, based on the results of some tests they're running!  Errr....this is unexpected to say the least.  Let's wait and see what happens.  But we're starting to think that we'll be going home with our baby girl a little earlier than expected!

First day of Maternity Leave

Today was my first day off.  It was the first time I've woken up at 8:30am on a Monday :)

We had an awesome weekend in Santa Cruz - the Bay Area was over 100 degrees, so it was nice to get away to a cooler place - cooler only because there was a nice wind that masked the 90+ degree weather.  We had rented a house which turned out to be pretty much right on the beach.  So relaxing...just what I needed.

We're at 36 weeks now.  I've been having a few contractions here and there.  So far everything has checked out ok and my doctor says the contractions are a good sign that things are progressing normally.  Good to hear!  Still, I'm not taking any chances and started washing all her clothes, sheets, towels, etc... today.  What a big task - between her laundry and mine & Amit's, I've already done 5 loads of laundry today!  And I'm not done yet, either...

If tomorrow doesn't bring more laundry, I'm hoping to catch a midday movie.

Almost there...

35 weeks!

My doctor switched me to weekly visits now.  I remember back to sometime in the first trimester when she told me that at 35 weeks we'll meet weekly - it seemed like so far off the in future.  Now here we are.  The baby's head is down, and she's just hanging out till she's ready to come out (which will hopefully be right on schedule so I can enjoy a few weeks off from work first).  It's such an amazing feeling when she moves.  I can feel every little turn, kick & jostle.  It kind of makes me chuckle when I think back to the weeks when I felt it only occasionally, or if I was super still and after I ate.  Now - it's like a drum in my belly, all day, every day, and I love it!

This is also my last week of work.  It's been a mix of emotions.  I'm partially checked out already and eager to start my 6-month hiatus.  On the other hand, I'm struggling with the thought of being out of the loop for 6-months.  I feel resigned to having an "On Target" year with no hopes of pushing myself ahead.  A 6-month career interruption will take a year of catch-up on the competitive front.  A few people have asked why I'm taking so much time off.  It's a no-brainer to me - this is the only time I'll ever get to spend so much time with my daughter, and to get some time for myself.  I have the rest of my life to run the rat race, so I want a break to enjoy my expanding family.

The girls threw me a shower a couple of weeks ago - it was awesome!! At Hakone Gardens, on a beautiful day, I spent the afternoon enjoying the company of all my girlfriends.  It was a truly memorable day.  Each person painted & decorated a onesie for the baby - it was a really fun activity!  Towards the end, some of us went for a stroll through the gardens - it was a small, quiet, beautiful place.  Here are just a few of the pictures.  The rest can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/anjali.rele/BabyShower#

Amit & I are going up to San Francisco for the day today and then planning to stay overnight.  We're both starting to feel our quiet time together slipping away in the near future, so we're trying to really clear our schedules and just focus on each other, and finishing up things for our little one's arrival.  I'm dying to tell people her name, but Amit is holding strong and stopping me :)

We're getting a roommate soon...

The clock's ticking - week after week is flying by, and we've barely made a dent in the things we want to get done.  The baby preparation has given us a good opportunity to get some other things done that have piled up over the years.  We've donated 3 Jeep-fulls of stuff so far, and it's not over yet!

Her room got painted last week - it looks awesome!!  The crib's in there, too, so it's really starting to feel like she's coming soon.  Amit and I have been joking about how it feels like we're getting a new roommate.  Here we are, setting up all this stuff for this person who's moving in - we have no idea who she is. will she play loud music at all hours? will she take up all our space? will she eat all our food and not replace it?  We're so excited to meet her, yet mildly amused by how it feels to be buying clothes and decorating for the arrival of our mystery baby :)  We can't wait to meet her!

A weekend getaway...

We're still trying to get in as many trips as we can before the little one gets here. So, we took a road trip to Sequoia this weekend.

Friday we left around 3pm - just in time to catch the traffic on 101. Once we got out of town it was smooth sailing. The plan was to get to Fresno that evening, stay there, and continue on to Sequoia the next morning. Well, we got to Fresno really fast, and when we got there it was the most boring place ever. We had no clue where to stay and it felt too early to stop for the evening. So I called the Bed and Breakfast in Three Rivers where we had reservations for Saturday night, and luckily they had our room available on Friday too! So we kept on going, and arrived in Three Rivers by 8pm.

The B&B was so nice! It was a really cute house right on the river. Apparently a bunch of nuns used to live there, until they were exiled by the Fresno Archbishop for some sort of misdeeds. I love a good scandal so I was thrilled to learn that fun fact :)

On Saturday, we headed up to the park after packing a small picnic lunch. It was pretty, but I was expecting a little more than just giant trees. So I patiently waited and posed while Amit took pictures in various spots along the drive. We stopped to try out a couple of hikes, but as we walked down the path, we started coming across some snow. There was enough snow to make the conditions too unsafe for me to go any farther. The walkways were pretty icy. So we kept the hiking to a minimum and managed a few short strolls in the lower elevations. We continued on towards Kings Canyon, but again the snow got the best of us - the road was closed and there was no entry to the Canyon. Bummer!

