I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies

If I use the programming for TLC as a compass, it is clear that people love a birth story (there are seriously at least three shows about giving birth on this channel). So I'm going to share my birth story with you. If you don't like birth stories, you should probably skip this one.

Before getting pregnant, I didn't know much about babies or pregnancy. I was the baby of my family by seven years. My parents and brother even refer to me as "the baby." Most of my friends were just starting to have babies. I'm good with little kids -- taught them horseback riding lessons, was a camp counselor, and an arts and crafts director, but babies were a mystery to me. I learned all I could about pregnancy during its duration and read the Bradley Method natural childbirth book; however, none of it fully prepared me for the actual event, as the title of this post indicates (which is a quote I borrowed from Ms. Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind).

I checked in at Piedmont Hospital at 9 a.m. on January 19. My amniotic fluid was starting to get low, as I was four days past my due date. Our midwife wanted to see if we could get labor started with Cervadil, which softens the cervix so it can dilate. The day before, I was only dilated to 1 centimeter, and you have to get to 10 before you can even start to push the baby out. Labor is really just contractions of the uterus working to open the cervix those 10 centimeters.

The night before we checked in to the hospital, we ate dinner at Scalini's, which is famous for its labor-inducing eggplant parmesan. If you eat the eggplant parmesan and give birth within 48 hours, your baby is a member of the 2nd Generation Club -- http://www.scalinis.com/Bambino.htm. We figured even if it didn't work, it would be delicious. It was delicious (and it did work -- this means that we get to eat a free meal and Annabel gets a Scalini's t-shirt).

At the hospital, the Cervadil was administered at 11 a.m. The plan was to leave the Cervadil in for 11 hours, then to put another Cervadil in and wait another 11 hours. If that didn't work, we were going to have to move on to Pitocin, which starts artificial contractions. I really did not want to go that route, as my midwife well knew, so we were all hoping for the best with the more conservative course of action of Cervadil. I had been having some contractions, but they were not terribly painful or frequent. The nurses told us our baby would hopefully be born sometime in the next few days. Fox and I settled in with Season 1 of Arrested Development and got to waiting.

However, at 3:15, my water broke. It wasn't nearly as dramatic as I thought it would be (perhaps because my fluid was a bit low) -- it was really just a trickle that caused me to call the nurse and say "I think maybe my water broke?" She confirmed that it had broken. It caused the Cervadil strip to fall out though. My contractions were much more regular at this point, and I was hopeful we were making progress. Judith, my midwife, came in around 5:30 to check me... but I was only 1 1/2 centimeters along. However, since my water had broken, and I was having regular contractions, she moved me to a labor and delivery room at 5:55. Fox and I got back to watching Arrested Development. The contractions got stronger, so we started walking around the hospital, which I had read was helpful in both dealing with contractions and moving the baby along. It was great to be able to move around. That is another benefit of not having pain medication administered, which confines you to a bed. I had to sit in a chair and have monitors strapped around my stomach for 20 minutes every hour so the nurse could monitor both my contractions and the baby's heartbeat to make sure that she was handling the contractions well, but other than that, I was free to move about however felt right.

At 7:40 I got my first big surprise of the birthing process. I had gotten incredibly nauseated and started barfing. That was not pleasant. I also started to get very hot during my contractions and very cold in between them -- so cold that I would shake pretty violently. There were at least three minutes between each contraction though, so I could rest during that time. The worst part was not knowing how much progress I'd made. There were at least three other births going on that involved my midwife, so I had not been checked since 5:30.

At 9:00 I started to get scared. The contractions were coming one on top of the next with no breaks in between and had been for a little while. I was starting to feel the effects of staying up late the last three nights with Kerouac, and I was worn out physically and emotionally. I was just laying on my side on the couch in my room, trying to be as limp as possible and trying to send my brain to a very calm place. I felt like I must still be 8 to 12 hours away from starting to push the baby out based on how long I'd been at the hospital, and I knew I could not keep this up that long and still have energy left to push. At 9:30, I caved in and expressed this fear out loud to Fox. I told him I had to have the epidural so I could sleep through the night or else I was going to end up with a c-section because I was too tired to push. I asked him to find Judith to check me so we'd know how far along I was.

