Just Add Milk

Here she is!

Julia Ridpath Helvey

born: Aug 16th, 2008 @ 12:54 pm

4lbs, 7oz

17 inches long

defects: none

perfections:everything

And there’s more:

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Lots to catch up on.  Lots and lots and lots.

OK, so a while back they put Melissa on bedrest.  Just in time for the shower!  Yay!  But that didn’t last long and turned into “modified bedrest” which meant who knows what.  Her blood pressure was still rising and they were finding protein in her urine poitning towards preeclampsia which leads to toxemia which leads to a non-functioning liver and kidneys which - to put it mildly - is not good.  2 weeks ago the doctors decided to put her in the hospotal for the night to watch everything.  That’s become 2 weeks in the hospital because the hour drive to the hospital wasn’t looking good to anyone.  Melissa’s become very familiar with Judge Judy and her ilk.

Last night Melissa’s headache got really bad, her pressure’s been fluctuating and it’s just time.  So the doctor came in this morning and decided to induce her today, aiming for delivery tomorrow.

More details as they happen - or roughly after they happen - or whenever I remember.

Melissa just learned how far behind her cervix the nurse has to reach to put in the inducment tape.  If I start lauging at the look on her face, she’s gonna kill me.

I was moving my hand over Melissa’s belly the other day and felt a rapid thumpity thumpity thumpity. Of course we both assumed I was feeling the baby’s heartbeat, but apparently, that’s pretty silly. I was most likely feeling her hiccups. Which is weird enough in its own right. Then we did some more (careful!) probing and tried to figure out what the various lumps and harder spots were.

Getting sick of guessing, we decided to get another 4D ultrasound.

Warning. If you DON’T want to see the baby’s face, then don’t continue reading…

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So I was walking out of the house today when I noticed something strange…

Some dead bees on the walkway.

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Anyone who enjoys good edge-of-the-seat drama should check out any NASA planetary expedition landing. For the last hour I’ve been watching NASA’s live feed as they tracked the gigantic Phoenix Mars lander during the most dangerous part of its entire journey (well, second most dangerous. The most dangerous part was getting past all the bean counters and not having the project get cut). Listening to the play by play as bits of data are received, major milestones confirmed, and possible destruction avoided couldn’t be more exciting.

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Tags: mars, nasa, phoenix, Science, space

Some unfortunate news to report.

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I finally convinced work to give me a Blackberry. What was I thinking? Sure it’s cool, but now I’ll never be able to hide again. Sigh.

C’est la vie. Now I need to choose a ringtone. My other phone has a sample of the Lollipop Guild song from Wizard of Oz, and it always gets plenty of chuckles, but I suppose it’s not the subtlest or manly ringtone…

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Melissa’s been feeling the baby move around for a couple months now. Sometimes it’s just a little nudge, “Hey, Mama, don’t forget I’m here.” Other times, the litle one is reacting to something Melissa ate, “Ooo, that strawberry milkshake is coooold! Brain freeze! Brain freeze!” And sometimes, she just feels like dancing.

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Yes, yes, I know. It’s been 11 days since the last post. I’m sure the three of you who show up everyday will forgive me - because I’ve got some fantastic pictures for you! Today we had our big ultrasound checkup at the hospital where they’ve got nice hi-res machines. Take a gander at what we saw.

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OK, so this post was originally going to be about how Melissa has really been feeling the baby kick and move around.  I’ve been looking up fetal range of motion articles to see just how much a baby can move while in the womb and was going to share it here.

BUT…

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