Hurry up and wait

It seems only appropriate that the first couple of weeks with Lauren would be a game of "hurry up and wait." That's exactly how Dr. Pohl described how labor and delivery would be with her if we chose to induce and it looks like she's deciding to continue that tradition on her own. As soon as she wakes up for whatever reason, she screams bloody murder, so you have to hurry over to her to see what's wrong. Once you determine that and fix the problem (dirty diaper, feeding, just wanting to be held, etc), you can either play with her if she's alert or watch her go right back to sleep (which seems to be the case more often than not). If she's going back to sleep, you have to immediately figure out what you're going to do with the free moments afforded you - and you know you should sleep while she's sleeping, but geez, there's so much other stuff that needs to be done!

Today is the first day in a long time when I've been completely alone with Lauren since she was born. Actually, I think today is the first day I've had with her all to myself, and I'm happy for it. Granted, I would be happier if Billy could be here too and share in this experience with us, but boy am I glad to have grandparents back where they live. Both sets of grandparents were incredibly helpful, but at the same time, they couldn't help but get in the way somewhat...and kind of screw up any kind of rhythm we might have been able to establish with her. I think this week is going to be tough because she's gotten so used to falling asleep in a grandparent's arms or on someone's chest, so getting her acclimated to the crib isn't going to be fun.

Oh well - we have a screaming baby - time to hurry up and find out what's wrong!

Lauren Elizabeth - Feb 20, 2008

Wow. I thought I would be good and update my blog with news from Italy and track the course of the past 9-10 months of pregnancy through my blog. Instead, I neglected to update anything for 10 months at least - the last pictures of me on here were pre-pregnancy. Now, there's just going to be pictures of a really cute kid (or rather, of me, without being pregnant).

I thought that buying a house and Billy embarking on his legal career would be the biggest life changes that we would have for the imminent future. Then, law school graduation happened, followed by a missed period and then 39 weeks later, we welcomed Lauren Elizabeth to the family at 1:39 pm on Feb 20, 2008.

Being pregnant was super-easy. Really. I know that very few women have such an easy time of it - none of my friends really escaped morning sickness or were miserable in the last month. For me, it was simply a matter of waking up each day, trying to eat healthy food, and just doing (or not doing) whatever Dr. Pohl said I should or shouldn't do. If you live in Atlanta, and need a good OB-GYN for any reason (he specializes in infertility as well), Dr. Joseph Pohl is worth the drive to Lawrenceville. The folks at Gwinnett Medical Center took really good care of me, Billy and Lauren too, even though we did have a bit of an NICU scare with her the first hour she was born. In week 39, I was still not dilating a single bit, and Dr. Pohl said that it was possible I could go 2 weeks past my due date. I'd already had 3 weeks or so of just wanting to be finished with being pregnant (an 8 pound baby gets cumbersome and unwieldy rather quickly in month 9). So, we elected to induce a few days early.

Many people that I had talked to swore up and down that elective induction was a terrible thing to do because the drugs made labor extremely painful and gave the laboring women a miserable experience. When we were talking about the procedure with Dr. Pohl, he calmed us both by saying that he preferred to keep things as close to nature as possible and for us to be prepared to wait 24 hours for the initial drugs to even begin to dilate me, much less start true labor. He said that many doctors get impatient when women haven't dilated enough after a short amount of time and push things too fast, which results in C-sections or extreme pain. I can speak from experience that taking it slowly per Dr. Pohl's philosophy was actually quite good. There were a few hours of intense pain in the middle of the night before I was dilated enough to have an epidural and Stadol only worked for one round. But, once the epidural was in and labor began, things went pretty smoothly.

I remember Dr. Pohl coming in just after lunchtime (I came down with a fever around 11 or noon, so we had to wait for the antibiotics to run through my system and for my fever to go away before we could start pushing). He was looking for he paper waders, but evidentally the nurse who stocked the room had gotten the wrong ones. His first words: "What the hell?!" Billy and I nearly died at the bed, because normally Dr. Pohl is extremely mild-mannered and tranquil, so seeing him slightly peeved was hilarious. My nurse Lynne (God bless her, she was fantastic) responded with, "Dr. Pohl! You can't say that!" Once they covered the floor and bed with tons of paper (and the tool table was laid out (I don't even remember all the instruments that were there, but there was a long row of silver), we got down to the business of pushing. My contractions were about 5 minutes apart, so between each series of pushes, we'd all sit back (Dr. Pohl included) and basically chill until the next contraction started. Billy says the pushign took about 45 minutes - as soon as Lauren's head was out, Dr. Pohl evidentally reached right on in and physically pulled her out by her head so that I didn't even have to push her shoulders through. My only moment of panic was when he made the comment, "I hope we don't have to cut through to the sphincter - I'm going to try to save it." Good news is, the episiotomy was actually much milder than he and I were afraid it would be and everything seems to be healing up nicely.