Poor Fox. He had been trying so hard to reassure me during this last hour and a half that had been so difficult. He would rub my back and tell me I was doing great, but he had no idea how far along I was either. He went to find Judith, but she was attending to another birth and there was no one else around to check my progress. I was starting to get desperate -- once I had given in to the idea that I couldn't have the natural birth I wanted, I just wanted to get the epidural and sleep. Fox finally found a nurse who said that a bag of hydrating fluids would have to be administered before I could get an epidural, so she started that going and said it would take 20 minutes. This was at 10:05. At 10:25, only 1/3 of the bag was in me -- I have no idea why it was going so slowly. Luckily, word had finally gotten to Judith that I was asking for an epidural, so I think she knew it must be pretty bad for me. She checked my progress. I was at 9 centimeters.

I was on the bathroom floor on my hands and knees working through another series of contractions, but I heard Fox talking to Judith. He was asking how long before we'd have the baby. She said it would be before midnight whether we liked it or not. I had them stop the hydrating fluids and told Judith that I didn't want the epidural. She started running a bath for me in which to finish my labor. I got up to go to the bathroom before I got into the tub. At that point, I realized that I didn't have to go to the bathroom -- I had to start pushing the baby out.

Fox helped me to the bed, and I laid on my left side. I was feeling really good because the contractions had stopped. They had been replaced by a feeling of intense pressure, which though uncomfortable, was a good sign. Judith told me to tell her when I started to feel ready to push and to put my chin to my chest and curl around my stomach. Fox held my left hand, standing on top of the towel that was covering my barf. I held my right knee to my chest and got ready to give my first push. At this point, Fox remembered the birth mix and turned it on. I gave my first push to Nada Surf's "Blizzard of '77." It felt good. I rested.

I probably pushed 6 times with about five minute breaks in between. During that time, I heard Van Morrison's "Moondance," Pink Floyd's "Breathe In the Air," and Elton John's "Tiny Dancer." I remember each one. Judith told me she saw our baby's hair (and she had a lot of it), and I decided to get serious. Nirvana's "Drain You" came on, and I laughed to myself. I gave the biggest push yet and wow, did it ever burn. The worst part about pushing was knowing that as soon as you stopped, you lost some of your progress, as the baby slipped back some. My favorite Beatles song, "I Will" came on, but I knew it was so short that there was no way she'd be born to it. I knew this would be my last push. I was not going to relax until she was out this time. I rested all through "I Will." Next up was "Mayonaise" by the Smashing Pumpkins. If I thought the last push burned, I was wrong. I felt her head crown, and I stopped pushing. This is known as the "ring of fire" and once you get there, you are supposedly home free because her head will not slip back once it crowns. You are supposed to stop pushing to give yourself a little time to stretch. I looked down and could see the top of her head. I thought it was over at that point, but unlike most babies, ours had shoulders wider than the circumference of her head. That part was unpleasant. Fox told me what I said (shrieked?) at this point, and it was pretty funny.

After the shoulders, everything was magic. Annabel Jane Fox had entered the world at 11:28. Judith cleared off Annabel's nose and mouth (which gave one short cry) and gave her to me immediately. We spent an hour together, skin to skin, while Fox cut the cord, I delivered the placenta, got two stitches. She started nursing within 20 minutes of being born. She was very alert but did not cry -- she merely seemed to take it all in. I thought I would cry, but I didn't. I just felt very calm yet exhilarated. Once those shoulders were out, I felt amazing.

Looking back, the hardest part of labor was just not knowing how much I'd progressed. It hurt like crazy, but the worst part was thinking that it was going to be like that for the next 8 or so hours, when really I'd gone from 1 to 9 centimeters in 5 hours (which is why it hurt so much). But, I wouldn't change a thing, because overall, it was amazing and resulted in an amazing new person.

She's now 12 days old and a very sweet girl.

The Third Fox

She's here! Annabel Jane Fox made her big entrance into the world at 11:28 pm EST on January 19, 2011. She weighed in at 7 pounds and 4.8 ounces and is 20 inches long. To those of you interested in the birth mix, she was born in the middle of "Mayonaise," our favorite Smashing Pumpkins song. When she was born, she looked exactly like her dad, but she's starting to look less like his carbon copy and more like both of us. I had always heard that from an evolutionary standpoint, babies look just like their father at birth so the fathers would know it was their child and want to protect it -- I just wasn't expecting to feel like I had just birthed a mini female version of my husband. Nature sure is something!

