Bittersweetness

Hadleigh's great-grandfather, B. G. Fitzgerald, passed away on Saturday, December 1st. We had the funeral this week, which (as funerals tend to be) was a sad affair, because Granddaddy was such a wonderful man. While we mourned Granddaddy's passing, his memorial service was a beautiful celebration of his life. We regret not having him with us anymore, but we are so blessed to have known him.

Hadleigh offered levity in our time of grief and her presence reminded us that in death there is life.

Trick or Treat!

Hadleigh is smiling more consistently now. What a special Halloween treat, to capture her smile on camera! Although we were all surprised with a huge trick at bedtime on Halloween night, when Hadleigh projectile-vomited the entire contents of her stomach in our bed (totally unrelated to her candy binge, I'm sure). She settled down and went to sleep right after that, though! I don't think Daddy was too happy about having to change the bedsheets at 11:00 p.m., but hey, we needed clean sheets on the bed anyway.

The joys of working from home

I'm slowly starting to get back into the swing of adult life, accomplishing honest-to-goodness work stuff. I've made some phone calls, sent some emails (my email works now - yay!), and scheduled a home inspection for a buyer client of ours. "Ours" refers to the NRVLiving Real Estate Team, where I work with REALTORS Jeremy Hart and Steve Ayers.

Hadleigh keeps the work day fun and reminds me to keep things in perspective. This morning, she slept from about 8:30 until 10:45, which allowed me to do some work. When she's awake, I try to keep her entertained in her bouncy chair while I continue to work on my computer. She sits beside me in my office, bats at her toys, and gazes out the window. Today, her view features dew-kissed grass, autumn leaf colors, and a misty fog resting lightly on the ridge behind our house. Sounds romantic, huh?

Getting more comfortable

At six weeks old, Hadleigh is showing signs that she's more comfortable in this world than she was upon her arrival. Her body language is more relaxed and she experiences fewer meltdowns. We have noticed that she "fights sleep" worse on evenings after she's been passed around from person to person during the day. Yesterday was a particularly good day; she slept in her car seat for about four hours during the car trip from Stuarts Draft to Blacksburg AND during Mommy's post-partem check-up. She was cheerful the rest of the day, all the way to bed time. Good stuff!

Hadleigh is becoming more alert and more content during her wakeful times. She is tracking well with her eyes, and starting to show interest in toys. Each day is an adventure!

More photos

I've never really enjoyed taking the time to snap photos of special experiences. I don't mind being in photos, but I generally prefer storing my memories in my brain instead of capturing them on disk or photo paper. I must admit, however, that moving into the realm of proud parenthood has changed my relationship with the camera. I've taken more photos in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years, probably. Here are a few photos of Miss Hadleigh over the last few weeks...

IT'S A GIRL! Hadleigh Elizabeth, born September 4, 2007

Little did I know when I took the picture on the left sidebar of Pistachio at "T-minus 2 days and counting," it would be the last picture of Pistachio EVER. Pistachio decided to arrive that night as a baby girl, whom we named Hadleigh Elizabeth. Here's the story...

As I headed home from work Tuesday afternoon, I was just sure Pistachio was not going to arrive until after his or her due date. I spoke to several friends and neighbors and mentioned there was no indication that the baby would arrive soon. Around 6:00 or 6:15, however, I began feeling contractions. They were quite mild, but coming every 2 to 6 minutes. Over the last nine months, I had heard every labor and delivery story imaginable; I had heard enough to suspect that I could have had false labor pains for days, so I didn't get too excited about my contractions. After about an hour of light, but frequent, contractions, though, the contractions got much stronger. My sister-in-law, Tasha, came to our house to keep an eye on me and distract me from the discomfort with massage therapy. Brian returned home from work in time to take a shower and drive us to the hospital - by about 8:00 my contractions had been strong and frequent enough (still about 4-5 minutes apart) to warrant a trip to the Birthing Center.

I expected the nurses to check me and possibly send me home (I must have been in a state of denial), but I was 4-5 cm dilated when we arrived. They kept me, of course, and offered me pain relief, which I refused.

I labored for several more hours, with very little relief between contractions. At some point, they let me take the monitors off and spend some time in the whirlpool tub. That was a mistake - moving from the bed to the tub and back was miserable - the movement was extremely uncomfortable. Plus, the water didn't get nearly as hot I would have hoped. Every time I had a contraction (which was pretty much constantly), all I could think about was drugs. The words "Nubane" and "epidural" swam through my head. When I felt pressure on my tailbone, I knew it was time to get back into the bed.