Once we got home with Lauren, I had several days of absolute terror and panic. I recall being in tears on the way home even. I vacillated between trying to come to grips with the fact that my stomach no longer held the faceless entity that I had been carrying and feeling for 39 weeks. I felt terrible because I didn't feel like I had a bond with her at all (they had taken her from me for the first 24 hours because of my fever during labor) and I felt completely unprepared to be a mom. When I would think about having to spend the next 7-8 weeks at home alone with her, I would get sick to my stomach (mainly because I thought I would be so dreadfully lonely with no interactions with people) -and then I would feel guilty that I had those kinds of feelings. Billy, on the other hand, took to her right away and had been filling in the role of dad splendidly, which further compounded my guilt that I didn't feel especially maternal.

Thankfully, I think the hormonal rollercoaster ride is coming to an end. The past couple of days have been wonderful - granted, Lauren is a super pleasant baby - she only cries if she needs a diaper change or is hungry (which is roughly every 3 hours on the dot). She usually only eats about 3 oz of milk during that period and then goes right back to sleep. We've had to make some feeding adjustments (I have basically given up on direct breastfeeding in favor of pumping so that I know exactly how much she is eating and how much I need to prepare for when she goes to day care), and we had to change to a different bottle so that she wouldn't get gas so badly. Now that those changes are in place, we just sit and wait for her to wake up. In the meantime, we stand over her crib or bassinet and watch her face contort and smile, laugh at her sneezes, smile at her tremendous yawns, and marvel over the fact that somehow we were blessed with such a cute and wonderful baby. What in the world did we do to warrant her? And then I have a mild panic attack during which I hope and pray that maybe, just maybe, I can be a mom worthy of her.

Ciao, bella!

This week has been anything but easy. My poor parents spent all week in the kitchen cleaning up the mess I made of the spacklig job and painting the walls in their entirety, and cleaning up the trimwork since the previous owners evidentally had never seen a roll of painter's tape before. By the time Billy and I were leaving the house on Friday morning, pretty much everything was finished and the kitchen looks completely different, all thanks to a couple of coats of paint.

Not only is the house in a continual state of repair and remodel, this week, Billy took the Bar exam on Tuesday and Wednesday. He feels pretty confident that he passed and I'm just happy that law school is finally OVER and we can be full adults...again. Sort of. I mean, we are going to Dragoncon over Labor Day weekend, so I don't know how adult that actually makes us...

All of this led up to Friday (which feels a million years ago now). I cleaned up the loose ends from work and we were on our way to the airport with just our backpacks for luggage. The flight was the way most overseas flights are...long, cold, and uncomfortable, but I actually managed to contort myself into a pretzel and get some broken sleep. Poor Billy, I don't think he got any at all.

We landed in Rome, breezed through passport control and Customs and headed to the train station. No lie, we spent probably a total of 10 hours trying to book train tickets ahead of time on the Trenitalia website. We went to the ticket window and instantly got all of our trains booked in less than 10 minutes. Crazy.

We arrived at our hostel to discover than it sucks to not have AC in 94 degree weather. We were so exhausted from the flight that we wanted to just take a hour nap, but it was so hot in our room, that I thought Billy was going to have a heat stroke on me and we were going to have to go home early or something. We pumped him full of Powerade and he recovered well enough for us to strike out on the town a bit.

We started near the Vatican (which comes up on Monday for us) and toured some churches, which were fine, but nothing like Notre Dame or Chartres. Of course, we haven't really gotten to the true Italian masterpieces as we wanted to take today easy, but Rome certainly has a lot to prove. We went by the Pantheon, which would have been much cooler had it remained a pagan temple, but we can say we have seen it, which counts for something. We made a Coke stop in a BK (there is no way I'm eating American food here, which makes Italy better than Britain in that particular respect) for a while to enjoy the AC and then we headed to the Trevi Fountain.