The birth was great -- we were able to achieve our goal of an unmedicated birth. I will dedicate a post to the actual birth soon, I just didn't want to leave you hanging without any pictures of the much-anticipated Baby Fox. I know a lot of people don't understand why an unmedicated birth was important to us and some people think it is downright crazy. For me, having the ability to bring new life into the world is amazing, and it is something that I fully want to experience. Giving birth isn't a medical procedure, and isn't something that is done to you. It is an event, and you are a participant. So any analogies to "you wouldn't get a filling without pain medication" or "you wouldn't have surgery without pain medication" really miss the mark. Yes, it hurt like nothing else, but it was an incredible experience, and really at the end of the day, that's all life is -- a collection of experiences, feelings and relationships. I will never forget what it felt like to bring Annabel into the world, and that's a good thing, even with the tough parts. For Annabel, we felt like it was a healthier way to go. She was very alert after birth and started nursing immediately.

So here she is!

The spitting image of Fox.

This is her first picture about an hour after birth (they let me hold her to bond and nurse for the first hour).

Proud Papa

All dressed up and headed home.

We'll check in again real soon.

Correction - letting go is the hardest part

So, this post isn't about Baby Fox. It is about one of the other Foxes Three - the Foxes' three wonderful animals. Those of you who know me know how much I love animals. I think they are a lot like little children -- true innocents who don't know spite and vengeance and hate and all the worst things in people. I've been a vegetarian for eighteen years because I think those animal lives have inherent value and aren't here for my consumption (since I am privileged enough to live in a society where that is not essential to my survival and one life must be chosen over another). Those of you who really know me also know how much I love a petite tabby cat named Kerouac, after my favorite writer.

I adopted Kerouac during a very tough time in my life. I really needed to pour all my love and care into something and feel responsible for it to keep me grounded and focused on life. If I had something relying on me, I could hold everything together. So when my good friend Page emailed me on September 17, 1999 and said that four kittens had just been born in her backyard, I knew I needed one. When I met the kittens six weeks later, I knew I wanted the runt of the litter who was a male tabby. I have a soft spot for tabbies from my childhood cat Nermal, and I prefer boy animals because I think they are more loving. I named him Kerouac. My other dear friends the Gobbles were adopting the two girls from the litter, and since I didn't want to leave one kitten alone, I took Kerouac's brother also and named him Owen after the book I was reading at the time -- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (it's a great book -- you should really check it out if you haven't).

So I took Owen and Kerouac to my college apartment in Knoxville, and I loved the heck out of them. It wasn't hard to do because they were such great boys. They romped and played together constantly. If I was standing, they would climb up my jeans with their tiny claws to my hands for me to pet them or climb into my lap if I was sitting. After college, they moved with me to Nashville for law school. It was a better apartment with a Juliet balcony, and they spent lots of time looking at birds. They also spent lots of time sitting on pages of books wondering why I was highlighting cases instead of giving them my undivided attention. When we moved to Atlanta, the cats hit the jackpot. We lived in a small condo for two years, but then moved into a much larger house with fun things like stairs! The cats loved to jump off them and quickly took over the entire house, though they spent most of their time in our bedroom on our bed.

I love both cats, but Kerouac was always especially dear to me. He was shy around new people and clung to me a lot more than Owen. He was also incredibly smart. When I petted him and stopped, he would reach out and touch my hand as I drew it away to get me to continue. This evolved into him walking up to me when I laid in bed every night and taking his paw and tapping my hand twice (why twice, I don't know) to get me to pet him. Of course, it worked every time. How could I resist? He could get me to pet him for a good 30 minutes by continuing to tap my hand every time I stopped. What happened if I hid my hands under the covers? He would take his paw and tap my mouth twice. I have no idea where he learned this, but it is a great example of what a sweet, gentle soul he was. If there are angels among us, I spent 11 years with one. He was also the softest creatures I have ever known. His fur was softer than a rabbit. He always slept beside me and would often hold my hand with his paw. Once I got pregnant, he always slept with some part of him draped over my stomach, usually an arm, sometimes his whole body. I was really excited about the baby getting to meet him and taking pictures of the two of them together. He would have been an amazing big brother.

Kerouac started acting a little different on Friday. He wasn't as personable as usual -- he really just slept. I didn't think a lot about it because he didn't seem upset. On Saturday, when I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to get ready, he didn't eat like he usually does (both our cats like for you to watch them eat for some reason). He spent a lot of the day laying under the coffee table, which was unusual, and he hadn't slept in bed with us. We got a can of tuna from the grocery store because it's his favorite, and he wouldn't touch it. He also wasn't purring. On Sunday, he wouldn't eat again and spent a lot of time under the coffee table. I picked him up and brought him to the bed to watch tv with me. He was pretty listless until he climbed on my stomach and wrapped a paw around my belly while watching the Golden Globes (as seen to the left, in the last photo we took of him). I thought this was a good sign, but had decided to take him to the vet on Monday. Then, as soon as the Globes were over, he got off the bed, walked into our shower, laid down and started panting. At this point, we took him to the emergency vet.