The nurse came back to check me to see how far my cervix had progressed. It felt like she was going to just pull that baby right out. After rooting around, though, she declared she was going to get the doctor because it was time for me to push. I was not mentally prepared for that - but somewhat relieved that the end was in sight. I jokingly asked if it was too late for drugs. The nurse assured me it was, in fact, too late.

With Brian, my mom, Tasha, the nurse, and the doctor coaching me on, I pushed and pushed for 19 short minutes - through about five contractions. Really, it didn't seem like that long, probably because I was concentrating so hard. Pistachio apparently was in a bit of a hurry to join this world, because her whole body came out in one squirt (the doctor had to scramble to catch her).

I honestly was surprised to see that baby Pistachio was a girl - a girl in need of a name, which we immediately declared was Hadleigh Elizabeth. Hadleigh meaning "field of heather" and Elizabeth after her great-grandmother Elizabeth Fitzgerald, her grandmother Elise Blacka, and another great-grandmother Bette Meeteer. She weighed 7 pounds, 1.3 ounces and measured 19 inches at birth. Her first APGAR scores were both 9 - a very healthy, beautiful baby.

Immediately after the delivery, I observed that I NEVER wanted to go through that again. But six days later, I'm proud of the accomplishment and admittedly open to trying it again sometime. But for now we're going to get used to life as a family of three and give little Miss Hadleigh all of the love in the world!

Okay, baby, any time now!

At T-minus 2 days and counting, the Doyle household is closer than ever to being prepared for Pistachio's arrival. The nursery has been finished for some time now, with new carpet, a fresh coat of zero-VOC paint, a super-comfy glider rocker, a borrowed like-new crib with brand new bedding, clothes and diapers (disposable, cloth, and gdiapers), and several years' worth of baby bath products.

Our carpenter friends completed their construction of a wonderful home office set-up, laundry cabinets, and closet shelves, which our parents lovingly painted and covered with a no-VOC polyurethane called Polyureseal. We've tiled and grouted our bathroom floor and installed a new commode and Euro-vanity sink. We're definitely in the home stretch now! After a final layer of poly on the new cabinetry, all we'll have left to do are installing tile in the bathroom shower and poly-ing the office floor. The tile will be a big, intimidating project, but we're definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!

Speaking of the light at the end of the tunnel, I keep encouraging Pistachio to go toward the light. Based on what my doctor described after a delicate examination a week and a half ago, that's exactly what he/she is doing. That must be the reason for the great discomfort I'm feeling in my groin area. The sensation of a 7-pound baby "resting" on my pelvis is reminiscent of the painfully sore muscles I would experience after a week of "two-a-day" basketball practices in high school. The good news is that I survived two-a-days, so I guess I will survive this, too!

Excitement in the Doyle household

The baby isn't here yet, but we're staying very busy with renovation projects. We must be gluttons for punishment, because we decided to gut one of our bathrooms about six or eight weeks before Pistachio's due date. Seeing as we aren't contractors and we have full-time jobs of our own, the reconstructions has not been instantaneous. Granddaddy Blacka has made several trips from Stuarts Draft to install a bath exhaust fan and upgrade the electricity in the small bathroom. We now have TWO honest-to-goodness, ground-fault protected electric receptacles in the bathroom. The next steps will be to get our plumber friend to rough in the plumbing for a shower, install cement board and drywall, and lay the ceramic tile we ordered last week.

The bathroom isn't the only project we're "enduring" right now. Our carpenter friends are building in a very nice desk/cabinet/shelf unit in Mommy's new home office, as well as some cabinetry in the laundry room. We aren't building an addition to the house, but we're making more space by adding places to hide clutter.

We should be getting carpet for the nursery this week. After that, Grankaky (that's Grandmommy Doyle) will put on her scrubby clothes and work her painting magic throughout the house. It sure will be nice to be able to get the house put back together - as much as we would love for the baby to arrive early, it really would be best if he or she could wait until we have things situated a little better in the house.

On a sad note, our sweet, sweet Lady dog passed away this week. She had been sick over the weekend, and her body just gave out on Monday evening. Mommy Aaron is very sad that Pistachio will never get to know Lady, but we're grateful that Lady didn't linger too long with miserable ailments. Part of me wonders if Lady looked around at all of the chaos in the house and said, "My goodness, these people don't have enough room for two dogs AND a baby," and decided to contribute to our nesting efforts by making more space in the house.