So we drove back down to Three Rivers, and got back to our room by 5pm or so. I was pretty wiped so I settled in for a nap, while Amit headed out to the river, book in one hand, glass of wine in the other. That night we had dinner in a weird Mexican restaurant, watched a movie in our room, and peacefully drifted off to sleep.

The next morning when we woke up, suddenly my belly was huge! I don't know what happened overnight - the baby must have turned or something - but now when I'm walking straight ahead, I see this belly preceding me everywhere! It was pretty cool to see the sudden change. Once we were done giggling and admiring our daughter's growth spurt,we needed to come up with plans for the day.

After breakfast, we sat in the back yard by the river. I read for a bit while Amit experimented with the camera. We brainstormed ideas of what to do next, while we sat and took in the sun and our beautiful surroundings. Since most of Sequoia was covered in snow, neither of felt like going back there for a 2nd visit...so we came up with Plan B.

Once we got in the car, we headed straight west and made a beeline for Paso Robles. We picked out a couple of wineries to visit and found out way to them. Amit tasted - surprisingly I wasn't too tempted to participate in the tasting and had so much fun just hanging out with him.

We spent the day there, had delicious BBQ for lunch, and got home around 6pm that evening. It was the best weekend! Two days and 4 hours away we felt as though we had just been on a romantic, exotic, this-one's-for-the-books weekend.

Don't Mess With Ancient Chinese Techniques

Saturday night we were over at Samir and Manisha's house. They're having a girl in April, and we started talking about my upcoming ultrasound. Samir knew of a Chinese gender prediction website, so after dinner we all settled in to learn from the Chinese masters.

When we entered my info into the site, it made pretty much the same prediction that most of our friends did...a girl. So there it was - an official prediction ("guaranteed" to be correct) was now out there... we'd have to wait and see on Monday.

Well Monday came along, and it was time to leave for the appt. As usual Amit wasn't ready yet. This date seemed so far away for so long, and now we were finally about to leave...if Amit ever decided to be done brushing his hair. Amit finally came downstairs - ok I was wrong - he wasn't brushing his hair. He had been busy getting a camera, a flash drive, and a blank CD to take along with us...just in case! It made me smile. After 2 full minutes of hugging, we were on our way!

Amit was a little flustered, I could tell he was a little nervous. Amit tends to look the same when he's nervous and when he's not nervous - so it takes a really keen eye to tell the difference :) I was anxious too. It had been 2 months since I had the last ultrasound at my doctor's office (in Week 11) and I was feeling really uneasy not knowing how things had been developing since then. I think we were both feeling so many things, it was amazing to think that within the next hour, we'd be picturing ourselves with a litle boy or girl.

We rushed over to Camino Medical Ctr and arrived there about 1 minute before our appt time. I handed the form to the receptionist and they took us straight back to the ultrasound room. Our technician was a really cranky woman whose name I don't know because her ID badge was on backwards. She didn't let me watch any of the ultrasound because she "needed to focus on some very important details". I thought I'd be really upset, but somehow watching Amit's face for that 45 mins made me so happy. He was grinning, his eyes wide. And every once in a while he'd perk up a little more and look at me and smile. It made me feel like I knew everything that he was looking at, even though I had no idea. Finally at the end, the technician let me take a quick look at the screen. I paid careful attention and relished the 2 minutes that I got to see my daughter! Yes...that's right- we're having a girl!

The suspense is nearly over...

...Monday is the big day! I have my 5 month ultrasound where we'll find out whether we should buy trucks or dolls :)

Check out my poll on the right and cast your vote for which one you think is on the way!

I also started feeling the baby move much more this week! I felt it just twice before this week - once at the end of the Hawaii trip, and once the weeked after we came back. It was really faint and quick, and I was lying very, very still when I felt it.

But now, this week, I've been feeling the little one move around a bit every day! And I can feel it even when I'm moving around too. The little one is getting stronger! I can't wait till Monday when I can see what's going on in there :)

Day 2 - Waimea Canyon

Today we drove to the other side of the island to check out Waimea Canyon.  It was a long drive, and everywhere we went there were chickens and roosters running around.  They were on the road, in the canyon, in parking lots, at the beach... it was hilarious to see how enthralled Akhil was by the chickens.  Every time we got out of the car, he was off on the chase.  The only problem was that he wants to run faster than his legs, so just as he'd come close to a chicken, he'd fall and have to catch up again.

Waimea Canyon was nice but we were hoping for more view

 points.  There's only 1 road along one side of the canyon, so you basically get the same view, just from slightly different angles.  We stopped off at the park museum to get a trail map of the hikes.  Amit went in while we watched the chickens.  He asked the lady for a hike that 2 pregnant women and a 1 1/2 year old could handle.  She pointed out only 1 hike that matched thadescription and we were on our way.  Before we got to that trail, at one of the view points, Srivalli and I noticed another trail and decided we wanted to try that one.  The trail map said it was moderate but we felt bold enough to try it out.  I was so glad we did!  It was the most unique terrain I've ever seen on a hike.  Even though we had to be extra careful in our baby-on-board condition, we loved climbing up, down, and around all the rocks and bends on the trail.