The vet said his red blood cell count was dangerously low and he was dehydrated. She ran lots of tests and started him on fluids and antibiotics. His red blood cell count didn't go down the next morning, which was a hopeful sign. We visited him at the vet, and he started purring when we petted him, and he wrapped his arms around Fox's arm and rested his head there. We stayed with him for about an hour. It was a great visit, and we felt like he was on the mend. I am so thankful for that time we had where he seemed like his old self. We did get test results back that evening (last night) that told us that his anemia was nonregenerative, which meant that his body was not making more red blood cells. This was causing him to be listless and not interested in food. Last night, we authorized a blood transfusion to get his red blood cell count up. It worked! We woke up this morning to news that his numbers were good, and we could take him home at noon. It wasn't a cure, but it should give him more time and make him comfortable.

Unfortunately, we got a call about 10:30 saying that he was having a lot of trouble breathing and had to be put in an oxygen tent. At 1:30, the vet called and told us if we wanted to spend time with him before he passed, we needed to get there as soon as possible. The vet had taken some x-rays, and it appeared he had cancer in his lungs, and they were filling with fluid. We went to him, and it was bad. He couldn't breathe and was crying. The vet said he had a few hours left, and he was clearly struggling. We spent about 20 minutes trying to comfort him, saw the pain he was in, and asked for the vet to put him down.

I have never had an animal put down before. It was so fast. One minute he was panting and hurt, the next he was calm, then we felt his heart and breathing stop. He was still so warm and soft -- it was really hard for me to realize that he was gone. It was almost like we had cured him. He felt so alive still and wasn't suffering. I held him and felt his weight -- that same weight that I felt curled up against me so often and had long been such a source of comfort for me. His eyes were open and peaceful and looked at me just the same as they had when I would tell him my secrets and how much I loved him. When we put him in the cardboard casket, he was in the same curled up position he often slept in, and he looked so beautiful. All of this made it so much harder to accept that he's gone. I'm still not sure I have.

Fox buried him in the backyard in the shade of our tall cypress trees. I want to try to find something positive out of something so devastating. That one thing is how wonderful Fox has been through the whole thing. He is so sad but also so supportive of my grief. I love him more than ever. Which is good because an hour and a half after Kerouac passed away, I went in for a doctor appointment. The midwife is concerned about the level of amniotic fluid around the baby and is admitting me to the hospital in the morning to see if we can get labor going. It's hard to imagine going from such grief to delivering a baby with little time in between. I need to get my act together because I don't want Baby Fox born with inherited sadness. I know having Fox with me through this will make it all okay.

So I leave you with a quote from my sweet kitty's namesake:

"I wish I was free// Of that slaving meat wheel // And safe in heaven, dead."

I know you are safe now, sweet boy, and I hope to see you again some day.

Kerouac Moore Fox (September 17, 1999 - January 18, 2011)

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

I'm pretty sure this bun is done. We got some new glasses for Fox today so he can impress the baby.

Tom Petty totally had it right. Waiting is rough. Today is Baby Fox's due date, and there is no sign of her. My midwife says there is no way to predict when she'll show up, so here we are, just waiting. It's actually pretty hard to believe that this day has actually arrived (whether Baby Fox does or not). It seems like just yesterday, Fox and I were looking at this and laughing with disbelief. That was May 8.

At that point, I did some research on the internet and saw that I had 252 days of pregnancy left. That seemed like an eternity. For those who don't know a whole lot about pregnancy (like me, 252 days ago), pregnancy is considered 40 weeks. However, you aren't even pregnant for two of those weeks because the 40 weeks is measured from the last period, which is usually about two weeks before conception occurs. So at the point of conception, you are really two weeks pregnant. Then you can't find out you are pregnant until about two weeks into it (even with the early test). So you are about a month of the 40 weeks in before you even know it. There, that's my biology lesson for the day.

My first mother's day, May 9, 2010. We were working in the garden - check out my collards.

We went to our first doctor's appointment on May 27 and saw the heartbeat. It was amazing -- just a tiny, rhythmic gray flicker. Then our midwife gave us the statistics of how uncertain pregnancy is at the six-week point, which was honestly shocking to me. I had never really heard anyone speak of miscarriages being so common. We prayed a lot for that little bean with the rhythmic gray flicker.

