We had a nice breakfast this morning: cantaloupe and croissants. Jean read the paper while I surfed the web. Our Sunday morning mix of music included albums by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Keb Mo, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman and Tuck and Patti. I put all five discs into the CD player and hit the shuffle play button. The random mix of songs lasted well into the afternoon, and we both agreed at one point that it was a good grouping.
I spent a good bit of time this afternoon reading about labor and delivery. For some reason, I became obsessed with knowing how long we get to spend with baby just after she's been born. I know the hospital has Apgar tests to run, and I know state law requires they put some gel in her eyes within an hour or two of birth. What I don't know is if we get twenty or thirty minutes before they take her to the nursery, or if we have a longer, indefinite time.
None of the books helped, though I enjoyed reviewing the labor and delivery sections of each book. Jean thinks we'll be able to have baby as much as we want, with the exception of perhaps an hour when the hospital needs to take her for measurements and weighing and so forth.
I don't know why this particular issue mattered to me so much today. It's certainly not related to the University of Virginia baby-switching incident. Somehow I just began to feel like we're not going to get to see much of our baby in the first few hours. I remember taking the tour of St. Mary's hospital a while back, and looking at a lone infant crying in the stark fluorescent light of the nursery. No one was with her, though several nurses could view her through the glass. For an infant who knew no sense of time, only that the universe has changed and now she was alone, it must have been horrible.
Not that I'm crazy enough to say the baby should be in Jean's hospital room every single moment. Jean will need to rest after delivery. And while I'm now planning to spend my nights in the hospital with Jean and the baby, it's likely that I'll need to get home at some point to handle final preparations to welcome our child home (not to mention to feed and walk the mutton heads).
One of the things I've wanted to do lately is to spend a night in the soon-to-be baby's room. Currently the room is our guest room. We've got a fairly large bed (it's one size smaller than a queen, whatever that is) that has to come out next weekend so we can load and assemble the crib in early December. Our last bundle of guests will be here Wednesday night - Janet, Katie and Anna on their way to Virginia Beach - and then the room conversion can begin. But before the room is transformed, I wanted to spend a night in there to feel what it's like.
There are two windows in the room, one of which captures the morning sunlight through the trees. The room is probably the brightest in the house, but as our guest room, it's one I've rarely visited. I want to know the temperature (we have three thermostats and I have no idea how well the one in that part of the house works), if not the feel of the room. Jean's going to spend the night in there with me (I hope we fit!).
The CNN web site reports we've decided not to bomb Iraq this week.
Dennis Miller was right. Hussein really is Wylie Coyote in a
red beret. No matter how many times he loses, he keeps coming
back for more.
It was warm and sunny today, with the temperature in the high sixties.
At one point while I was reading inside, Jean went outside to knit (I think
she was working on my sweater for once instead of baby's). Other than that,
we had the windows open but stayed indoors. The leaves are still waiting
to be raked...
Listening: Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev); "Don Juan", "Till Eulenspiegel", "Death and Transfiguration" (R. Strauss); Requiem (Mozart)
Reading: The Expectant Father (Brott and Ash); Conception, Pregnancy and Birth (Stoppard); What to Expect When You're Expecting (Eisenberg, Murkoff and Hathaway); Esther (Introduction)
Visiting: EAWC Anthology: The Tao Te Ching
© 1998 Kevin J.T. Creamer