There's no question that dealing with a very sick dog would have been quite difficult with a newborn, be we would have cared for Lady with lots of love, had she needed it. However, we accept as a blessing the fact that we will not have to split our attention between an infant and an ailing dog - that wouldn't have been pleasant for us, the baby, or the dog. We're also glad that we did not have to make the decision to put Lady "down" - she passed fairly quickly, at her own time, with Mommy and Cassius by her side.

As much as Lady's death has saddened us (especially Aaron), we continue to enjoy Cassius' companionship. We also know that Pistachio's arrival will be so exciting and will add so much joy to our household!

Diapering the "old fashioned" way

I am leaning toward using cloth diapers for our baby most of the time. I plan to work part-time from home while caring for the baby, so I should have the time to throw diapers in the laundry and take the little extra time for the folding and pinning that cloth diapers require. Brian and I both were reared on cloth diapers (pardon the pun), so I figure if cloth was okay for us, it's okay for our child, too. Not to mention, the idea of sending lots of "disposable" diapers to a landfill makes me cringe (it takes something like 500 years for one disposable diaper to decompose). Yes, I know laundering diapers uses up water and electricity, but we have a high efficiency washer, and the water and electric use somehow seem less bad to me than the waste that disposables create. Even though cloth diapers are relatively expensive upfront, think of how much money we can save over time by reusing them (not only for this child, but for possible future ones, Lord willing).

Here's the catch - Brian and I could become pros as changing disposable diapers pretty quickly (we have experience with cousins and nephews), but neither of us has ever changed a cloth diaper. I've read about it...my mom and mother-in-law have told me how it's done, but I really don't know how to do it. That part we can figure out, I guess, and we'll get better as we practice.

The other catch is that, nowadays, there are SO MANY kinds of cloth diapers to choose from! Plain-ol' flat diapers, prefolded diapers, fitted diapers, and "all-in-ones." Plus, there are different kinds of inserts, liners, and covers. How do we know which ones are the best? We don't - I guess we'll just have to try some different kinds to figure out which ones we like. It would be nice if there were a cloth diaper STORE to visit so we could see and feel what each kind looks like, but alas, virtually the only place we can get the darned things is online (unless we get just the plain flat or prefolds - they sell those at places like Walmart and Target).

I imagine we'll also use a variety of disposable and/or biodegradable diapers for traveling and babysitters. Everybody knows about disposables these days, but did you know they make biodegradable diapers (called "gDiapers") that you can flush down the toilet? The entire diaper is not biodegradable - just a little insert that you place inside a liner, which you place inside a cute little bum cover. I definitely like the biodegradable idea, so we'll probably try some of those and see how our septic likes them. We'll be getting a new septic tank this summer (whooppee!!), so perhaps we'll get brave and flush a few gDiapers to see how durable that tank really is!

Navigating the baby registry world

Oh, my goodness! Are there not an infinite number of things a baby "needs" to survive? Based on what we've seen on the web and in stores, it seems like we are going to have increase our home's contents four-fold just to take care of a child slightly bigger than a sack of potatoes. Cribs - crib sheets - blankets - changing tables - diapers - wipes - toiletries - diaper genies - bottles - nipples - bottle warmers - onesies - footed pajamas - shirts - pants - socks - plain towels - hooded towels - washcloths - bassinets - play yards - high chairs - nursing pillows - boppies - the list goes on and on. We understand that the baby needs to sleep, eat, and poo, so we hope to accumulate enough "things" to take care of those needs.

I have joked that, if we don't get a bassinet, the baby can sleep in a laundry tub, or some similar vessel that could keep the baby tucked in safe and sound. Now, before you send social services for a visit before the baby's even born, keep in mind that we've already been loaned a bassinet and we have an offer for a beautiful loaner crib (VERY lightly used). Babies' needs are quite basic, but parents have gotten used to all kinds of neat luxuries that can really clutter up a small home. And our house is SMALL.

Recognizing that babies grow out of things so quickly, we are overjoyed to accept hand-me-downs. If we don't acquire all of the latest and fanciest gadgets, we hope some good, old fashioned L-O-V-E will help Pistachio feel like s/he not lacking anything. After all, isn't LOVE the greatest gift?

It's a... !

We have elected to keep our baby's gender a secrect, even to us. Fortunately, our home's decor and the room we'll be using as a nursery will blend well with neutrally-colored baby "stuff." Spring green walls with butter yellow trim already adorn the nursery, accented by light blue, green, and yellow plaid window treatments. I've been told that other people want to know the baby's sex so they can purchase the appropriately colored clothing. Your guess is as good as ours at this point (although the OVERWHELMING majority of people think the baby will be a BOY), so we think green, yellow, and tan colors are a safe bet right now. Plus, those are cool colors, anyway.