We went to surprise my parents that weekend in Colorado, where they were visiting my brother for Dad's 81st birthday and Memorial Day. I think everyone was surprised. We went to South Dakota and saw Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Deadwood, the Mammoth Site, and Devil's Tower (which is in Wyoming).

The Crazy Horse Monument and the Mammoth Site

When we headed back east after the trip, we had 229 days to go. That was also when the "morning" sickness started. I put morning in quotations because it actually lasts all day, at least for me. The only cure was to eat one Saltine cracker every 8 minutes. On June 9, we had our 8-week appointment. Baby Fox, known to us as "nubbin" at this point, was waving her little flippers all around in a manner very similar to a victory dance that Fox does, and I completely fell in love with her at this point (however, I thought she was a he). And we have 220 days to go, a/k/a forever!

On June 18, we went to West Tennessee to tell Fox's parents the big news and were 211 days away from the "big day." On July 9, we had our 12 week ultrasound, and she looked less like a bean and a lot like a baby. She was very active, though I couldn't yet feel any of it. We were under the daunting 200 day mark, at 190 days left. On July 15, the morning sickness turned off like a light switch, which was super -- 184 days left during which I would not constantly feel one millisecond away from hurling. The most exciting event so far occurred on August 10 and 12-- on the 10th, I felt the first tiny kick, and on August 12, as we were laying on the couch after work, Fox felt her kick. We still delight in feeling her kick and punch around, though these days her space is so small that she mostly just squirms around. The other most exciting event was the full anatomy ultrasound on August 25, when we found out that my motherly instincts are way off, and Baby Fox is not a boy, but a girl. And still 143 days to go. UGH!

I could continue on in this fashion to fully illustrate how grueling the waiting actually is, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that 252 days is a long time. However, a lot of really amazing things happen during that time to keep it interesting. I will miss having Baby Fox as my secret friend, kicking me during conference calls. But now, I am ready to meet her. There's still time to cast your vote in the due date pool.

Baby Fox is now the size of a small pumpkin. I'm really glad we weren't trying to get to the hospital in Icemaggedon 2011. We thawed out enough to see our midwife on Thursday. Everything looks good. It's all about waiting now.

Snow day

I didn't believe the hype. "A big snowstorm is coming," they said. "Sure," I thought. As you can see, I was mistaken. We have allegedly gotten 9 inches of snow in the last 24 hours. It doesn't look like quite that much to me, but the street next to our house is a sheet of ice. Fox walked the mile to work this morning, while I chose to work from home. Neither of us were interested in involving ourselves with the clueless drivers of Atlanta and risking the life of our dear Prius. After all, we just installed the car seat yesterday -- how sad would it be to already be in a wreck? It has been nice to not put on office clothes today, so working from home is just fine with me.

As promised, I took lots of pictures of the nursery. Though it is finished for the time being, the nursery is a work in progress. The lactation consultant who taught the breastfeeding class at Piedmont Hospital recommended sleeping in the same room as the baby for the first couple of months. For most people, this means having the baby sleep in the parent's room. We decided that since the nursery was previously a guest bedroom, we could just leave the bed in there for a couple of months and sleep there. We hope this will make Baby Fox more comfortable and used to her room. Also, while I'm off work and Fox is working, I can sleep in the nursery, and he can get a good night's sleep in our room some nights. Once Baby Fox is sleeping more regularly through the night, we will take the bed out and rearrange the room some. I have my eye on a really cute wall decal on Etsy to decorate with once we take that next step.



Here is the aforementioned bed with the crib (complete with Sleep Sheep, which I've heard is a must -- for those of you unfamiliar with the Sleep Sheep, it is a white noise machine that simulates the mother's heartbeat, rain, or whale songs)



Here is the crib and changing table. The cloth diaper arsenal has been washed and will be ready to go once we get through the newborn Huggies that were gifted to us. There is also a healthy dose of swaddlers and blankets on the bottom shelf. The mobile was mine when I was a baby (and maybe Bill's too -- I should check with mom). Speaking of mom, you can see the crib skirt she made. Here is a better photo of the fabric, though I failed to get the cute pompom trim:





Mom also made a cover for the stool that goes with the vanity. Those of you born in the 70's or early 80's may recognize the Fisher Price chime ball on the table. Also visible is the Twilight Turtle, which is a nightlight that makes stars on the ceiling. Where was this when I was little?



Baby Fox is already amassing a library and some cute stuffed animals.