Billy was already prepared to be completely unimpressed by it, and I was expecting a large round marble fountain with animals and people spouting water like you normally see fountains doing. When we got to the Trevi Fountain, we were both a bit stunned by what was before us. It feels like a raging whitewater river just pouring out of a building in the middle of the city...and the sculptures were pretty incredible too. Check one for the Trevi fountain.

Since we were well ahead of schedule today, we decided to go ahead and see what the big deal was about the Spanish Steps. They originally weren't even on our itinerary, but we were close to them and figured, "What the hell?" Indeed, "What the hell?!" is pretty accurate. I don't get it. It's a bunch of steps leading up to a building that isn't all that impressive architecturally. Yet, they were swarming with huge crowds of people like they couldn't get enough of them. Billy likened it to Trafalgar Square (which isn't impressive itself) where people all have to go when they go to London...but it's just really a place for people to meet and be seen. I'll say this, Montmartre serves the same purpose in Paris, but it is 100,000 times cooler and more beautiful than the frickin' Spanish Steps. Come on, Rome, you ruled the world for how long, and the Spanish Steps is the best you can do?!

If the Spanish Steps were disappointing, the street leading up to them were probably the coolest. I'll be the first to admit: I am not a fashionista, nor do I mistake myself for one. I know of designers, but I've never worn/bought designer clothes. If my jeans cost more than $25 I feel like I've been robbed. But we walked down the street that houses all the major designers in Rome: Dolce and Gabana, Feragamo, Gucci, Versace, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Valentino, Yves Saint-Laurent, etc, etc, etc. Window shopping has never been more fun. I told Billy that as ridiculous as the prices are, I would be sorely tempted to buy something, though. Good thing we both know that it wouldn't do me one bit of good to buy clothes or shoes right now, because who knows what my life will be like in the Spring?

But, we're back in the hostel and it has thankfully cooled down into the 60's so we should be able to get sleep tonight, even though the entire hostel is going out on the town tonight and will probably come back in late, juiced up. I don't think Billy and I will notice a single thing.

Tommorow, we're off to see lots of Roman ruins so that should be good day tomorrow!

Closing...closing...CLOSED! (I think)

I don't know how often closings are conducted in restaurants - let's be honest, Summit's is a bar with tables and food as decoration only - when the wall behind your bar is filled with at least 100 taps, people aren't coming to your establishment for the food. Anyway, Billy and I are conviced that we need to make up a T-shirt saying "I bought my house at Summit's" or something like that. We sat for two hours signing our lives and firstborn children (as well as Constutional rights) away. Some of the documents required witnesses, so I think we ended up having five different members of the waitstaff and management sign for us as well. Eventually, all we needed to do was raise a hand and ask "Can I get a witness?!" and waitresses were clamoring to sign.

So, we get our keys and check out the house that night before going home and we're glad to see it hasn't been firebombed or anything. We do another walkthrough getting an idea of what improvements we want to make first and then go back home (since it's 11:00 on a work night).

The next day, I get a call from Billy saying "Um, we've don't own the house yet." Turns out the bank never signed the certified check we turned in for the down payment. So, he had to leave Bar review early, drive 2.5 hours to Atlanta from Athens, just to resolve the check issue. Once he got to Atlanta, he leared the check issue was already resolved, but that lo and hehold, there were issues with the documents we signed the previous night. The mortgage holder wasn't satisfied with our signing without our middle names on the bank documents, even though we had signed name affidavits attesting to our names without middle names. The entire firm called BS on the issue, but I ended up leaving work early to add my middle name in to some of the documents and resigning others all together.

All that being said, we haven't heard of any other problems with the closing and no one has come to take back the keys or change the locks on the doors, so I think we're in the clear finally. Last night, I packed about 15 boxes of books, craft supplies, framed pictures and vases. All stuff that we can live without for the next couple of months. Billy and I moved over the first load last night and dumped it in the office, and I packed up the second load last night and packed them into my car.

It's amazing how bleak apartments look when you're in the process of moving out of them. When you move in the first day, you see the white walls as a blank slate for all your stuff. When you're moving out, you just feel like you're getting closer to living in a hospital or something. Normally I hate packing things up to move, but since we're moving to our own house, I'm pretty excited and had trouble stopping last night.