Here's a perspective shot. I'm standing at the bathroom door. To my immediate right off camera is the door to the hall, with the vanity next to it and the closet next to that. See, it's like you are practically there. You can also see some snow out the windows.

Even though Baby Fox is now the size of a small watermelon, I'm feeling pretty good. I got a haircut before going out on New Year's Eve, because who knows when I'll have time to get another one.

I always hate taking the stockings down.

We're hoping the snow melts pretty soon and/or Baby Fox waits a bit before making her entrance into the world. Though we're about two miles from the hospital, it just seems easier to not add snow to the craziness that is having your first baby. She's due in FIVE DAYS, though I haven't really noticed anything lately that indicates she's on her way (though last Thursday, I would have told you she was going to be here within a few days). I have set up a pool for anyone who wants to participate in some good, old-fashioned gambling (really, if you can't gamble over a baby, why have one? This is a free pool to guess arrival date, size, etc. And no, you don't have to register -- just click on "enter a guess" after you click on the blog link). I think you can access it on the side of the blog.

I'll keep posting and hopefully you'll keep reading. Eventually, there will be a baby.

Fat with promise

Happy New Year, everyone! I really love New Years. There is something about the clean slate of a whole new year that just feels good. It's a new decade too, so that's an extra level of excitement. Everything feels fat with promise. This year is especially fat with promise, not just because I'm, ahem... several... pounds heavier, but because it is the year that dear Baby Fox will be born. When I think about a life that has yet to be lived, I am overwhelmed with possibility and hope and excitement. I am literally fat with the promise of a new, unlived life. Wow.

I have to admit, I was hoping she'd squeak in to 2010, but now that it is clear she won't, I don't mind waiting a little longer. I think it will be more fun for her to be born as far from Christmas as she can get. Fox's birthday is Christmas Day, and it really takes something away from your birthday when you have to share it with Jesus.

Speaking of Christmas, this year was very different from all previous Christmases. Every year of my life, I've spent Christmas in my hometown of Columbia, Tennessee. Once we got married, we still split each Christmas between Columbia and Fox's hometown, Bruceton. I know this is the first Christmas Bill has spent outside of Tennessee -- he even drove home from Denver one year when there was a blizzard and all the flights were cancelled. This may even be the first Christmas in my mom's and dad's lives that they have spent Christmas outside of Tennessee.

My mom does Christmas like a domestic goddess -- everything is spotless, beautifully decorated, and delicious. However, because Christmas was so close to my due date, I was not allowed to make the four hour drive to Columbia. So mom, dad, and Bill came to us for Christmas Eve and morning and Fox's family came to us for Christmas day and night. Things were not really spotless, beautifully decorated, or as delicious, but we tried and we had a very good time.

Mom and Bill did most of the cooking, which was a nice break for me.

I did have some festive table decorations.

The Moores.

Kerouac wants to know what's in that belly!

All my favorite guys. We tried to use the timer to get a group shot, instead I got the giggles.

Banjo was excited to help open presents

So was Owen

Who am I kidding? We were excited to open presents too.

Fox with his grandmother, sister, and mother

After the Christmas festivities were over, we headed back to work as usual. The week between Christmas and New Years is always much more low-key in the law firm world. Lots of folks take time off, so you can get work done without a lot of interruptions and stress. We did have New Year's Eve off work, so we went to the movies. We had seen True Grit over Christmas, and it was fantastic, so next on our list was The Fighter. We really enjoyed it too. We went out to dinner with our good friends the Bartletts to one of my favorite restaurants, The Vortex. We realized recently that The Vortex is not child friendly, so we are trying to get our fill of it pre-baby. They do have take-out though, so I can see that in my future. After dinner we all went to ring in the New Year with the spectacular Grant Cove Crew of the Feases, Hacketts, and Cairo. A good time was had by all.

Baby Fox got measured, and she's in the 60th percentile for size and measuring right on her due date. The estimate is that she'll be around 7 to 7 1/2 pounds at birth, which is allegedly in TEN DAYS!! At this point, she's fully-cooked and just hanging out to gain some more weight which will help regulate her body temperature in the outside world. It's pretty strange thinking she could come at any minute, though I've heard that first babies are often late. Fox is betting on the 19th as her arrival to coincide with the full moon. I think that would be nice. The 20th would also be nice because it is the 6th anniversary of Fox proposing to me on that East Nashville stage.

I'm going to post nursery pictures this weekend. Get ready! Also, I love to drop lyrics in everyday conversation. Extra points if you know the song and/or artist from which the title of this post is derived.