Now that the house drama is over for the most part, I can at least stop talking about it in every post and maybe make this look like there's something else going on my life other than this house. That might be kind of hard to do, now that I think about it though.

Contracts, Contracts, Contracts

In case there is any interest in the house that Billy and I just got an offer accepted for over the weekend, here are some more detailed shots of the house from the interior that couldn't be seen on the FMLS listing. Excuse me while I run in the bathroom and collapse in front of the toilet in the throes of a panic attack...

Exterior of house in Habersham on Lanier (which is not actually on the shores of Lake Lanier)

Great Room/Family Room

Sunroom

Master Bedroom

Guest Bedrooms on Main

Formal Dining Room


Kitchen
Upstairs deck off of the great room and kitchen, along with views into the backyard.


And finally, the pimp finished basement.

Additional pictures will have to wait until we actually move in and start having parties. And no, Richard can't have red wine indoors. You see how much white is all over the floors?!

UGA Law School Graduation

Finally back to a computer where I can upload pictures from Billy's law school graduation. Might as well tell the story behind the pics as I go along...


Pam Brannon spent almost more time playing "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Ziggy Stardust" on Guitar Hero during outlining sessions at our apartment than I did playing those songs, and that's pretty tough to do. Not to mention, I can give credit for helping keep Billy on task when he'd rather be doing anything rather than outlining Georgia Practice.

(From L-R):David Dix, Billy Todd, Anuj Desai, Granville Powers

Credit goes to these guys (and David Gussio who is missing from the photo shoot) for getting Billy out of the library or the apartment and out on a football field every once in a while for a stress-relieving football game. Granted, Billy returned the favor by letting them borrow the Wii for a few days when we first got it...

ZOMG! It's Billy getting his diploma!!1!

When Billy first started Law School, my first thought was, "Oh God, what have we gotten into?" Moving to a new town with nothing but maxed out student loans to pay the rent and bills (only until September, thank God), starting down a path where it is said that 50% of couples split up by the time the end comes around, trying to start new friendships where none exist...it was terrifying to be honest. But, I can honestly say that I count all of these people (Anna and Amy in the front; Anuj, Sean, Granville in the back...and Goose, Dix, Pam, and all the other folks that are attached to them) friends three years later.

And, hey, I think my family have been pretty darn supportive during this crazy endeavor, so Billy's in-laws deserve a spot immortalized in their daughter's unremarkable blog!

Sixteen Candles

Finally, Billy and I have some peace and quiet this weekend. I'm typing out this blog post from the comfort of my pillowy chair wrapped up in an incredibly fuzzy blanket while Billy is on the couch to the left of me reading something other than a law casebook for the first time in months, if not years (almost since the last Harry Potter book came out, I'm pretty sure - which is before law school started).

This past week has been a rollercoaster of a week, mostly postitive. I spent the two days prior to my birthday sick and watched my birthday float on by without much ado. Which is fine because we all had a much bigger event on our minds - Billy's graduation from law school. As Billy put it, "This is like Sixteen Candles for you, isn't it?" I hate to admit it, but there were certainly times this weekend where I felt a little bitter, just like Molly Ringwald's character in that movie, but I also realized that it was unfair to Billy on such a big day that will only happen once for him. I mean, I get a bunch more birthdays to celebrate right? So, anyway, three years later, I finally got confirmation that the hard work and late nights and lonely exam weeks actually resulted in all of that ending...well, at least ending after his Bar review classes in July. The ceremony was lovely - the weather was perfect and the setup in the law school quad was quite honestly picture perfect. I'll have to post some pics once I get them transferrred over to my laptop.

So, Billy graduates, and when we get home from lunch, we get a call from our real estate agent. The sellers agreed to our counter-offer (in which they pay pretty much all of the closing costs) and they signed the agreement. We get official copies signed tomorrow and then I guess we begin the "due diligence" section of the home buyers' exam. Every time I think about the fact that we're about to become full-fledged homeowners, I nearly collapse in a panic attack. The house is going to be fantastic, I'm not worried about that...but we're dealing with so much money! Eeek!

Anyway, just had to get all of this weekend's stress out of the way so that I can possibly sit down and enjoy the last few hours of this weekend before I hit the work grind again.